Cycling to schools in the Sunset District

Bikes

There are many reasons to ride a bike to school. It's fun. It's good exercise. It develops a child's sense of independence. It provides quality time together for children and parents. It spares the air.

But if you don't already ride regularly, starting can be intimidating and difficult. This page aims to provide bike-to-school advice and concrete route suggestions for parents and children in the Outer Sunset, from Lawton Elementary in the north to Ulloa Elementary in the south, and from Sunset Elementary in the west to Lincoln High in the east.

Basic tips

Additional materials

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is a great resource on cycling with children in our city. Their Youth & Family resources page has many useful links, including pointers to regularly scheduled and free “Family Biking” workshops. They also publish a convenient list of Rules of the Road, as well as the excellent Family Biking Guide, a how-to manual for effective urban cycling from pregnancy to a child's elementary school years.

Bicycle route suggestions

The Sunset is a grid across rolling terrain that climbs from west to east, with a major hill rising towards Golden Gate Heights and roughly bisected by Quintara St.

Designated bike routes run north-south and east-west on streets that have less redundant grade and fewer steep blocks than average.

To find a good route to your specific school, refer to the topographic map below, on which bike routes are highlighted in green (solid or dotted). Or explore the interactive Google map.

Map of Sunset bike routes