School buses are the practical way for most school districts to ensure that kids can get to school. But in some cities, it's cheaper and simpler to contract with the local transit authority to provide extra service on routes needed to take people to school. That's what DC does for most kids, but now the rapaciously anti-transit Bush FTA says cities can't do it -- good bye economies of scale, hello inefficiency.
« Defending Marriage | Main | Question »
No Transit For You
28 Jun 2008 04:32 pm
Comments (44)
I would add that it's not just DC -- many, many cities do this.
It's most frequently used in my experience with magnet schools - schools that bring in kids from across cities and thus for whom using traditional school buses can't quite cut it. My magnet school in Austin, TX used city buses at around 6 am when there wasn't much demand on some of the other routes.
The Federal Government can micromanage the affairs of Washington DC, but what authority do they have to dictate this sort of thing to other cities?
That is insane and rapacious beyond all bounds of reason.
They're going to take money out of the coffers of big-city school districts AND transit authorities, to put it in the coffers of private bus charters.
I would prefer it if schools provided school buses to take kids to and from school as part of controlling the overall environment that we raise our kids in. But, while I'd be perfectly willing to pay for that extra expense I understand that others may not be so inclined.
The thing that upsets me is making this move - on short notice - and then not providing funding for an alternative as part of the bill. Grr!
to ensure that publicly funded transit systems don’t infringe on the private charter bus industry - from the article
That's not a very good reason to waste all that money and gasoline. Publicly funded services should generally not undercut the private sector, but there are plenty of exceptions (schools, for instance).
Marc,
I think for many of us who live in the city we like our kids to master public transit as a life skill. As for controlling the overall environment, I tend to think public buses and subways are probably places where kids have less chance of being subject to harrassment and bullying than a conventional school bus.
Everything private, because it's private, is better than anything public.
It's an article of GOP faith, and you can no more refute it with facts than you can refute the Nicean Creed.
I'll bet it's another Bush/Cheney plot to increase oil consumption and enrich KBR.
Seriously, what's the deal with having federal, state, and local taxes all three involved in local school and bus systems? Our leviathan government really knows no bounds.
Yes, Sir Charles, but how about the harassment and bullying that the rest of us have to put up with from the students on the bus or subway?
Bush Administration: "The rule is designed to ensure that publicly funded transit systems don’t infringe on the private charter bus industry."
Translation: The rule is designed to ensure that the private charter bus industry has a government granted monopoly on certain activities.
What a fucking ridiculous, completely unjustifiable rule (and not just for the school bus thing. It would also, for instance, forbid cities from running special buses to sporting events, and such like.)
Hi Sir Charles,
"I think for many of us who live in the city we like our kids to master public transit as a life skill."
A good point and I heartily agree you, but...
(there's always a but) = )
just to help clarify...
I guess I look at it this way. I certainly will want my kids to get exposure to the city in the somewhat controlled setting that public transit allows, just as I will want to sit down with my spouse and talk to my kids about sex, drugs, and the other facts of life.
But, not everyone else is going to put that level of effort - or be able to (single mom 2 jobs etc) - into raising their kids or making sure that they go to school after they say goodbye in the morning.
This is why I support sex ed in schools and support having buses whose sole purpose is getting kids to school.
The article gives no indication that the new rule has anything to do with Bush at all. It simply refers to it as a Federal Transit Administration rule. The article also suggests that parents would save money under the new rule, because they would no longer have to pay Metro $26/month for each of their children to get to school. I thought "progressives" were supposed to be in favor of helping working families with children.
I'm sure that Mr. Al and Mr. Mixner will be along shortly to argue that this is a great ukase from the Bush Administration.
"The article also suggests that parents would save money under the new rule, because they would no longer have to pay Metro $26/month for each of their children to get to school."
The increased cost to transport the kids will just be added to the school district budget in future years and will show up as an increase in local property taxes (as that is how most schools are funded in the US).
The increased cost to transport the kids will just be added to the school district budget in future years and will show up as an increase in local property taxes (as that is how most schools are funded in the US).
Right, which means the cost will be spread among more people. Rich people with big houses will have to pay a larger share than they do now, and working families with children will get a break. Again, I thought progressives were supposed to be in favor of that sort of thing.
"The article also suggests that parents would save money under the new rule, because they would no longer have to pay Metro $26/month for each of their children to get to school."
It also said 'families.'
And your point is....?
It sounds like if you have 2 children, it's still $26.
Also this 'rise in property taxes' moment will take some time, so in the meantime, this sudden introduction of inefficiency will, in the short term at least (and potentially in the longer term) simply drain schools of money.
The article gives no indication that the new rule has anything to do with Bush at all. It simply refers to it as a Federal Transit Administration rule.
Right. Federal agencies have nothing at all to do with the executive authority in charge of federal agencies.
What I believe must be the same rule came up with regard to the efforts of Lane County (Oregon) transit to run shuttle buses to the currently ongoing Olympic trials. Some charter company that had no hope of providing service as adequate as LTD tried to invoke the rule, but I believe an acceptable solution was found in time.
mike,
It sounds like if you have 2 children, it's still $26.
It says: "Each student’s family pays Metro $26 a month for the service, and the District subsidizes the program by paying the transit agency an additional $26 a month per student." The wording is ambiguous, but it sounds like a per-student cost. In any case, it implies that any family using the system will save money.
Jasper,
Right. Federal agencies have nothing at all to do with the executive authority in charge of federal agencies.
No one said that. Is it your contention that every change in a federal agency rule is made under the direction of the White House? Federal agencies are staffed mainly by career civil servants, not political appointees. The assumption that any time a rule changes it is done under the direction of the executive is idiotic.
That was a similar but different rule, Gene O'Grady.
What's interesting about this is that the Bushies are dynamiting the Republican party as they retreat, the way the German army destroyed Germany as they retreated in spring of '45. Stuff like banning solar development on Federal lands for two years, banning municipal transit systems from serving large events, requiring school districts to buy buses or contract (with Halliburton subsidiaries?) service- this is all going to leave a sour taste with a bunch of middle-of-the-road types.
Frankly, I'm all for it- I would love to see the rightwingers shoot the Republican brand in the foot so often it bleeds to death. By now the entire federal government has to be hosed out and bleached and disinfected before the rebuilding can start anyway.
Here in Seattle our Metro bus system, starting next year, will be forbidden from providing additional service routes to UW Husky football games, Mariners games, and Seahawks games. (Bye bye, Sonics, by the way, don't let the door hit you on the way out).
No private service can offer the economies of scale (nevermind the actually frickin' buses, with accommodations for the disabled), that Metro can. But, still, Metro apparently is preventing a private company that does not at this time exist from offering bus service to sporting events.
I shit you not, the next thing will be the feds subsidizing private bus companies so they can buy and operate large transit vehicles for sporting events so they can "compete" with the currently rather great, cheap, and in-place transit systems.
God I hate Republicans and "market is wise" types.
Here in Seattle our Metro bus system, starting next year, will be forbidden from providing additional service routes to UW Husky football games, Mariners games, and Seahawks games.
Good. Sports fans should pay for their own transportation to their games.
God I hate Republicans and "market is wise" types.
God, I hate the loony left and "more government is better government" types.
Posted by Jasper | June 28, 2008 8:12 PM
The article gives no indication that the new rule has anything to do with Bush at all. It simply refers to it as a Federal Transit Administration rule.
Right. Federal agencies have nothing at all to do with the executive authority in charge of federal agencies.
No, no, no, he is responding to the part of the blog post that said:
... the rapaciously anti-transit Bush FTA
... with the pretense that it is a claim that Bush personally ordered the rule change.
It is necessary to misread the statement, because it is, on the face of it, unarguable that it is "the Bush FTA", and pretending that it is not rapaciously anti-transit would be even more laughable than the straw horse argument selected.
... with the pretense that it is a claim that Bush personally ordered the rule change.
No one "pretended" that. The implication in Matthew's post is that the rule was changed under the direction of the Bush Administration. No evidence has been presented to substantiate that claim.
It is necessary to misread the statement, because it is, on the face of it, unarguable that it is "the Bush FTA",
Nonsense. You might just as well call it "The Democrat-controlled Congress FTA" or "The civil service FTA."
Mixner,
As a DC resident and taxpayer, let me assure you that most of us here like the current system and don't want the feds screwing with it. But local control is never sacred when it comes to us -- we are the perennial guinea pigs for bad Republican social policy.
Buying school buses or hiring private bus firms to do what Metro is currently doing now is an unimaginable waste of money and resources. Why do we want to add additional vehicles on the streets here? (Many of the kids take the subway, which is also fast and environmentally sound -- why would we want to put them in street vehicles?)
And the notion that a federal agency action does not come from the White House is just puerile beyond imagination.
Here in Seattle our Metro bus system, starting next year, will be forbidden from providing additional service routes to UW Husky football games, Mariners games, and Seahawks games.
Seattle needs to ask themselves, "what would bush do?" if some agency ordered him to do something he didn't like. He would tell the agency to go fuck themselves and dare them to do something about it. Which is what Seattle should tell Bush's FTA.
puerile beyond imagination - why that's the very definition of the loony libertarians exemplified by Mixner.
Buying school buses or hiring private bus firms to do what Metro is currently doing now is an unimaginable waste of money and resources. Why do we want to add additional vehicles on the streets here? (Many of the kids take the subway, which is also fast and environmentally sound -- why would we want to put them in street vehicles?)
Wow, unimaginable waste, you say. Are you sure it's really that bad?
The new policy may or may not be a bad idea. I'd like see a serious presentation of the FTA's case for changing the rule and the school district's case for preserving it before I came to any conclusion. But then, I'm not a ranting ideologue who never met a conclusion he couldn't jump to. Like, say, that "Not as stupid..." guy.
Mixner,
I fucking live here -- and have for 26 years. I have a son in school here and his peers use this service widely. (We are lucky enough to be in walking distance -- although he uses the Metro Bus when he is feeling lazy.) His school, like many others in the city, is right by a subway stop and is located on a main street with good bus service. It is an extremely busy artery in and out of DC and needs no more vehicular traffic.
The reason for changing the rule is that ranting ideologues -- and those who love their corporate welfare -- run this administration.
You know nothing of the specifics of things here and yet spout opinions as though you do. Really if there is one thing that probably belongs in the hands of the local electorate it is decisions like this.
This isn't school bus related, but it IS mass-transit related:
For decades, Louisville, Ky.'s bus system has run a system of shuttle buses to and from Churchill Downs for the Kentucky Derby. A recently passed federal law will force Louisville to contract that shuttle service to private companies instead. Of course, this kicks the local transit company in the butt because revenue from Derby has helped keep overall costs, and fares, down.
Yay, private sector
Please, every single one of your posts is based on the premise that "government is evil" "private business is good." You purposely misread "the rapaciously anti-transit Bush FTA" as "Bush, via the FTA" because that fit your ideological predisposition.
By the way, I'm quite sure that "unimaginable waste" was what readers of the English language would call "hyperbole," given the massive waste that is the Bush administration's basic reason for existence.
As for your sudden "let's wait for the facts attitude," sure. This will turn out to be the single time in the history of the Bush administration that they put sound science, fiscal policy, or good governance ahead of the interests of crony capitalism. It could happen.
You are the worst kind of ideologue, one pretending to be above all that tribalism while hewing closely to your preconceptions, prejudices and pathetically childish view of the world.
Your posts are as predictable as rain in Seattle - unfortunately they are even more common.
This really doesn't seem like a case where the FTA is stepping in and 'solving some problem.' The current system seems fine.
If it is fine, why change it? The only reasons I can think of are either pure ideology or patronage.
See, this statement only comes from someone who has never had to depend on a bus to get to school
or to work on time. So everyone should ride public transportation Matthew, No one should get
a car. As this would add to the harmony of everyone getting along. Right.
But then, I'm not a ranting ideologue who never met a conclusion he couldn't jump to.
Someone alert Mixner: there's a namestealer afoot.
Well, I think most of us have a pretty good idea what has happened here- the charter bus companies donated to the Republicans, the Bush WH packed the FTA just like they packed the Justice (sic) Department and tried to pack the EPA, and this rule is one of the payoffs to the charter bus operators.
It is exactly what we've come to expect from the Republicans, an unfunded mandate from corrupt bureaucrats who are reaching a greedy hand into the public funds to reward their campaign contributors. All part of the Republican dream of a big government in Washington DC squashing local initiative.
This rule has nothing to do with improving education or helping poor people. How do I know that? Because no private schools are affected. How do I know that? Because the FTA has no jurisdiction over private schools. Even the lawless hand of big-government Bush has limits.
Watch Mixner's style of argument carefully- if you ever have to deal with a lawyer in a county courthouse, the chances are pretty good you'll be dealing with Mixnerian dialogue. Those who have been there will know what I mean.
As for Narciso, indeed, no elementary students should be getting cars and driving to school- no matter how punctual it might make them. Sheesh, better trolls, please.
Reminds me of the unforgettable chopper video of the hundreds of New Orleans school buses abandoned in a submerged parking lot while scenes of desperate unevacuated refugees at the SuperDome and Civic Center were being broadcast around the world.
This is a systemic problem not isolated to any particular administration or party.
Why would school buses be needed in a densely populated area like DC?
The climate is mild, the kids are fat plus CO2 would be saved.
Amazing as it may seem, this is another area where public policy should be going exactly the opposite direction from the Bush gang.
In my rural county there are vast patches with no scheduled bus service at all- except for students. School buses routinely trundle five miles, pick up one student, &tc until they deliver, after 20 miles of driving, a dozen students to the school.
These should all be made into public transit routes. They wouldn't even need to buy any new buses at first, because our dial-a-ride access-capable coaches could easily handle the number of students picked up on these routes. This would improve ridership, increase access, and be a serious comfort upgrade for the students.
At a time when fuel prices are doubling every three years, we should be improving public transit, not letting Republicans try to destroy it.
Mark,
There is quite a bit of cross dstrict travel by kids in DC as a result of school choice. Many student travel several miles to get to the high school near my office. It has a subway stop a few hundred yards away from it, making that the optimal means of travel for many of these kids.
Re Mark
"Why would school buses be needed in a densely populated area like DC?
The climate is mild, the kids are fat plus CO2 would be saved."
The climate may be mild relative to Minnesota but it most assuredly is not mild relative to where I come from (Los Angeles/Berkeley, Ca.).
Comments closed July 12, 2008.
| 
Heads in the Sand
You've got to be kidding me. This is so outrageous. Well I guess not as outrageous as detention of citizens without charge, torture, warrantless wiretapping, extraordinary rendition, and wars of aggression. But outrageous nonetheless.
This will be a huge problem in DC.
Posted by Sir Charles | June 28, 2008 5:03 PM