A 'bike bus' blooms in Brooklyn

Call it Critical Mass for kids going to school.

Every Wednesday for the last three school years, a caravan of about a dozen cyclists in green vests helps kids ride in the bike lane on Bergen Street from East New York to Downtown Brooklyn. The adults provide a safeguard between vehicles and the kids in the bike lane, who are headed to school in the vicinity of the roughly 4-mile route.

“It's even dangerous sometimes for adults on bikes. A lot of aggressive driving and to have a kind of a buffer of bikers around the kids is really nice and helps them feel like they're safe,” volunteer Alex Goulet, 37, said as he prepared for the inaugural ride of the new school year’s Bergen bike bus.

He added, “You see the look on their faces. It's just pure joy riding the bikes to school.”