There is apparently a phenomenon in the US now, where parents drive to the school individually to pick up and drop off their children at the beginning and end of the day. Some people I work with even take time off from working to do this. When the parents descend on the school each day there’s insane traffic, cars lined up for miles, all idling their engines. What happened to school buses?
My son’s school charges $630 per year to ride the bus. And that is a public school. I still pay for it though, because, 1. I’m not going to spend my time sitting in a line cars every day. Not to mention take time off from work to do it. 2. I want him to experience life. It’s a great place for socialization
So what are working class families supposed to do if they can’t afford it and the parents can’t get time off work? The kids just don’t go to school?
I honestly doubt that you can pay for the car needed and your own time required to take your kids to school for those $630 even if you only value your time at something like $2/hour.
Not sure how it works in the US but here in Europe there would probably be programs to pay for it if you can prove you don’t have the income to pay it yourself.
@Billy_Gnosis @const_void my school bus ticket costed a bit over 400€ and it was a normal bus ticket which i could use to use the buses in the near vincinity. My parent needed to pay 0€ directly for this.
And this was over 10 years ago, so the price is around 450 now.It’s crazy. When I was a kid (a long time ago) it cost nothing to ride the bus to school.
@Billy_Gnosis @Sebastian £17.50 a week, £70 a month, about £682.50 a year, which is $857.56 USD. I cry every-time I check my bank balance 😔
Here in Germany there is now a ticket for 49€ a month (588€ a year but you can cancel it every month) that allows you to ride on any public transit and regional trains in the entire country. As an adult too, not just as a student. It is a personalized one though (non-transferable).
“It’s a great place for socialization” yeah like being bullied. Lol
Not sure what school your kids go to, that’s type of stuff isn’t an issue for mine. I’m sure things do happen, but that’s part of growing up and learning. It’s called life
When I was in school, the bus route did not stop near my house, and it was too far to walk, and there was no good bike route (though one exists now). In middle and high school I would often walk or bike to a friend’s house after school but that wasn’t always an option.
This is a situation forced on us by car-centric city planning
@const_void
I always walked to school as a kid and it was very high priority to me that the neighborhood I live in now allows my kids to do the sameYou can’t expect parents to let their kids WALK to school can you? It’s not safe - there’s so many cars around! 🙄
The yellow school bus is like one of the most recognised US specific object. I thought they were standard issue in the US lol
Due to people’s habit of voting against funding school districts here, there isn’t enough funding for all children to be on the bus (ie paying enough drivers). So the busses are reserved for children who live farther. If you live within a certain radius of the school you can pay extra to put your children on the bus.
Small and dense Canadian city here… not sure we even have school buses although I’ve seen them in other nearby school districts where I assume the catchment areas are wider.
And yes, they’re the standard yellow school bus 🙂
I thought so too. I went to a rural high school with 700 people and I’d say at least half took the school busses
My kids walk to school and we live 4 blocks from the school. I have always allowed mine to walk. Even when they were in elementary school.
I walked to school no reason they can’t. And today it’s easier because they have phones I can track them on.
There is a nice sweet spot when they’re old enough to have phones but not old enough to complain about having you track them 🙂
It’s great to have them walk, even when they’re very young and you need to walk with them.
Back in my day (insert grandpa Simpson gif here!) I had a 10min walk to a bus stop and caught a public bus. Felt sorry for the adults that had to catch the same bus with 40 wild children.
These days I think my friends’ school age kids all walk or cycle - we’re in a small city with fairly good bike infrastructure.
When I was a teacher, the main reason so many students were dropped off and picked up at my school was because of what we call “School of Choice.” Essentially instead of parents being required to send their kid to the school their home is zoned for, they can send their kid to any school in the district, but if they do, they have to provide transportation.
I’m assuming the insane cuts to our public education system trickle down to the bus drivers too
That’s a bingo!
I grew up with this culture, unfortunately, never rode a school bus or saw one.
And yea, it is complete trash. Let’s put tiny vulnerable road-unintelligent children, all running around, in the same place as a bunch of stressed out parents driving cars while mostly thinking about work or not being late for work.
What could go wrong!
Shit … let’s reduce the speed limit drastically to prevent accidents! Ok, now it’s just a big fat traffic Jam! Shit … let’s build specialised roads within the school to increase the speed of drop off. Ok … now we’ve lost some of our school grounds and it’s marginally better … except everyone’s driving tanks/four-wheel-drives now so it’s pretty dangerous for kids still! Shit lets …
Seen all of that. It’s really really dumb and stressful for kids and parents alike.
They aren’t really like tanks. Tanks have some design considerations for the driver to notice people in front of the vehicle.
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This is the big thing about carbrains in the US, it’s endemic of a bigger obsession with infinite individuality. Sharing space with another human being is the ULTIMATE taboo. Depressingly far above such things as fascism and pedophilia.
We don’t do school buses anymore? I suppose we have to condition them to drive everywhere in a car from when they’re young.
That’s SoCiAlIsT!
Socialism is when School Bus
Oh man it’s the worst. I used to work in an office next to a high school and a 10-minute drive to work in the summer months became almost an hour as soon as school started.
@const_void the school traffic situation was the tipping point for getting a #cargobike for us. Much calmer and faster way to do it, with opportunity for spotting and chatting about stuff going on in the neighbourhood. There’s the occasional poor driver behaviour that affects us but it’s quite rare compared what you get in the car.
Parents these days a lot more protective than they were in the past. Most parents are worried about there kids going missing or some other crap. I honestly wish my mother was less protective, for example I go on bike rides at least 20 to 30 miles at the minimum and my mother always wants to know what my location is all the time. I get that my mother cares about me but being trapped inside a bubble sucks, I remember when I was in middle school and if I stayed out of the house past dark I would be punished, being punished led me to become more anti social and I got addicted to weed and alcohol because I had no escape, thanks to my father. As soon as my father died and I moved out to my grandmas, things did get better, my mother is less over protective, but I feel like I have no say in any matter and I feel like I’m being ignored and I’m trying to get my life started by trying to get a job and trying to get my drivers license, but my mom is always working or is lazy and she won’t help me. I honestly have lost a lot of motivation because of my mother to do anything sometimes then I just get yelled at for doing something I want to do. But things this year have been turning better for me, I found many good life long friends that have helped me through the hardest of times, my friends helped me with the aftermath of my shitty relationship, they stood up for me and told her to fuck off. There are many good people in this world and I hope all of you succeed in the hardest of times find the good in the world. My heart goes out to the people that have over protective parents because most times over protective parents do more harm than good. Yeah I went on rant, but I wish all of you the best of wishes. -David
Your post reminded me of this Eco Gecko video on the effects of this lack of independence in car-dependent suburbs on children
I live across the street from an elementary school and my driveway is blocked every single day. Including Fridays when I have lunch with my father, who lives out of town, and need to… Park in my driveway. Parents and school districts are inconsiderate fucks.
It is so miserable and effectively shuts down a major street. People will tolerate the dumbest things just because it is the status quo.
Completely insane and infuriating every time I see it.
