The next Baker Bike Bus ride is scheduled for Friday, Nov. 13. All participants will meet at Deerfield Terrace at 7:45 a.m. and will depart at 7:50. Stops before arriving at Maple Dawson Park will include Sentinel and Old Gate Lane, Oak Avenue and Chestnut Street, Oak Avenue and Lippincott Avenue and Irving Court.
“We did it together and we did it alongside our community and have had so much goodwill for the project, and we’re really excited to be able to continue doing it,” said Moorestown resident Aasta Mehta of the first Baker Bike Bus that took place on Sept. 25. “We were proud of all the kids, and they should be proud of themselves. Lots of kids challenged themselves to try the ride and all of them supported, encouraged and cheered each other on. It was great to see.”
“We would love for our kids to learn this lesson so that they can improve their community and realize that to do so, you have to put in some effort,” said Moorestown native Majid Kureshi. “Everyone in the community cares and everyone has an idea, and they want good things to happen for their kids or the community at large, but in the rare instances where you have someone who cares enough to actually do something about it, that should be recognized. You can do something incredible for your community, your family, for yourself, but you have to make it happen.”
Both Mehta and Kureshi’s sons are similar in age and are students at Baker. Mehta and Kureshi have known each other for two or three years and met through a community activity that was organized by a group of parents. Six months ago, they came across an Instagram post about the Bike Bus World, an organization on a mission to transform the well-being of children, communities and the climate, through biking together to school. Bike Bus World, co-founded by Andrew Hawkins, Luke Bornheimer, Jessica Tillyer and Sam Balto, helps communities launch their own Bike Buses to school by providing organizers with the tools and guidance to create bike buses, helping them advocate for active transportation infrastructure and policy, as well as securing funding both locally and nationally. Judging from the videos posted on the organization’s social media, both Mehta and Kureshi noticed the sheer joy and excitement of kids participating in their own Bike Bus rides together.
“We both saw the happiness generated by it, and we thought it would be something that would be really cool,” Kureshi said. “It was essentially just this very small idea, but we saw other examples being done around the country and even around the world. It’s a sense of nostalgia and it makes you remember – as a kid – getting a bike and having access to a bicycle is kind of like your driver’s license. It gives you your first taste of freedom.”
Mehta and Kureshi had to make sure that they could map out a feasible route that would be easy for the kids to follow. From there, they tracked how much time it would take, and they did a pilot run to see what it would look like on a bike. Once they pinned down where people would be joining, that’s when they started to put together the advertising materials to share with families and that’s how it all started. Currently, the plan is for the Nov. 13 ride to be the last regarding the colder months until next year when it starts to warm up.
“I think today kids’ lives are very scheduled and revolve around technology and being in front of a screen,” Kureshi said. “They may feel super connected to social events and things that are going on in the world that really don’t impact them at all and have nothing to do with their immediate lives, and this seems like a really cool opportunity for them to connect with their actual community and their friends and see them in person and have those relationships build.”
“We have a great community at Baker,” Mehta said. “Folks were really excited when they heard about it. We’re developing core memories for our children and hopefully they will carry those through their life and do other good things in the world to bring that energy into their life more.”
Start time for the Nov. 13 ride is subject to change. For more information or questions, email bakerbikebus@gmail.com. Updates are available on Instagram via the Moorestown Bike Bus Instagram page at @moorestownbikebus.
The Baker Bike Bus ride was inspired by Bike Bus World, an organization on a mission to transform the wellbeing of children, communities and the climate, through biking together to school.
The next ride will take place on Friday, Nov. 13, and will depart at Deerfield Terrace.
