TEASER: Coach Balto's Bike Bus Lessons
The War on Cars
The War on Cars, LLC
4.9 • 937 Ratings
🗓️ 12 September 2023
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
While working on Episode 110, Back to School with the Bike Bus, we spoke with Sam Balto, a phys ed teacher in Portland, Oregon, who goes by @CoachBalto and who's become one of the most visible advocates in the global movement for active transportation for kids.
We used some of his comments in that episode, but our conversation was so juicy we knew we wanted to share it in full.
Sam does a great job of explaining why bike buses are so much fun and so good for kids, and why you might find yourself tearing up when you watch his videos: "We want our children to thrive. And the bike bus movement is sort of the first story of children thriving since the pandemic."
Maybe you'll be inspired to start a bike bus or walking school bus where you live!
***This is a preview of a Patreon bonus episode. To hear the full episode and for complete access to all our exclusive bonus content become a Patreon supporter of The War on Cars.***
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Sarah Goodyear, and this is the War on Cars. |
| 0:14.0 | What you're about to hear is an excerpt from a Patreon bonus episode of the podcast. |
| 0:19.0 | It's an interview with Sam Balto, a phys ed teacher in Portland, Oregon who |
| 0:23.8 | organizes bike buses to help his students get to school happy and energized. |
| 0:28.4 | We featured excerpts from this conversation in episode 110, back to school on the bike bus. |
| 0:34.4 | And if you haven't listened to that already, you can learn much more about the |
| 0:37.9 | international bike bus movement in that episode. |
| 0:40.5 | If you want to hear my full interview with Sam Balto, you can get access to that and much more |
| 0:46.4 | bonus content by becoming a Patreon supporter. Just go to the War on Cars.org and click support us. |
| 0:53.4 | We'll send you stickers and a handwritten thank you note too. |
| 0:57.1 | And you'll get a special heads up when we're looking for |
| 1:00.1 | listener contributions and when we do live shows. |
| 1:04.7 | Here's a taste of my talk with Sam Balto. |
| 1:09.1 | I think the thing that I've seen with bike buses specifically in this iteration of them, you know, over the past couple years is bike buses are kind of this gateway drug to save streets for kids movement. If us bike bus leaders play our cards right and |
| 1:28.8 | we know we do the right things to build this movement, this could be our generation Stop Kindermoor movement in Amsterdam. |
| 1:37.1 | And I think that really people are seeing how important mobility is for children, their independence, joy, freedom, and the bite bus is a tool and a mechanism to create that. |
| 1:52.0 | Something I think about a lot is not every, as a phys ed teacher, |
| 1:56.0 | not every kid is going to play sports or feel successful on a team, |
| 2:02.0 | but on a bike bus, that is a team and we need you to |
| 2:07.9 | show up to be a part of that team and there's a role for you, an important role |
| 2:12.3 | because there's safety in numbers. |
| 2:15.6 | You know, it's this crazy thing where everybody is showing up is making it safer for other people |
... |
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