SMART CYCLING
HOW TRAFFIC GARDENS GROW YOUNG RIDERS B Y
A L I S O N
D E W E Y
Some may call them Traffic Gardens, others call them Safety Towns, but whatever name you use, we can all agree that youth-scaled bike riding environments are places for fun and creative learning!
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RAF FIC G ARDENS (we’ll stick with one name for consistency) are popping up throughout the U.S. and are quickly becoming a favorite playtime destination for school-age kids and their parents. You can find them in states like Colorado, Oregon, Maryland, Virginia, Washington, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and more!
A Traffic Garden provides a dedicated space for small-scale real-world traffic environments. Imagine one of those children’s rugs with streets and intersections on it, but larger and outdoors on asphalt. They contain common roadway elements such as intersections, stop signs, yield signs, pedestrian crosswalks, roundabouts, railroad crossings, one-way traffic, two-way traffic, and more—all of which are presented on a scale to accommodate smaller users. While Traffic Gardens can be enjoyed by all ages, typically you’ll see kids anywhere from as young as three years old all the way up into the pre-teen years using them.
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Traffic Gardens provide a protected area to allow kids to play on bikes and begin to learn how to safely and confidently navigate traffic and share the environment with other users. Children develop important skills for when they begin riding their bikes to school, around their neighborhood, and when they ride just for fun. A stop sign installed three to four feet from the ground is much more visible and a more effective learning tool to a five year old than a real-world stop sign, which is typically installed seven to eight feet from the ground—a long stretch of the neck up for a young person. The League believes riding a bike is an experience every child deserves and we want to see Traffic Gardens in every community. They are an important learning tool for young people to see that biking is fun, social, and can help keep themselves and the planet healthy. That’s why at the National Bike Summit, we provided attendees with the unique opportunity