For the past year, Trisha’s daily morning routine had been a breeze. As she stepped outside her front door, she’d pause for a brief moment, waiting alongside her fellow students from the neighborhood, before boarding the bright yellow bus that would transport them to the hallowed halls of high school.
Trisha, now 11 years old and a sixth-grader, cherished the opportunity to visit her faculty at an exterior location in Houston, Texas. When asked about her experience, she recalled that she liked being able to converse with her family and found it easy to catch the bus because it was conveniently located near their home.
Due to funding cuts, the city’s public transportation system has been forced to eliminate its bus service for students residing within a two-mile radius of their educational institution, effective this academic year. Given Trisha’s residence is 1.9 miles away and it was too hot during the first week of college to stroll there comfortably. As she stands in the scorching sun each afternoon, she’s forced to endure a seemingly endless wait as her parents laboriously make their way back to pick her up.
Trisha dismissed the state of chaos with a casual phrase: “It’s only a mess.”
As part of a growing trend, her expertise is being leveraged by schools that are adapting to changing circumstances – namely, the yellow faculty bus, which has become an essential mode of transportation for many students, particularly in districts that have minimized routes and parents who opt to drive their children to school themselves. For the first time in history, a significant majority of American college students. The 2023-24 academic year in Chicago had its start delayed due to the cancellation of an event taking place earlier on. In Louisville, Kentucky, a group of college students has been protesting throughout the year due to the discontinuation of several bus routes that affected their daily commutes.
The decline of campus bus services is causing problems for commuters, who are forced to spend hours of their working days stuck in traffic congestion – a particularly challenging situation for those with rigid schedules or limited access to remote work options.
Worst-case scenarios loom for young people. Bus issues are significantly impacting attendance, with some students unable to reach high school on time, ultimately affecting their education. The constant din of automobiles envelops our faculties, posing a significant threat to mental health and potentially fostering crippling anxiety. As the absence of buses disrupts the cherished tradition for an entire generation of children, many are forced to skip what others deem a pivotal, if occasionally tumultuous, rite of passage.
For many riders, the bus journey is not just a means of getting from point A to point B, but also a valuable opportunity for socialization and emotional development, says Daniele Roberts, a seasoned bus driver in Gwinnett County, Georgia, who has witnessed firsthand the transformative power of the daily commute. Young minds learn valuable lessons in patience, social awareness, and flexibility as they navigate everyday experiences, such as waiting in line or coping with minor delays like a tardy bus – all essential life skills that foster resilience and empathy. “When I think about my experiences, I view them as a hands-on civics lesson.”
The devastating impact of declining bus services affects young people disproportionately.
In the early days of compulsory education, horse-drawn carriages served as makeshift buses, transporting rural students to newly established schools mandated by the state. By the early 20th century, motorized buses became widespread, with a significant milestone reached in 1937 when industry professionals converged to standardize the color scheme of school buses, ultimately settling on the iconic “School Bus Shiny Yellow” hue that has remained unchanged to this day.
Every year, take a ride on the bus to get to high school. As suburban populations have grown and spread further apart, the need for reliable bus transportation has increased significantly, forcing more students to rely on this mode of transport to get to school. Students attending colleges outside of their neighborhoods, or seeking specialized training programs, often rely on buses as a primary mode of transportation.
In recent years, America’s once-reliable school bus fleet has experienced a steady decline. Across the United States, districts are struggling with driver shortages, partly attributed to low wages that median out at a mere for their arduous work. For instance, when endeavouring to manage a 35,000-pound vehicle, the incessant cacophony of out-of-control youngsters can prove not only jarringly distracting but also potentially perilous in its consequences.
With driver shortages and funding cuts exacerbating issues, public transportation services have suffered, ultimately resulting in decreased ridership as the quality of service deteriorates. The prevailing circumstances were. As ridership declines, school districts are forced to cut services further.
Arun Aravindakshan, Trisha’s father, faces the inconvenience of losing an entire hour each week – spent waiting outside her school, thanks to the discontinued bus service.
“We’re all in this together,” he acknowledged. “For us to carve out time to accomplish that amidst our daily tasks would indeed prove challenging.”
While walking or biking to high school may not be a feasible option for many students. Many roads surrounding Trisha’s faculty are without sidewalks, a fact that can be attributed to the initial lack of consideration for pedestrian safety during their design, which is more common in suburban areas.
For many students, getting to high school without a reliable bus system poses a significant challenge, particularly for those whose parents are unable to take time off work to drive them during the day. College students are disproportionately prone to chronic absenteeism, with some experts attributing this trend partly to the decline in bus services affecting their access to school.
Michael Gottfried, an economist, notes that if we’re genuinely concerned about absenteeism – which we are – we’re effectively abolishing a role that was previously tasked with taking children to school.
On the bus, riders have the opportunity to interact with peers from various grade levels and classrooms, individuals they might not encounter during regular school hours, fostering social connections and academic exchanges.
The expertise isn’t always optimistic, sometimes. Movies that have gained massive popularity have gone viral in recent times. On her bus ride, Teresa Bjork received unwanted attention from a boy who consistently harassed her to gain her attention; he would kick her, snap her bra straps (a habit common among boys during that era), and address her with sexually explicit names. It was terrible.”
A skilled bus driver can significantly impact the passenger experience, notes Roberts, a seasoned operator with 16 years behind the wheel. “For those who have acquired excellent driving skills, they learn how to become an exceptional rider.”
Buses are being run by some people once more.
Buses have long played a crucial role in shaping American educational history. During the 1970s and 1980s, courts nationwide ordered busing as a remedy to desegregate schools, relocating African American students to predominantly white institutions. Because buses have become synonymous with public transportation, confronting intense racist backlash, Zebulon Miletsky, a professor of Africana Studies at Stony Brook University and founder of
Despite criticisms that integration efforts were limited, proponents argue that the desegregation of schools in the South led to a highly profitable model, guaranteeing that African American students in the region had access to integrated classrooms and resources once primarily allocated to predominantly white institutions. While for some, the varsity bus remains a powerful symbol of the struggles against faculty segregation, it also serves as a testament to the courageous Black college students who were at the vanguard of this movement.
Across the country, numerous nonprofit organizations are striving to improve school bus services, with a specific focus on making their benefits accessible to underprivileged college students. In New York City, for example, a nonprofit organization is leveraging GPS technology to enable parents to track their children’s bus rides, thereby reducing air pollution and providing households with a tangible demonstration of the fight against climate change, said Matt Berlin, the organization’s CEO. In Los Angeles, the group Transfer LA enables individuals with disabilities to ride town buses.
As Trisha’s parents coordinated with several neighboring families, they organized a successful carpool system. To accommodate both parents’ professional commitments, they crafted a comprehensive schedule, then engaged in thorough discussions to address any necessary modifications. While operations are currently running smoothly, Aravindakshan expressed concerns regarding varying household dynamics, likening them to a mother and father from a nearby neighborhood who manage the education of their four children across three separate schools.
As a result of the absence of the bus, children are also experiencing the increased stress that comes with this disruption to their daily routines and household dynamics. “With multiple family members involved, caring for a child with special needs can be overwhelming for parents, requiring significant time and effort to manage their condition effectively.” “It’s often arduous for everyone to navigate.”
