Despite consistent crash numbers, experts say biking to school is more dangerous than ever.

Since 2016, the annual number of bicyclists involved in collisions have all been between 202-305, with 225 reported in 2024, according to Calgary Police Services (CPS).

Number’s aside, Laura Shutiak, founder and executive director of Youth En Route, described the state of safety for students biking to school in Calgary as terrible.

“There’s been far too many car and cyclist or pedestrian incidents this year that have resulted in very serious injuries or fatalities,” she said.

As an organization, Youth En Route has encouraged and enabled students to ride their bikes through programs and other supports. Despite all their efforts since 2021, Shutiak said she rifles with the idea of encouraging students to bike to and from school.

“I wonder whether I can, with good conscience, give a kid a bike and encourage them to ride it.”

In 2024, 33 reported collisions had no injury, a stark drop from 116 no-injury cases in 2016. CPS was unable to provide collision location or age data.

Shutiak says that crash avoidance and cause change on a case-by-case basis, but outside variables can still be found.

“Elbow Drive is the classic example, which is 40 km/h from one end to the other. Why do those kids who walk to school there deserve more safety than kids in northeast Calgary?” she said. 

“There’s a high school across the street from a public library, a giant leisure center, and a McDonald’s, so that street can’t be 40 kilometers an hour. I just don’t understand it.”

Shutiak said that she’s previously spoken with school principals who have advocated for changes like street speed, but many have not seen the added safety measures. 

In a statement, the Calgary Board of Education said that it believes that safety on the roads and in traffic is important in all communities.

“(CBE) has established a group of stakeholders from across the city to support the review, identification and implementation of measures to support safe student travel to and from school,” the statement read.

The CBE cannot monitor or enforce driver behaviour on public roads as traffic and bike safety is a shared responsibility of all Calgary drivers and cyclists, but does partner with Youth En Route in support of student learning and participation in active transportation.

“This partnership helps to provide high school students with various options for getting to and from school as well as resources to remove potential barriers,” said the CBE statement.

Similarly, the Calgary Catholic School District (CCSD) understands how important getting to and from school safely is for families, they said in a statement.

Some of the ways they engage with students and school communities about safe and active transportation include working with groups like Youth En Route, participating in SSTAG (Safe Student Travel Advocacy Group), a Calgary-wide committee that collaborates to improve student safety and promoting Wheel Week, a SHAPE (Safe Healthy Active People Everywhere) initiative that encourages active travel throughout Alberta.

Calgary lacking ‘political will’ to promote change

Shutiak said that large-scale change is possible, but current city officials lack the “political will.”

“Our city council, everyone is saying that the speed of traffic is more important than lives,” she said.

“The reality is, for lots of families, they are simply never going to allow their kid to be independent. They’re always going to put them in the backseat of a car and drive them places, because we have prioritized that. We prioritize driver convenience over pedestrian and bike safety.”

Shutiak hopes that pedestrian and bike safety becomes a prominent talking point in Calgary’s upcoming election. Possible changes are not expensive, she said.

“The city traffic engineers are aware of how these simple changes can reduce injuries. They know this, there’s just nobody willing to fight the car culture of Calgary to do it.”

Removing short, one-way lanes that allow vehicles to turn onto a cross street at an intersection without entering the intersection itself, or slip lanes, around schools is among top possible safety changes, according to Shutiak. 

“There could never be a slip lane that crosses a major bicycle path,” she said.

“And those (changes) are easy, you just put up some barricades and you take them out and in an ideal world you re-engineer the corner.”

Other suggested changes include 30 km/h residential streets across the city and “advanced pedestrian signals.”

“An advanced pedestrian signal is when the light for the pedestrians turns ‘walk’ or turns green before the light for the cars turning right turns green,” Shutiak explained, with similar systems being used in cities like Ottawa.

Shutiak said that concerns have been noticed throughout Youth En Route programs. Typically, Youth En Route has programs of 40-50 students. Even in large groups, they’ve had run-ins with impatient drivers.

“(Students) have been trained how to ride safely in a line, and we’ve had issues where impatient cars have made dangerous conditions for us when we are just on a community ride,” she said.

“That should never happen.”

Shutiak said that, among others, a strong way to voice concerns is by calling 3-1-1 and city councillors. 

“The other thing is that they should go out and experience it, try to get to your kid’s school on a bike. Or take a bus to your school and see what that’s like,” she said.

“So many kids have just such lousy transit opportunities that driving is the default. If we want to reduce traffic, if we want to make our city safer, we need to provide alternatives that are safe and convenient.”