I chose “Public transportation” in the poll. In primary school (grades 1-6) I walked to school. In grades 1-3, school was about a block away, and I could walk there without crossing a road. In grades 4-6, school was about half a kilometre away, and I walked along a disused railway line.
In high school (grades 7-9 and 11), I usually caught a train to school: we were given a very cheap rail pass, and I took the train for just three stations. In grade 10, I lived in London, and was enrolled in the New South Wales Correspondence School (an institution set up mainly for students in remote parts of NSW), so I only travelled between school and home once, by ship.
Kindergarten through 9th grade - private school. No bus system, too far to walk to either the school or the public city bus (which wasn’t particularly safe in our area in the late 70’s/early 80’s).
10th - 12th grade - public school. Rode the school bus. Lived too far out in the country for my folks to drive my every day, and I didn’t drive until I was 18.
I walked to every public school I attended (elementary, middle, and high schools). On occasion, I rode my bike, but walked to school far more than I ever rode my bike to school.
For the first 8 years I walked. In grades 5-8 it was only 2 blocks, but I had to cross US Route 1, which happened to be 57th St. in Philly for a mile or so (between Baltimore Ave. and Walnut/Chestnut Sts.). In HS, I took a bus, el train, Broad St. subway, and then walked three blocks. It was an hour total.
Driven until age 7, then boarding school, then walked for a year, then back to boarding school for three years. When I came to the US at 14, it was the school bus for a year, then I was driven for a year, then finally I got to drive myself. So I picked “didn’t travel,” since boarding school wins a plurality of years.
My parents were both school teachers, so we were on the same schedules (and going to the same schools for several of those years). There were 3 years when I walked to school, and I walked home pretty much the whole time.
To grammar school, it was a 3-block walk. I seem to recall walking by myself at around the age of 8 or 9–somewhere around second grade. Possibly third. ETA: Actually, now that I think about it, it may actually have been first grade.
To high school, it was public transportation. The 53A Pulaski bus due south for about seven miles. About a 45 minute commute each way during rush hours.
Pretty much the big yellow bus every day up through eighth grade. Started biking to school on and off in seventh and eighth, but the local jerks would find a way of messing my bike up if I stopped off for a soda or something at the gas station.
Really needed to be able to have multiple reply options, I mostly walked, but also had years riding the school bus and parents occasionally dropped off/picked up.
Voted “Other”, but in this case it really means “many of the above”. Because I’m a military brat, so where we lived and where I went to school changed half a dozen times over the course of my schooling life, and therefore the transportation most appropriate for that situation also changed a lot.
Walked. Rode a bike. Rode public transportation (military base bus; apparently not a school special, although at the time of day it was mostly school kids.) Rode school bus. Rode with parent.
The only one not applicable was “rode with other than parent”. Also, you forgot “drove myself”, unless we’re not counting Junior and Senior years of High School as “school.”
School bus, middle school in the late 50s. Bus 3 would stop at the top of our driveway, where kids from the nearest 10 houses would congregate and sit on our fence while waiting.
Sometimes would walk the mile or so through neighbor’s prune orchards to get there.
No, I explicitly said this was only referring to the school years when you were “too young to drive a car”. I figured most people couldn’t have driven themselves to school for the majority of their school years so I automatically eliminated it as a possibility for the primary means they used to get to school.
We lived a half a mile from the elementary school, but they had a crossing guard at the one busy intersection and a pedestrian tunnel under the road by the school for the other busy road. I walked together with my older siblings.
We were also about the same to the junior high school, so I walked there. The high school was further, and either took a bus, rode a bike or very occasionally took a car.
Walked to school from Kindergarten through High School. In grade school, when the weather was nice (not winter), I walked home and back for lunch, too.
Grade 1-7, walked a mile to school. Parents shadowed us a bit the first days of grade 1, then we did it without them. When a major highway was out right across our route, paths parents lobbied for and got a pedestrian overpass. A much newer overpass is still there. Grades 8-12, walked or rode bike two miles to school.