France’s ‘Universal Cycling’ Program Teaches Schoolchildren How to Bike

A national “universal cycling” program aims to teach roughly 800,000 French children how to ride a bike, reports Phineas Rueckert in Next City. The program, known as Savoir rouler à vélo (SRAV), aims to make cycling education available to all French middle school students by 2027.

“The Covid crisis, during which French cities like Paris, Grenoble and Lyon laid down hundreds of kilometers of protected bike lanes, was a catalyst for the SRAV program,” said SRAV director Virginie Jouve. Now, Jouve hopes the momentum will lead to better cycling education and improved road safety. The country plans to invest €250 million in cycling in 2023, including bike parking, bike lanes, and education.

For Jouve, “Training children from the earliest age possible means giving them the means to make different choices later in life.” Studies have shown that access to transportation can have a powerful impact on whether students stay in school or college. “In low-income cities like Saint-Denis, it offers cycling training to a generation of students who otherwise might not be introduced to cycling until much later in life for a variety of reasons — lack of access to gear, cultural taboos and safety concerns.”