How One Parent Started a Bike to School Initiative in Fairfax, VA

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This slideshow presentation provides an overview of how parent Jeff Anderson led efforts at Wolftrap elementary, a school of the Fairfax County Public Schools district (22.8% Latino), to create a policy that would allow parents to choose how their kids would get to school.

Prior to this, a policy to support biking did not exist at Wolftrap elementary and biking to school was practically banned.

Anderson used the 7 Ps of policy: power, philosophy, policy, procedures, partnerships, projects, and promotion, to change the bike culture at his kids’ school.

First, Anderson worked to bring bike racks to the school. He did this by identifying existing problems such as traffic congestion near schools and made a case for how biking could be beneficial to students.

After that, he found out who the key stakeholders were and developed partnerships with groups that would support a policy to allow kids to bike to school. Various projects and promotional events helped bring attention to the issue and ultimately a policy to encourage kids to bike to school was enacted.

Listen to Anderson’s story in this March 2013 Safe Routes to School National Partnership webinar entitled, How and Why to Be a Safe Routes to School Policy Advocate.

Fairfax Advocates for Better Bicycling (FABB) partnered with parent from Wolftrap elementary school to encourage biking to school. This FABB-Safe Routes to School page provides links to bike curriculum, resources, and media coverage.