"This is lunacy"

We've lately seen a ideas we thought discarded or quaint return to prominence. From streetcars to windmills, clotheslines to back yard gardens, the early 21st century has a lot more in common with the early 20th century than people expected. Another retro move that is taking place is getting children to walk and bike to school more often.

Frederick County, MD has widened the radius of the no-bus zone around schools and Fairfax County, VA and Montgomery County, MD is considering doing the same.

The cost of putting a school bus on the street is approximately equal to keeping a teacher on staff, said Linda P. Farbry, director of transportation for Fairfax public schools.

It also doesn't hurt that the campaign -- especially the "Walking School Bus" that encourages parents to coordinate neighborhood routes, wear safety vests and share escort duty -- fits with the baby boomer habit of reviving childhood practices. An oft-quoted study found that in 1969, 41 percent of students walked or bicycled to school. By 2001, that figure had dropped to 13 percent.

Two years ago, a district study suggested that extending the distance that middle and high school students walk by half a mile would save $975,000 a year.

Montgomery County's school board also explored a similar maneuver to save money, voting in June 2008 to grant officials emergency powers to extend the bus boundaries if fuel prices rose further.

Some leaders think it's a great way to leverage the investments already made.

Board of Supervisors Chairman Sharon Bulova (D) said she supports the idea of having more children walk if they can do so safely and said that considerable sums have been invested in trail and pedestrian improvements.

Besides savings, there are all the other positive externalities to health, congestion, pollution and community.

"I think it fosters a sense of community," said Christine Morin, 39, a Laurel Hill parent who has coordinated a schedule with four other families to escort their children to school, including her second-graders, twins Ben and Chase.

Meghan Wommack, 8, braving puddles in sneakers and a fuchsia slicker, said she liked walking, even in the rain, and certainly more than taking the bus, as the kids used to. For one thing, she didn't have to bother with older kids. 

The proposed health reform bill recognizes the health benefits in walking and biking and includes funding for "Community Transformation" aid, despite protests from some that it's "wasteful."

Desipite the push for more walking and biking to school, FABB points out that Fairfax hasn't done a very good job of tapping Federal Safe Routes to School money.

[Since 2005], over $13 million has been allocated to Virginia for the program, of which about $7 million has been designated for projects. Fairfax County has requested, and received, $17,000, less than 1%. Fairfax is the largest school district in the state, 12th largest in the country,

FABB also reported on a meeting of the County Board of Supervisors and School Board on this subject.

Supervisor McKay noted that the county was not taking advantage of grant opportunities such as CDC health grants or the Safe Routes to School Program to educate the public and to help build infrastructure.

Supervisor McKay noted that all schools should have bike racks. Dean Tistadt of Facilities & Transportation Services (I think that's who it was; there were no introductions) said that any principal who wanted a bike rack could "get one instantly."

It was agreed that providing Kiss & Ride areas was not the best use of school resources; facilitating parents driving kids to school makes walking and biking less safe, and contributes to air pollution and congestion around schools. As Mr. Tistadt said "This is lunacy. What we should be doing is putting up barriers for those who drive kids to school."

The group agreed to 1. Find examples of successful programs for getting more kids to walk and bike to school, and use those as examples for the rest of the county and 2. Determine where there are gaps in the pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure and provide funds to fill in those gaps.

FABB also has a post on a Herndon Middle School's Bike Program where students repair bikes which are then donated for needy children within the local community.

Finally, this subject was discussed - ever so briefly - by Tom Vanderbilt when he was a guest on the Diane Rehm show last week with John Porcari and Robert Puentes. (They also discussed biking in Amsterdam and Roundabouts)

Photo by Organic Haus

Comments

[gwadzilla]

this may make the author of any blog laugh...

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/5734965/

[SJE]

Growing up and going to school in Australia, there are no such things as "school buses."

In elementary-middle school, I rode a city bus the approx 2 miles. In High School, the city buses were chartered to do a route which got me about 2-3 miles from home. I would then walk or catch another bus. The advantage of using chartered city buses in the afternoon is that school shuttling hours are before rush hour, and so you can then use those very same buses for commuters. It is a far more efficient use of resources.

Of course, when I didnt do the bus, there was car-pooling, or biking 2 miles to elementary-middle school, or 6 miles to high school.

[Contrarian]

Whether school buses are good or bad depends on what people do as an alternative. Obviously it's good for people to get more exercise -- although school buses have an excellent safety record and their probably safer than walking or cycling. However, many people would drive their kids to school if they didn't have buses. School buses are safer and more efficient than an equivalent number of private cars. The $975,000 savings claimed is illusory -- what it really is a shifting of costs from the school system onto the parents.

My bet is these changes will be reversed after enough parents complain about the traffic and bother of "having" to drive their kids to school.

[SJE]

Contrarian: you make good points about cost shifting, and relative safety and benefits. However, this assumes that all other factors are static.

1. Traffic: if there were no buses, I doubt that every kid would be shuttled to school by car individually. There would be more walking, biking and car pooling.

2. Safety: from the POV of accidents, it is better to be inside the bus than outside. How many accidents are caused by buses and parents shuttling kids? I live right near a school, and most of the speeding traffic and otherwise dangerous behavior is caused by bus and car drivers going to school. Analogous to your "cost shifting," this is hazard shifting.

3. If there are no buses, and most kids get their own way to school, then you see other benefits that we do not see. Not just fitness, but independence of the kids. Another benefit is that parents start to think about safety from outside the windshield perspective, and consider safe routes, traffic problems, criminal activity near school, etc.

[SJE]

One more:

I do not agree that buses are necessarily more efficient than cars here.

A bus is a large fixed investment in a vehicle, and a driver, with salary, benefits etc. The bus does not have many other uses, and is only used for a limited period. A lot of buses run half empty. Also, it must take an indirect route to get all travellers, taking time and gasoline.

By comparison, a car may take 3-4 kids (a minivan 7-8), goes directly, and has a clear and direct incentive to be full, and has other uses.

As for cost shifting: the parents presently pay via their taxes for the bus service, or directly for their own car. Thus, you are shifting some costs back to parents, but saving some in their taxes.

[Tom]

... but in reality an SUV or a minivan only has 1 kid.

I live in Fairfax county and there is, sadly, little interest in having kids make their own way to school. I've seen neighbors drive their kids to the bus stop less than 100 yards away.

I think the goal is to make the kids totally helpless that way they can't get into trouble.

[SJE]

Tom: I see that too, but its part of the car-culture mindset. It can be broken, however. In Australia kids walk or bike to school. In fact, most kids would be too embarrassed to have their parents drive them.

I note also that Australia is more like the USA than Europe, in having big, sprawling cities, and big cars.

[guez]

SJE,

Your arguments against school buses are virtually the same as the standard arguments against public transit. Closing down Metro would probably increase biking and walking, but it would also presumably be a disaster for traffic, the environment, etc.