Local father starts Lathlain Primary School communal ‘bike bus’ to encourage physical activity for students

The wheels on the bus may go round and round, but for students at Lathlain Primary School, its the wheels on their bikes.

Since October, Lathlain Primary School students have been riding a “bike bus”, a weekly communal bike ride, stopping at each other’s houses to “pick up” classmates on the way to school.

While bike buses are a well-established phenomenon across Europe and the United States, it is believed the Lathlain bike bus is the first of its kind in Western Australian.

Headed by Lathlain Primary School father Massimo Galardi, he says the idea of a bike bus actually came from his kids.

“(My kids) wanted to go and have a playdate with some friends from their school and they said ‘why don’t we go on a Sunday morning when we go on a bike ride and pick them up from one house to another’,” Mr Galardi said.

“I jumped online to search for some ideas to make it more fun and that’s when I found this idea of a bike bus ... so I told my kids ‘lets do this’, but we can also do it during the week so we can all ride to school together.”

Every Friday morning the bike bus departs the Galardi household at 8am, stopping to pick up students patiently waiting outside their homes with their helmets fastened and backpacks tightly strapped.

Parents, carers and grandparents — who connect through a dedicated WhatsApp group — are encouraged to “hop on” the bus as well.

“We started with about 10 families and now it’s grown organically ... we are starting to be quite a big group of bikes and because we’re quite noticeable, other parents from school see us and ask to be added to the group,” Mr Galardi said.

“When I pick up my children from school, other students ask me ‘can we do bike bus more than once a week?’

“While we were riding I once heard this little girl telling her dad ‘this is so much fun, can we do this everyday?’ So in terms of feedback, everybody’s happy.”

Since its conception almost six months ago, the Lathlain bike bus has grown to include 28 students and more than 10 parents and carers.

Now, Mr Galardi is in discussion with the school’s deputy principal to expand the bike bus to include even more students.

“They definitely want to be involved in endorsing these activities, so we are just working on some details before the school actually starts promoting it to the rest of the school ... it’s great to see that support,” he said.

But from encouraging physical activity to teaching children about road rules, Mr Galardi says there are obvious benefits to the bike bus.

“The teacher of my son was telling me that she has actually noticed a difference .... they are ready to learn and they have a higher level of attention that is noticeable,” he said.

“There is a risk of being on the road but it’s a good opportunity for us parents to educate children about the risks.

“We have to be mindful of the fact that kids sometimes talk to each other and they feel protected by a big group so they can be careless, so we have to be vigilant.”

As well as being in discussion with Lathlain primary, Mr Galardi has been in contact with the Department of Transport and Town of Victoria Park in the hope other local schools can introduce their own bike buses.

“I’m not an expert, but I’m happy to share this thing that we’re all doing and to tell people ‘this is how we did it, you can do it as well’,” he said.

“If we can extend it to other schools in Perth, I think it would be beneficial to the whole community.”