COMMENTARY: School bus future

It¹s back-to-school time. Everywhere you go, the yellow school
bus has become the symbol of school. What is your impression or
memories of school bus transportation?
As Sonoma West Times & News recently reported, school
transportation faces many challenges. In our rural communities,
school districts have provided school transportation service for
their students. Unlike more suburban areas, students cannot easily
walk or bike to school. The State, however, capped school
transportation funding in the 1982-83 school year. As costs for
employee salaries, health benefits, fuel, parts and tires
escalates, our school districts are challenged to provide
transportation service. Their fundamental challenge is how much of
their education funding should they spend to supplement buses?
Statewide, districts are forced to pay over 55 percent of their
pupil transportation costs. Furthermore, California has only
16percent of our student population riding school buses. The
national average is 55 percent.
School transportation in California is not mandated or required.
It is provided at the will of the local school board. Many urban
and suburban areas long ago eliminated school transportation
service. Our own school districts have reduced service and many
charge fees (although the fee covers less than 10percent of the
cost of transporting a student). As the service becomes more costly
or less convenient, families make the choice to drive their
children to school.
The consequences of this became so very evident last Spring when
Dave Casey¹s AP Statistics class at Analy High calculated the
impacts of student commute choices. The consequences of fewer
students using the bus is evident to anyone driving to or around
schools during their peak travel times: traffic congestion and
parking frustrations. The less evident consequences as expressed by
their study included significant fuel consumption and tailpipe
emissions. They began working with the Climate Protection Campaign
to educate and change student and parent behavior.
Living as close as five miles to school can cost you well over
$1,000 a year to drive in your car. The cost of fuel has become
alarming to most of us.
Just recently, California passed legislation that plans to
reduce industrial emissions by 25 percent in the near future.
Automobile emissions account for the majority of pollutants we spew
into our atmosphere.
West County Transportation Agency is a cooperative of most of
the school districts in western Sonoma County and some Santa Rosa
area school districts. We have taken a proactive approach to
cleaning up our environment by cleaning our fleet. Half of our big
bus fleet is powered by clean-burning natural gas. The other half
is powered by ultra low sulfur diesel fuel with exhaust filters.
Each big bus holds up to 84 passengers, taking almost that many
cars off the road per bus.
Safety has always been the hallmark of school transportation. A
couple of years ago, the Federal Transportation Research Board
issued a report that definitively declared school buses as our
safest mode of transportation. Every year over 800 students are
killed traveling to and from school in a parent¹s car or, in the
case of teenagers, in their own car. Almost none die in school
buses.
Instead of reducing school transportation service, we should be
exploring ways to increase the service. I would urge every parent
and community member to contact their State Assembly Members and
Senators to push for full funding for school transportation for the
same reasons for which they fund public transit: safety for our
children, congestion relief and reduced automobile emissions.
School Transportation should really be one of the solutions for
our future.
– Submitted , Executive Director, West County Transportation
Agency