Photo by Jonathan Maus, BikePortland

This research report, authored by Evan Howington, John MacArthur, and Nathan McNeil of PSU's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC), concludes that bike buses have the potential to leverage the last 20 years of Safe Routes To School (SRTS) interventions, ensuring that the miles of bike lanes, sidewalks, and crosswalks funded by districts, communities, states, and the federal government have their full value realized. In addition to reviewing the existing literature around bike buses, the researchers conducted two online surveys and ten video interviews with parent and child participants of bike buses in the Portland, Oregon metro area. They also created a "Bike Bus Tracker" showing bike bus programs around the United States. The first survey was targeted at bike bus coordinators and leaders, focusing on logistics, school policies, and the street environment. The second survey was targeted at bike bus parent participants, focusing on perceptions, parent and student attitudes, and the urban environment. The interviews built on both surveys, also bringing child participant voices into the study. The findings indicate that bike buses can change the narrative about active transportation to school, or ATS. The sense of community and fun often cited by both adults and children, as well as a desire expressed by parents to inculcate a sense of confidence and love of biking in their children, indicate an entirely new slate of attitudes towards ATS compared with what the previous research literature describes.