Bike To School

Bike Cochrane is committed to encouraging kids to wheel and walk to school from anywhere in Cochrane to their preferred school. As a pilot program, we have worked with the Tri schools (Elizabeth Barrett, Manachaban, and Cochrane High School) to provide ‘Safe Routes to School’ maps, along with supporting the schools with Bike Safety pamphlets, free bike bells, and encouragement/support for ‘Wheeling and Walking Buddies’ programs that help kids find ‘buddies’ so that they’re not biking or walking alone to and from school.

If you’re interested in biking or walking to school and would like support or a suggested bike/walking route, please contact Paul at paul@bikecochrane.com, or see the resource materials below.

Safe routes to school

In our 2021 ‘Bike to School’ survey, many of the parents responded that they were either unaware of a safe route from their neighbourhood to their school, or they didn’t think there was a safe option. While the safety of your child is ultimately a parental decision, Bike Cochrane has produced a few maps of ‘Safer’ Routes where we believe they exist. While we don’t think these are perfect and we ARE advocating for improvements with both the Town and the province, please use these to help your family determine if a Safe route will help you get to school through ‘Wheeling and Walking’.

Zoom in for detailed comments/descriptions and click on the notes for photos along the route. We hope to be able to add videos of these routes to make them easier to try out as well.

Heritage Hills and Heartland to Trischools (click for full size)

Gleneagles and East End to Trischools (click for full size)

Sunset Ridge to Trischools (click for full size)

Drive to Five

Since the Tri school area does have a catchment that includes a large rural area outside Cochrane, many parents choose to drive their kids to school. While none of the Tri schools would encourage more vehicles in the very busy school area, one option that also allows for some physical activity is to use a ‘Park and Walk’ or ‘Park and Bike’ program, also called a ‘Drive to Five’ with the idea that you can walk or bike together for the last 5 minutes. Park and walk campaigns have the potential to reduce traffic congestion around a school and encourage physical activity for parents and children. This strategy is especially helpful for families who live too far from the school to walk or who do not have a safe route to school.

Bike Cochrane has selected the parking lot at the Cochrane Ranche park (north side of highway 1A) as a natural ‘Park and Bike/Walk’ location. While the trail to get to the Tri school area needs repair work (more on that soon), this allows kids and parents to have some time outside on their way to school without fighting the chaos of dropping off kids in a busy school.

Map for Park and Bike/Park and Walk is linked here and shown below.