Novel idea, not really. Many years ago when I went to High School in Madison
WI, I had to use the city bus to get to school or walk about 4 miles. There
was no school bus system except for rural students. If you lived in the city
you took a city bus, and the system worked quite well. Fairs were subsidized
for the students and bus passes available at school. Madison had great bus
service back then and made sure to cover all the area so students could take
the bus. This also applied to Middle school students. Grade schools were
neighborhood schools where the students could walk.
Why couldn't this system work here? eliminate school busses and expand the
existing city bus service to cover the area better. Built in passenger load
with school children would provide a more consistent revenue stream for the
busses. This idea has been presented on here before and if memory serves, was
fairly well received by the forum. Maybe we need to make this an election year
issue.
Not sure if there was such a thing as school choice there when I attended. I
feel I received a good education and have few complaints about it.
Mike wrote:
MJ> Do away with school buses and integrate school transportation
MJ> into metro transit.
Robert responded:
I think that Mike may well have identified a real problem here.
School bus operations must be hideously expensive for the schools, and
I'd be interested to know whether the Minneapolis Schools are able to
operate them efficiently. Anyone know how to find out what's the
average load on a Minneapolis school bus?
I'd be inclined to suggest reducing school choice and emphasizing
neighborhood schools over integration with Metro Transit, though. I
wait for small children on school buses (or used to, anyway, topic for
another message). The school bus driver must do things a normal bus
driver need not. For example, my daughter was 50 minutes late one day
when the school held all the buses to address a disciplinary
issue[1]. Something like this could wreak absolute havoc with the
city bus system. Another example: the bus driver should make sure
that kids cross the streets safely, and ideally, that very small kids
(high 5 program kids are only 4-5 years old) are met at the bus stop.
This can mean that getting through a bus stop takes a very long time.
Again, probably not acceptable for commuters. Finally, the bus driver
must handle disciplinary issues that could cause delay and annoyance
for commuters.
This idea might work better for high school kids than elementary
school ones, although my final point still applies...
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