School Buses

Firewalkwithme

I'm sure plenty of you have noticed a considerable improvement in the traffic congestion since the summer holidays started for most secondary school students. When the primary schools finish up at the end of this month, things will be even better - for a couple of months.

So is it the school-run traffic that clogs up the roads? It certainly seems so to me. What's the solution? More roads maybe? I don't think so. Considering we spend billions of euro on these new roads yet the congestion never seems to improve, wouldn't it make far more sense for the government to buy a fleet of school buses to take our childeren to school in? It's bound to be cheaper than a moderately sized road project alone.

Considering how we are constantly encouraged to use public transport this would be in line with government policy. I would suggest that the service should be provided for free so as not to discourage its use.

A child who lives in an urban area but chooses to go to a school many miles away should not be accomodated by having the bus bring them right to their front door, rather the buses should serve the locality around the school. This would encourage people to send their kids to local schools in order to avail of the free bus service.

I know we already have public bus services in place but they often don't go where people need them to and they are usually packed with commuters anyway.

We could even use the new buses during the summer for ferrying noisy Spanish students around!

Bluetonic

Despatch wrote:

I'm sure plenty of you have noticed a considerable improvement in the traffic congestion since the summer holidays started for most secondary school students.

The post primary (secondary) school holidays dont start until the end of May, beginning of June, your way off.

Firewalkwithme

Bluetonic wrote:

The post primary (secondary) school holidays dont start until the end of May, beginning of June, your way off.

sorry I got the dates wrong but do you see my point?

I think there's a few schools off near me though, traffic seems lighter but nevermind, I don't want that to get in the way of what I still think is a good idea.

Bluetonic

Despatch wrote:

sorry I got the dates wrong but do you see my point?

I think there's a few schools off near me though, traffic seems lighter but nevermind, I don't want that to get in the way of what I still think is a good idea.

There's something up this week alright, headnig from north county to the city centre (county and city being dublin) the traffic is really lighter.

Possibly due to third level?

I defo see your point alright, of course a child does not decide where they go to school is it their parents.

I can see this happening more and more in the future, while parents move away from their orignal home aera's due to housing issues, they stillmay wish their childern to be educated there.

stevenmu

<rant>
Why do they even need buses ? What ever happened to kids being able to walk to school ? I'd be willing to bet good money that a large portion of the parents who drive their kids to school (and everywhere else) every day are the same ones who want the government to stop mcdonalds and sweet companies advertising and put big taxes on junk food.
</rant>

Firewalkwithme

Bluetonic wrote:

There's something up this week alright, headnig from north county to the city centre (county and city being dublin) the traffic is really lighter.

Possibly due to third level?

I defo see your point alright, of course a child does not decide where they go to school is it their parents.

I can see this happening more and more in the future, while parents move away from their orignal home aera's due to housing issues, they stillmay wish their childern to be educated there.

Yeah maybe it is the third level students but that only goes to show what a difference it makes. I'd really like to see the government take a proper look at this issue though. I'll have to send a few emails out methinks.

Firewalkwithme

stevenmu wrote:

<rant>
Why do they even need buses ? What ever happened to kids being able to walk to school ? I'd be willing to bet good money that a large portion of the parents who drive their kids to school (and everywhere else) every day are the same ones who want the government to stop mcdonalds and sweet companies advertising and put big taxes on junk food.
</rant>

They are driven because they are either too young to walk on their own or because, the distance to school is to great to walk each morning particularly during the dark winter months.

Imposter

What about all the adults who drive instead of getting public transport?

What about all the adults who buy houses nowhere near their workplaces and then complain that the commute takes so long?

Firewalkwithme

Imposter wrote:

What about all the adults who drive instead of getting public transport?

What about them?

Imposter wrote:

What about all the adults who buy houses nowhere near their workplaces and then complain that the commute takes so long?

Maybe they buy their house far away from their workplaces because they can't afford to live nearer to them? :rolleyes:

Imposter

You're complaining about traffic caused by students yet you cannot see that workers are also part of the problem. Why should a schoolkid walk/cycle/bus to school while you can stay in your car?

stevenmu

Despatch wrote:

They are driven because they are either too young to walk on their own or because, the distance to school is to great to walk each morning particularly during the dark winter months.

Well I can see in my own area (Leixlip) that there's much less people walking to the schools then there was when I went (probably even less than half), even though there's a lot more people going to the schools now. This means that there's a lot more people driving there kids to school even though they're going to and coming from the same places that I used to walk to/from every day.

Firewalkwithme

Imposter wrote:

You're complaining about traffic caused by students yet you cannot see that workers are also part of the problem. Why should a schoolkid walk/cycle/bus to school while you can stay in your car?

I see that workers are part of the problem but don't you see how much better things are during the summer months?

By the way - I don't drive.

Firewalkwithme

stevenmu wrote:

Well I can see in my own area (Leixlip) that there's much less people walking to the schools then there was when I went (probably even less than half), even though there's a lot more people going to the schools now. This means that there's a lot more people driving there kids to school even though they're going to and coming from the same places that I used to walk to/from every day.

Surely that's all the more reason to bus the kids then? Parents are often afraid to let their kids walk in case they 'offered a lift from a stranger'.

Stark

Actually parents have gotten really lazy with their kids. My sister's school is outside the bus stop where I get the bus to college every morning (about a 7 minute walk from my house). Herself and her friends get a lift there every morning.

Firewalkwithme

Stark wrote:

Actually parents have gotten really lazy with their kids. My sister's school is outside the bus stop where I get the bus to college every morning (about a 7 minute walk from my house). Herself and her friends get a lift there every morning.

Is it that the parents are lazy or the kids? I'm sure most parents would welcome the idea of not having to do the school run anymore. This is just another example of why a bus service would work in my opinion.

MorningStar

Some really important issues to understand.
1) Parents are choosing to drive their kids to school even though it is a walkable distance. I base this on people I know and comments from people on the radio. They think it is safer than allowing the child to walk.
2) Many of the new housing estates and areas don't have schools so people have to commute but not to the same local school.
3) Schools open at 9am while parents start earlier or have to travel after droping kid off. Many parents drop their kids at creches that drop off and pick up kids to school so they use buses
4) School buses in the US are used for many ages and combined with stagger school opening times. This is to get best value from the transport and avoid ruush hour.
5) If schools changed hours parents would either need to change their own hours if possible of pay more child minding fees.
6) Schools in older areas are under used as there are no longer enough pupils.

THe issue is not as simple as originally posted.

My suggestion is to give incentives to retired people to move out of the older neighbourhoods (that have all the schools and close to employement) and get them to move out to the new suburbs. here are possible benifits
1) Families can buy a home close to the established facilities that they need
2) The older areas will get a shot of life as they are slowly dying (literally and metaphorically)
3) It should slow the urban sprawl
4) Purpose built property for later life would make pensioners lives better
5) The money made by the pensioners could be used to bump up their failing pensions
6) As commute times would be reduced everybody benifits

I know there are flwas but I think it could work.

Firewalkwithme

MorningStar wrote:

Some really important issues to understand.
1) Parents are choosing to drive their kids to school even though it is a walkable distance. I base this on people I know and comments from people on the radio. They think it is safer than allowing the child to walk.
2) Many of the new housing estates and areas don't have schools so people have to commute but not to the same local school.
3) Schools open at 9am while parents start earlier or have to travel after droping kid off. Many parents drop their kids at creches that drop off and pick up kids to school so they use buses
4) School buses in the US are used for many ages and combined with stagger school opening times. This is to get best value from the transport and avoid ruush hour.
5) If schools changed hours parents would either need to change their own hours if possible of pay more child minding fees.
6) Schools in older areas are under used as there are no longer enough pupils.

THe issue is not as simple as originally posted.

My suggestion is to give incentives to retired people to move out of the older neighbourhoods (that have all the schools and close to employement) and get them to move out to the new suburbs. here are possible benifits
1) Families can buy a home close to the established facilities that they need
2) The older areas will get a shot of life as they are slowly dying (literally and metaphorically)
3) It should slow the urban sprawl
4) Purpose built property for later life would make pensioners lives better
5) The money made by the pensioners could be used to bump up their failing pensions
6) As commute times would be reduced everybody benifits

I know there are flwas but I think it could work.

Clearly it won't be possible to accomodate every child but a target of 75% is achievable I believe.

Your suggestion about offering incentives to move older people out of developed areas would never work. Very few would want to move but the main problem is that if the younger people could afford to buy houses in the established areas they would already have done so.

I know the issue is not as simple as 'let's buy loads of buses', it involves propper planning of new developments too. There's certainly a need for discussion but lets not over complicate the issue by getting into debates about where old people should or shouldn't live. Besides, how long would we have to wait before enough older people had moved so that it would be feasable to start the bus system? 10, 20 years? This is a problem that we are living with now, something (if it is going to be done) needs to be done sooner rather than later.

MorningStar

Despatch wrote:

Clearly it won't be possible to accomodate every child but a target of 75% is achievable I believe.

Your suggestion about offering incentives to move older people out of developed areas would never work. Very few would want to move but the main problem is that if the younger people could afford to buy houses in the established areas they would already have done so.

I know the issue is not as simple as 'let's buy loads of buses', it involves propper planning of new developments too. There's certainly a need for discussion but lets not over complicate the issue by getting into debates about where old people should or shouldn't live. Besides, how long would we have to wait before enough older people had moved so that it would be feasable to start the bus system? 10, 20 years? This is a problem that we are living with now, something (if it is going to be done) needs to be done sooner rather than later.

Most people who have kids now have both partners working. That means a lot of what I said applies to all kids. I don't think 75% of kids would be targeted by your method. The reason so many kids are driven is because the schools aren't local. School buses aren't the real problem it is lack of local schools causing people to travel.
I know my idea isn't prefect but it's based on incentive. Not all the people would move or need to move for it to work. It hits a few things at once and 3 generations benifit kids, parents and grandparents. Yours only really benifits those who travel by car. My scheme would work with in 5 years and have lasting benifits past the lifespan of bus it would be a better planning for the city to progress. Many people I know could afford closer to Dublin now but here isn't the property and the increase in avilable property would bring down the price. Buses cost but tax incentives don't need to actually cost anything .
The school buses currently used are apparently in pretty bad nick. They need to replace these first before they buy new ones.

KC61

People also seem to always to forget that when schools are open, teachers are also driving to work!

They're not there in the summer either!

It's not just the kids!

billy the squid

Despatch wrote:

A child who lives in an urban area but chooses to go to a school many miles away should not be accomodated by having the bus bring them right to their front door, rather the buses should serve the locality around the school. This would encourage people to send their kids to local schools in order to avail of the free bus service.

Small problem with this is that the nearest school is not always the best school. A free bus ride isn't going to make mammy and daddy send their child to a school especially if the teachers in that school are not very good, or the school is full of disruptive children.

We could even use the new buses during the summer for ferrying noisy Spanish students around!

why not, we use nightlinks for noisy drunken irish idiots.:rolleyes:

ArthurDent

Stark wrote:

Actually parents have gotten really lazy with their kids. My sister's school is outside the bus stop where I get the bus to college every morning (about a 7 minute walk from my house). Herself and her friends get a lift there every morning.

Just curious do you have kids yourself? My son's school is a 15 - 20 minute walk in a reasonably good urban area and there is no way I would allow him to walk on his own at 6 - maybe at 10/12 (but that is a big maybe). There are nine roads to cross, 1 30 meter stretch without footpaths on an extemely narrow "rat-run". no lolipop ladies. If I am not working in the morning we will walk or cycle together (no cycle paths of course!) - (approx an hour by the time I go and come back), but on the day that I work I drive him, (5 minutes), I don't have an hour to spare those mornings before trying to get into work (a 40 -60 minute drive), I'm sure there are loads of parents in the same position as me.
As to school buses - the Dept of Education's position is that you must be over 2 miles away from the nearest school (regardless of it being your school of choice) before they will provide transport and as current legislation stands even if ther was a school bus, there is no way in hell I'd put him on one of those buses - not regulated by the same safety regs as cars, allow 3 to a seat and no safety belts.

Two measures that we've tried or are trying in our school we have a "walk on Wednesday" and "Cycle on Friday campaign" - kids get stamps/stickers for arriving on foot or bike and at the end of term the more stampps you get the better a treat you get. Also we are working ona "walking bus" where we have several meet up points along the route where parents can bring there kids and then they walk in a "snake" to school -a parent at beginning and end of the snake to ensure safety.

dewsbury

..nothing major to contribute other that I love the walking bus concept.

It is not new but has so many benefits , including;

a) Reduces traffic
b) Gives kids & adults exercise
c) Generates community spirit, parents get to know each other etc.
d) I suspect that the children would like it too.
...

(I do appreciate that the weather will not always be great - but I walked to school every day and survived!).

stevenmu

The traffic has been noticeably lighter this week though. The only reason I can think of for this is that the weather has been pretty good, which would mean that there are plenty of parents who are driving their kids to school even though they live close enough to walk when the weather is good.

Stark

ArthurDent wrote:

Just curious do you have kids yourself? My son's school is a 15 - 20 minute walk in a reasonably good urban area and there is no way I would allow him to walk on his own at 6 - maybe at 10/12 (but that is a big maybe).

Well my sister and her friends are all 12/13 and the school is only 7-10 mins walk. 4 roads to cross, 3 of them are usually devoid of traffic bar the odd car every 2 mins or so, and the only one that's half way busy (between the bus stop and the school) has a lollypop lady. (Not that a teenager should need a lollypop lady to cross the road safely).