The article below is from Washington's west side, but with the economy the way it is, it could be happening in a lot of school districts nationwide in the near future.
3,000 students in the Edmonds Schoold District have to find a new way to school after their bus routes were eliminated recently to save the district $500,000 a year. And one school has even eliminated busing all together.
While there is a move to get more students to walk to school to reduce vehicle emissions and reduce obesity, some routes children would have to walk just aren't safe. One mother in the article even complains that her child has to walk past a bikini espresso stand to get to school! Many parents are calling the busing plan an accident waiting to happen.
Here's the article.
3 comments:
When I was a kid I lived 3 blocks from grade school and 4 blocks from high school, when I started 6th grade School Dist 81 opened Shaw Jr. High, I lived 1.4 miles from Shaw. If you lived 1.5 miles they would bus you. So I got to ride my bike or walk when the snow got too bad.
Now days I watch the school buses all over the same neighborhood stopping in front of houses while one child slowly comes out of the house and gets on the bus. All this time the bus is sitting there with red lights blinking closing all traffic on that street. Seems like we could use a few less buses, and more walking to schools.
You've got a good point there Charles. People are so afraid of strangers, traffic, dogs, bad weather, etc. (some warranted, of course) these days that they don't feel it's safe for their kids to walk to school. A group has formed lately of people from different groups, including the health care industry, the YMCA/YWCA, SRTC, the Lands Council, the Spokane Club, and many more to try to push for a more active Safe Route to School (SRTS) movement in our area. In fact, when pedestrian advocate Mark Fenton is in town next week, we're going to take him to a local school around dismissal time and get his take on our situation and get input on how to get more kids to walk or ride their bike to school.
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