Burlingame bike bus promotes safety, community

“I grew up in the same neighborhood we live in, went to Washington Elementary, Burlingame Intermediate, Burlingame High,” Lindstrom said. “I felt like I could handle taking on something like this because these are streets I’ve been riding my bike forever.” 

The group trek to school “feels more like a party bike ride from where we start to the school,” Lindstrom said. The group creates a 20-minute playlist, timed well for the predetermined route, and plays it on a big speaker, helping establish their presence on the road. 

“The kids play music that they all know and it’s like a big singalong to a Taylor Swift song,” Lindstrom said. 

Lindstrom began the weekly ride in September 2024, and with each week the bike bus gains traction. 

“Some weeks we have 10 kids and few parents that join in, some weeks it’s 20 kids and more parents,” Lindstrom said. 

The bike route takes about 20 minutes, and students can join along the ride at any point. However, Lindstrom said many kids that live further down the route or closer to the school will meet the group at the starting point to get the full ride experience. 

With the growing popularity, the Burlingame Police Department has begun providing its support, making sure students and their families remain safe on the ride. 

The police department plans to have a couple units driving near the bike bus or have the school resource officer bike along on future rides, police Capt. Robert Boll said. While he said the program is not led by the police department, officers are happy to support the school any way it can and promote bike safety. 

“It’s not a difficult ride, it’s more focused on getting together and promote bicycle safety,” Boll said. “We’re just out there to show our face so kids see us.” 

Rise in concerns about e-bikes and other motorized vehicles on streets from citizens also present the need to make sure students and their families know what is safe, Boll said. 

“We’re not out there to put a bunch of rules on, we’re just there for a presence, but if something happens we can educate them on the safety and what’s acceptable and what’s not,” Boll said. 

Although the bike bus currently only happens once a week, Lindstrom said he hopes the comfort with cycling promotes kids to bike more regularly. He added that promoting alternative methods of transportation is always a plus, and students are understanding their impact on the environment.

“The visibility with cars around us that it provides and the safety of riding in a big group allows for kids to feel safe riding in the road,” Lindstrom said. “Probably outside of our bike bus, our kids feel a lot safer and have a lot less fear of riding in our neighborhood.” 

In addition to the rules of the road, Lindstrom said he hopes students are getting more comfortable with themselves and grow to care for one another.

“I hope they’re taking away a feeling of independence and that they’re growing in a way where they look out and feel like these are their roads,” Lindstrom said. “I hope they grow as human beings looking out for their fellow schoolmates.” 

The inspiration for the bike bus came after Lindstrom’s Instagram feed was filled with videos from a physical education teacher in Portland who was running a similar bike bus. Watching these videos often brought tears to Lindstrom’s eyes, he said.

“The reason it probably affected me was having a couple kids going to school through COVID and social distancing and seeing how the type of impact that that’s had now with them getting back to school and learning to be social again,” Lindstrom said. 

Making sure his own kids, and their classmates, feel like they are finding community among one another is a driving goal of the bike bus, Lindstrom said. 

Lindstrom’s youngest has three more years at the elementary school and plans on keeping up the bike bus until she transitions to middle school. Until then, he could foresee increasing the frequency of the bike bus as other parents get more involved. Lindstrom and his wife have had a student attend Washington Elementary since 2013.

“It is such a tight community at the school, parent involvement is high,” Lindstrom said. 

Seeing the joy on students’ faces biking alongside their friends has made Friday mornings Lindstrom’s favorite day of the week.  

“I think that’s probably what affected me so much, seeing these kids were all together having a blast, doing something together as a community, as a school,” Lindstrom said.