I have to take two buses to work. The connection is close at the best of times and when I miss the second one I have to wait 30-40 minutes.
This morning, a schoolbus stopped, with flashing lights, in front of my bus for two or three minutes. I couldn’t see what was happening as it was completely dark out. The schoolbus turned off its lights and was just about to leave when some kids came running up the sidewalk forcing the driver to turn the lights on again. They weren’t even near the stop when the bus came!
Of course, this delayed me enough to make me miss my connection.
If the little bastards can’t be bothered to be at the school bus stop at the appointed time, the driver shouldn’t even stop but should keep going. Let them walk to school; a little exercise won’t kill 'em. Teach them to be punctual. Metrobuses won’t wait for me; why should they get special treatment? Lazy twats.
When I got to work, I once again had to get off at the wrong stop because, even though the sidewalk in front of my building is finished and has been for weeks, the construction workers are too goddamn lazy to put the bus stop sign back up, and so I have to walk an extra block and cross a four-lane highway every fucking day. I’m sick and tired of feeling like a second-class citizen in this country because I don’t drive a car.
The point of a bus is to take you from one part of town to the toher. Plenty of busses have residential neighbourhoods at one end of the route and industrial areas at the other end. I see no disconnect.
And when I was a kid, if I didn’t get to the school bus pick-up spot in time, my very pissed off mom would have to drive me.
Wait. Is this a stop that was temporarily “closed” while they worked on the sidewalk? If so, there’s no reason why your bus driver can’t stop there regardless of whether there’s a sign. He/she, if they drove the route before the construction, should know there’s a stop there. (If it were me, I’d ask my driver. Then if he/she refuses to stop at at known stop because there’s no sign - whatever! - I’d be inclined to call in an report their ass.)
niblet_head, fellow bus rider and second class citizen
I feel like adding my own here - on my way to work, I travel about six miles through residential areas - with streets spaced a block apart. Why is it that the school buses have a need to stop at EVERY SINGLE FREAKING BLOCK? Precious can’t walk two blocks on a sidewalk so that the drivers behind the buses can actually make a little forward progress?? And what’s with stopping on the main drag, picking up a kid, then immediately turning onto a side street? PICK THE DAMN KID UP AFTER TURNING SO WE CAN KEEP GOING!
And I’m not even going to start with the area by the Jr. High where all the elementary district’s buses come out of and how THEY drive…
Trust me - never move down the street from “Transportation”.
Not for nothing, but a disturbing trend here is for the buses to stop in front of every goldang house instead of just going to the bus stop. Apparently, this is starting to become the SOP around my neck of suburbia, porbably because the parents don’t want to make their precious wait in the sub-70 degree temps.
The street was widened and a whole new sidewalk built as part of the construction of a new building addition – so for several years, there was no sidewalk there. The stop was removed in 2004. I don’t know if it’s still “officially” a stop.
They might have even lost the sign, it’s been gone for so long.
Exactly! In my day, the kids from the whole neighborhood gathered to all get on the bus at the same time. We used to play football or kickball for half an hour before the bus came. It was fun.
If this is the case, I’d suggest talking to the school board and finding out what their policy is on the frequency of bus stops. They might do something about it.
You can write to the city. Stuff like that happens all the time and nothing is done to repair it because no one has reported it. For example on the news here there was a dangerous intersection that had a nice left turn lane added to it to make it safer. Great! Except on the post that faced the left turn lane was a big sign: “No left turn.” It didn’t get fixed until the local news channel did a stoy about it, which bought it to the city’s attention.
If you ask the city and tansit people (which will also let them know there is a need an expectation for that stop to be there), they may do something about it. Or at the very least tell you that the stop was officially eliminated.
ETA: And when I was a kid there was none of this school bus stopping at every block or every drive way crap. I was living in Canada and we either walked six blocks are had our parents drop us off at one stop for 6-8 kids. For the few years we had a couple really young kids and a few parents wanted some kind of chaperaone, parents took turns waiting at the stop to make sure everyone was safe.
The reason school buses stop at each individual kid’s house is because of parental fears, not totally baseless, of abductions at the officially designated bus stop down the street. Over the last ten years or so, we’ve had kids here in Decatur accosted by strangers while waiting for their bus, especially when there’s only one kid per stop, so nowadays it’s rare to see a solitary child waiting for his bus–if he’s an older child, he’s been told to go down the street to the next stop and buddy-up with the others, or else someone’s mom (or grandpa, on my street) goes down there and waits with them, in the car with the engine running if the weather’s bad.
The reason why the school district specifies that the bus stops at each and every street corner is, again, because of adult fears, not totally baseless, that the youngest (meaning least competent) riders, i.e. the kindergarteners, shouldn’t have to leave their own block.
And I may say that I agree with that policy completely. I wanted to be able to go out on my front porch, and peer down the street, and see my kids standing there at the bus stop. If they’d had to walk down to another corner, I wouldn’t have been able to do that.
This is what I don’t understand. Is it that much more dangerous out there now? When I was in kindergarten, my mom took me to school the first day, then I walked the six blocks or so. There were no buses. Granted, this was all in the same suburb (Edmison Heights), but still…
This makes my head hurt. Officially-designated stops will at most times have a bunch of kids at them, yet fears for the safety of solitary children have resulted in them all getting their own stop to stand at, which itself is then percieved to be unsafe for the very same reason? :smack:
Just give’em what we’ve got. One stop per village, and anything with a safe walking route of under three miles and they ain’t getting a bus. And no, ‘safe walking route’ doesn’t mean they never have to cross a road.
I live a block from a middle school and two blocks from an elementary school. Ever day, starting about 45 minutes before school lets out, the soccer moms invade the neighborhood to pick up the kidlets from school. These idiots will line the streets on both sides and park, leaving a narrow corridor for traffic to use.
Ok, I can understand this. They have to wait for the kids somewhere. However, the next time you park in front of my driveway and leave your car to walk to the school, I am calling a tow truck. And please in the name of whatever you hold holy - don’t park in front of the fucking stop sign! Some of us must still use the roads for travel while your kidlet is getting out of school!
Short answer: No. It is NOT that much more dangerous out there now. But when bad things happen, whether locally or not-so-locally, they get publicized much more than they used to. And that contributes to an atmosphere of paranoia.
HOWEVER: There are respects in which is is more dangerous out there now. Many children do not play outside and get to know their neighbors the way they once did. Neighborhood folk have much less ability to co-parent other people’s children and minimize bullying at bus-stops, and various other things have happened which mean that actual risk of something bad happening may have increased slightly. And, when all the other parents in your neighborhood drop their kids off at school, . . . there’s some cycling going on here.
It’s the official policy of the school board, to require each bussed child to have to walk no further than the end of his own street. A policy which is designed to serve the greatest good in the community that the school board serves. And in this case, the greatest good for the community is not that drivers shouldn’t have to have their morning commute delayed, but that the community’s children should be transported to their schools as safely as possible.
The school board isn’t responsible for the fact that sexual predators trawling the bus stops have resulted in the kids bunching up at a few stops, but nevertheless the policy remains in effect for the benefit of all, because not every parent might want his kid to have to walk several blocks to where the kids are bunching up, when the kid’s actual bus stop might be literally just out his own front door. If the school board changes the policy to accommodate the changed reality of sexual predators cruising for victims, then that means that some kids will arbitrarily be required to walk several blocks away from their house and its parental eyeballing of the kid down on the corner. The greatest good is served by having the bus stop at every corner. That means that parents have the freedom to be flexible in choosing the best option for their kid.
This is a joke, right?
Average adult walking speed is 2 to 4 mph. Kids with their shorter legs walk much slower, of course. So it would take an adult, walking briskly, at least an hour to get to school (or work), and an hour to get home again.
So, you would have five-year-olds trudging three miles twice a day, completely exposed and helpless, without adult watching eyes, through the thick of predators in cars, who don’t even have to stake out a bus stop, but who can simply pull over to the side of the road, grab a kid, and pull back into traffic, all without anyone noticing that a child has just been abducted?
In Decatur, the limit for bussing is 1-1/2 miles. And the only kids you ever see actually trudging that distance are the very few inner city kids on the Near North Side who go to Durfee Magnet School, whose families simply don’t own cars. Everybody else manages to get their kid a ride to school. And it’s not a “oh, the little darlings shouldn’t have to walk!” issue–it’s a safety issue. And it’s not the “crossing a road” safety issue, it’s not about the cars–it’s about who’s driving the cars.
Really? Isn’t having only the school board making these decisions resulting in situations where other knock-on issues or problems that may be caused aren’t fully considered?
Sorry, I forgot to include that this is the limit for high school pupils. Two miles for primary age. I’ll ignore the hyperbole making up the rest of the question.
Well, I should hope so! If they keep the lip-lock going any longer than that, the kids should get a room!
But assuming you meant ‘busing’ with one ‘s,’ when I was growing up in Fairfax County, VA, the policy was that if you lived within a mile of the school, you walked.
I like you and all, DDG, and I’m of the opinion that we’re far too enamored of the automobile, but…
Jeez. The “thick of predators”? Is every other house on your street a halfway house for sex offenders or something?
Truth is, a kid’s far more likely to be molested by a relative than by some random stranger.
Kindergarten is probably too young for a kid to be hoofing it on their own, but elementary school is perfectly reasonable for a mile-long daily round trip. Especially if there are reasonably trustworthy older kids in attendance.
And a mile is reasonable (and that is the distance in Arizona), and within a mile of a school is usually a safe, well travelled or driven path. In fact, it’s not in the least bit unusual for one or more police cars or cycles to be patrolling these stretches at the start or end of a school day.
