On the 15th of February, the day these photos were taken, it was -8 C in the morning. However, as you can see from these photos of cycle parking at a local school, Dutch school children cycle whatever the weather.
This cycle park has more than enough space for every one of the 700+ students to park a bicycle, and very nearly every student arrives at school each day by bicycle. Yes, that means even on the coldest days, and includes children who live so far as 20 km from the school.
I met my youngest daughter from school, a little earlier than usual, and we rode home together.
I'm happy to say that it's warmed up a little now, and we're seeing temperatures above zero even first thing in the morning. My daughters again headed for school by bike this morning, just like everyone else.
A few weeks before the start of the school term, banners and signs appear to remind drivers that children are to be expected to be on bikes in larger numbers again. The banner reads "The schools are starting again".
Inside the heart symbols it reads "drive with your heart".
Virtually all school children travel by bike in the Netherlands.
I have previous posts about cycle parking at schools, including videos of primary and secondary age children travelling to and from school, the extent of cycle parking at schools, and about school trips, all tagged with school travel.
The school are already back here. Below are a few photos of the school run at the same school where I made this video:
It's safe for all ages because what looks like a road in these photos is actually a cycle-path from which motor vehicles are excluded.
Primary (elementary) school cycle parking. Children overwhelmingly ride their own bicycles.
Primary (elementary) school cycle parking
Bakfietsen are used only to transport some of the very youngest children. Others ride their own bikes.
The circle shows the 20 km radius from within which children
cycle to school in Assen. The green spots are approximate
locations where friends of our children live and from where
they cycle to school. The red line shows the triathlon route
We're nearing the end of the school year and school activities are leaning towards the less serious. Yesterday my youngest daughter took part in a triathlon. All the children in the first year of education at her secondary school (most are now thirteen) were given a pink sheet of instructions with directions to a running track and swimming pool roughly a 35 km round trip distance. It is, of course, expected that every child will have arrived at school by bike and be able to take part in the activity.
The instructions start "at the front of the school, by the cycle parking". Part of her school's cycle parking is shown at the left. There are more cycle parking spaces than students.
Perhaps some of the more sporty minded children rode quickly, but I'm quite sure that for many children the journey was made at a more relaxed pace while talking with friends. At secondary school, constant supervision isn't usually necessary, but during the triathlon there were teachers out on the route at controls every few km to make sure no-one was taking a short cut !
Last year my daughter was still in primary school at this time of year. The last primary school cycle trip was a 150 km cycle camping tour. At that age they were accompanied by teachers or parents at all times when cycling.
Staying on the school theme... Last year I made a video of primary aged children going to school by bike on a perfectly normal (though cold) morning. That video has now had over 20000 views. It's worth seeing again:
Explanatory captions on this video are only visible if it's played on a computer and not on a mobile device.
While we knew that children cycled to school before we moved over here, we had no idea about the number of other school trips that they made by bike.
School bags dangling from flag poles are a common sight right now. When school is over, this is a way of announcing the fact.
While most live closer, some secondary students ride a 40 km round trip each day just to get to school.
In this case you see just the bikes from the junior class at this school. It's a small school and each class parks their bikes in a separate place.
When my children left for school this morning I noticed that the outside temperature was -9 C ( 15 F ). That's also the temperature at which these primary school children will also have cycled. Because it's so cold at the moment one of my children went on a school trip today to go ice-skating. As is normal for school trips, the class cycled to the frozen lake where they skated.
Last year I took a video of children cycling to school at a relatively mild -2 C. You can watch that video here.
If children are to cycle to school, there had better be enough space to park their bikes. These photos (please do click on them for biggerversions as you can't see the bikes properly otherwise) show the cycle parking at one of the secondary schools in Assen. There are a thousand students at this school, and here are their bikes.
Very few children go to school by any other means, even though secondary school students travel from as far as 20 km (12 miles) away to get to school.
Of course, first of all they have to get there. Without the infrastructure on the streets, this cycle park might well be empty because the students wouldn't be cycling.
To see the infrastructure in action see my blog a few days ago which included a video of primary school children cycling, or the slightly older one showing the rush hour. Infrastructure should increase subjective as well as actual safety. That is what makes the students want to cycle in the numbers seen here, and what makes their parents allow them to do so.
