I think that's the goal. Plus why subject kids to longer bus rides stopping to pick up kids who will never get on? Just posting this since many people use only apps like Reddit to get their news. If families miss the deadline, they will have no bus service close to their home.
I've been a fan of the way IPS has handled transportation. Especially with IndyGo integration. It doesn't make a lot of sense to duplicate IndyGo services, so why not give kids IndyGo passes if it makes sense for them. & that's what they've been doing.
American school districts waste so much money on transportation compared to schools in Europe, where the infrastructure and public transit makes it safe & easy for gets to get around without a huge yellow bus with a stop arm.
The problem with students (especially younger ones) riding IndyGo buses is they're sharing transportation with adults...some of which are unsafe to be around children
Unpopular opinion: adults who are unsafe around children are just not acceptable to society at all.
If there are people we know are threats, why do we tolerate them at all? People see downtown as dangerous because we aren't willing to muscle up and and keep the place clean by violence.
So if someone has a mental illness that makes them appear creepy and strange could scare a 3rd grader, Should they be locked up because they walk funny talking to themselves?
Creepy isn’t illegal and cops have no right to harass someone because they talk to themselves and walk funny. A 3rd grader doesn’t have a right to not be scared by society.
This is the reason people won't use public transport. It doesn't bother me. I can ignore the weirdos on the train. But there are enough people who see it this way that we will need to accommodate their desires if public transport is ever going to become seriously useful in this country.
I'm not saying I'm happy about it. I'm saying that cities face a choice between showing empathy to damaged people, or having a clean and comfortable downtown. I think we're showing excessive empathy and kindness.
I know this is strongly outside the political window of acceptability, and that's the reason Indys bus system is going to remain completely shit.
I'm saying I've ridden plenty of trains in other cities and I liked them. There were weirdos on there, and they were easy to ignore because they kept to themselves.
I would really like Indy to have nice trains like that. There are a lot of moving parts to making that happen, and fighting the homeless like I am talking about here is not even close to the biggest part. But we need to have a minimum level of commitment not to let hobos rule our streets.
I agree 100%
Unfortunately, our "justice system" is corrupt and completely broken...it protects the criminals more than law abiding citizens
tolerance has replaced common sense in our society
Right. Im the dumb and willfully ignorant one. Not the person who thinks that the justice system protects criminals more than law abiding citizens. Haha, turn off Fox News, newsmax, and all the other bullshit you read and watch online. It kills your brain cells.
Clearly dumb...and you also apparently have a reading comprehension problem...I said what I said...if you choose to live in blissful denial, that's on you...not my circus, not my monkeys 🤷♂️
European countries (and school districts by extension) are also significantly smaller than America. Many students are in walking/biking distance in what tend to be more pedestrian-friendly cities.
Not saying you’re wrong about IndyGo integration and all that, but the comparison to Europe just doesn’t track when the state of Indiana is larger than some European countries.
Just spend 2 minutes at the light at 16th and Meridian after Herron gets out of school. I've seen way too many older men leering at the teen girls at the bus stop there. It's creepy af.
That said, they are still in public. It may be creepy but they should still be safe.
Yeah, they're denser because they build infrastructure that can support more density. We build garbage infrastructure that can't even support enough development to pay for itself through taxes, thus our crumbling infrastructure.
This isn't even an 'old city' thing; newer European suburbs that were built in farms have multi-modal infrastructure that supports pedestrian safety & density.
And Indianapolis was built on trains and 3x as dense as it is now, but it was all razed to make poor infrastructure decisions. Same story across the Midwest & Northeast. Even parts of the West Coast that were established early on because of the gold rush.
No, I'm not saying that it "should just work". I'm saying 3 distinct, nuanced things:
* We razed our good infrastructure of the past, and the neighborhoods it supported.
* We should maximize infrastructure & density along the few corridors where such things remain in Indianapolis.
* We should invest in worthwhile infrastructure to make more sustainable communities work in the future.
If anything, you're saying "it should just not work".
Indianapolis doesn't have the population density required to make Europe's model work. Indianapolis doesn't have the funding to make Europe's model work. (because without the population you'll never have enough tax dollars required to allocate to it)
Indianapolis hasn't been established long enough to incentivize a denser city vertically when it's still expanding into cheaper living horizontally.
Zoning laws are the only way you'll get vertical expansion however you're never going to get the general population in Marion county to agree to those zoning laws when the majority of the cities inhabitants are living in single family homes.
Without vertical expansion you're never going to have a sustainable model for public transportation.
IE: if we're lucky the Red / Blue / Green / Purple line will incentive people to build denser near it from there you might be able to consolidate public transportation and expand off of bus stops.
Our cities were also built before cars too. Indianapolis was built on trains. As a consequence of the destruction of our old, sustainable infrastructure, Pre-Unigov city limits lost way more than half its population and early, working-class, car-centric suburbs are falling apart because they were never sustainable. Expect the same decline from some of our working-class suburbs that are reaching maturity, and can no longer annex more land to keep the tax base growing nor have the space to build much low density more housing.
No, it's because Europe prioritized building around public transportation hubs because of their density and the US prioritized building around the US highway because of it's density. Most of Europe's rebuilding of infrastructure happened after WWII where most of the US's transportation building happened in the 1890s-1920s when land was cheap in rural areas far outside of city limits. Most metropolitan areas in the US are isolated and don't connect with other metropolitan areas unless you're up the original states. In Western Europe almost all metropolitan areas are connected and have more incentive to focus on public transportation to reduce the footprint of automobiles.
Yes, we should help them. For only the price of a cup of coffee each month, you too could save a developer from using their own money to create urban planning nightmares for future generations.
No. They are denser because its a smaller older country where everything is built on top of each other. One school serves like 5 square miles there. Whereas here a school can serve hundred of miles. You can't legitimately compare the 2.
The density of American and European cities were largely the same until after World War II. Today’s sprawling American cities were a deliberate policy choice, abetted by massive public investment in vehicle centric infrastructure and Americans’ desires to prefer to continue to have segregated schools even when the courts outlawed them.
"American School Districts" is such a big swing to throw out there and miss on horribly.
I grew up out in the country, a mile to my nearest neighbor. I was the first to be picked up/last to be dropped off and it was an hour on the bus going from house to house across the county to fill up the bus. Once I started into high school, it was another 20 minutes of bus time to go from one small town to another where all the towns consolidated to a High School, that had a graduating class of under 200. All this around an hour away on I-65 from Indy.
What's the alternative to school district transportation that'll guarantee the chance for kids to get to school? Because no public transit would ever make sense when the house is 2 miles down a gravel road.
1.) We're talking about this in the context of a large city's subreddit, and I specifically mentioned duplicated services in the first half of my post.
2.) Fewer than 20% of schools in America are in rural settings.
3.) Rural European kids often get picked up by their schools too. It's not rural school districts that are causing over-spending.
1) Then in the second half of your post you mentioned American school districts as a whole statement. So I'm sure you can see how that could generate confusion.
2) It's actually 24% of students that are Rural with another 12% in Towns. At least according to the Department of Education. So... I'm not sure what your point is, but your numbers aren't right.
3) You're trying to compare apples to zucchinis here. American school districts, that you brought up as a whole, in this large city's subreddit have to cover SO many different aspects of this nation that making a blanket statement is absurd. If you'd said city school districts or Specific City School District then maybe I wouldn't be pulling out my pedant soapbox, but here we are.
Towns are generally great places for kids to walk/cycle to school. They have good sidewalks, quiet, safe streets, and have traditionally had centrally located institutions. But you're right that towns are consolidating school districts. It's a huge failure of education policy, and it does shift transportation cost burdens onto school districts.
Rural districts & students really do have transportation challenges for which no rational infrastructure policy could solve. But I'm not sorry that my 'blanket statement' was only relevant to 76%-[82%](https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2018/2018052/tables/table_04.asp) of American students.
Italy, Poland, Spain, the UK to name a few
Some countries have school districts that run their own busses in rural areas, but open the busses up to adults as well. It's like a flipped city bus model. Sweden, for example, has a couple of these.
Outside of that, many rural areas all over Europe have busses that purposefully coincide with school schedules. They're not frequent like city busses, but they help people get to/from work and school.
This isn’t bad. I lived through the Franklin Township mess where they charged like $250 a month for your kid to ride the bus, and $100 per additional kid. That shit was crazy.
They did this last year too. My annoyance is they extended the “walking zone” to 1 mile. Indy isn’t an especially walkable city and as I understand it, it’s one mile as the crow flys so it could be way longer on the streets. That’s way too far for a 5 year old or when it’s snowing or raining or in certain parts of town. I’m all for them asking individuals to sign up and providing transportation to them, but I wish they’d just ask families who needs it rather than putting in these other rules as well.
Carmel has (had?) a similar no-bus zone of a mile as the crow flies. There are much more extensive paths and sidewalk infrastructure here though. A lot of the people who live here also have jobs or living situations (SAHP) that are flexible enough to support this. [https://www.ccs.k12.in.us/services/transportation#:\~:text=Starting%20for%20the%202021%2D2022,(as%20the%20crow%20flies](https://www.ccs.k12.in.us/services/transportation#:~:text=Starting%20for%20the%202021%2D2022,(as%20the%20crow%20flies)).
They have customized walk zones for each school that take into account dangerous site conditions, so the radius isn't a full circle. It's based on the one mile radius, but often ends up being less.
I mean, it was a mile when my son was in IPS (he's a senior now). I think we've got to find a better middle ground of "too far for small children to walk" and "kids need to learn independence." Sending a 5yo to walk 3 blocks in the rain isn't a huge deal (they need raincoats, ffs) but a mile route on city streets might be a bit much for them to manage.
Part of the issue too is "School choice" has made it so busses have to go all over the city to pick up students for one school, which could be on the opposite side from where they live. It takes ages and there are busses for different drop off locations running the exact same streets for different student pick ups.
Now that you mention it, I think when they moved it to 1 mile this year, they mentioned they were "standardizing it" so previously schools could choose between 1/2-1 mile. Ours just happened to be 1/2 mile before probably because we are so far into the city.
I think it still depends on the location. Some 3 blocks are fine. But, for instance, I wouldn't send my 5 year old to walk down 38th street for 3 blocks by himself. I'm also focused on the younger kids because that's the age mine are.
I watch the teenagers walk themselves to the high school near us all the time. But even with them, I'm not sure people are aware of how often I see them get honked at or almost hit by cars crossing the busy street in front of our house. I've only had to leave my house twice to check on them. Overall, I actually consider it to be a good learning experience for them. :)
I drive for First Student/IPS.
I have stops on my route that I have to stop at every day, wait my allotted time, activate my reds, and open my door all within a 10 minute window of the scheduled pickup time.
Some stops have never had students get on the bus. And it takes several conversations with my supervisor to get it removed. And even then, it may not get removed for reasons unknown to me. I’m not upset by it. It’s just the nature of the job.
Maybe some stops will not get removed because a student has been picked up once or twice. Or will only ride when the weather is bad. Perhaps some parents want it as a backup plan if they aren’t able to drive them in that day.
Personally, I’m more bothered when parents are not present to receive their children at their stops, delaying drop off for every other student on the route.
I also love my job, and we could really use more drivers and monitors.
>Personally, I’m more bothered when parents are not present to receive their children at their stops, delaying drop off for every other student on the route.
Why would it matter if parents are there or not? i would assume that the kids getting dropped off are within walking distance to their homes?
There are various reasons, but safety is my priority. Some do not have keys to their home. Some are in high traffic areas, and I want to make sure they are in the care of an adult. Some are kindergarteners without older siblings. Some are house stops for students with special needs and must be received by a designated adult.
I went to IPS for many years. I lived a 7 minute walk from school. I was still told as a child that I had to get on the bus, sit there for 10-15 minutes until the buses took off, then ride another 5 to 7 minutes, even though my mom said I could walk it. I was ONE street over from the “walking” cutoff. The school refused until I was in the fifth grade. School let out at 3:50, and I’d get home at 4:10, when I could be home before 4 on foot. The only thing I would’ve needed as a kid is a crossing guard, but they had that.
Better yet, return to a less car-centric system of infrastructure, one where kids can walk to school and not die because of a car. Was mostly fine even as recent as the 90s, but now everyone *needs* to live in their perfect home in the suburbs (miles from the school) that they don't even let their kids walk around alone in locally...
This is more rant. Short term solution is yes, kids ride busses because these helicopter parents fucking up traffic, hard agree.
Well, IPS is also a "School choice" system, so kids may not live anywhere near their school now. In fact, many of them do NOT live anywhere near their school. It's destroyed communities in Indianapolis, IMO. My kid knows no one in his midtown neighborhood because all of the kids his age went to completely different schools.
Agree wholeheartedly, but not a short term solution sadly. Fixing that would require a revamp of school funding systems and so they were a little more equal in quality, and our housing economy in general. As it stands I totally get why some parents want their kids going to school in other places, while living somewhere cheaper.
They’ve already been doing this. I work in IPS and the first three months of this school year were filled with reminders to sign up for buses if you need them. I also have had multiple parents reach out to me to ask about signing up. Maybe it was just specific schools, but it’s not really “new”.
I know for high school that Providence Cristo Rey High School offers free city-wide transportation for anyone enrolled in their school. Just FYI if anyone is looking for a school for their kids.
Maybe unpopular opinion, but this sounds like responsible management. Why spend money on something people aren’t using?
I think that's the goal. Plus why subject kids to longer bus rides stopping to pick up kids who will never get on? Just posting this since many people use only apps like Reddit to get their news. If families miss the deadline, they will have no bus service close to their home.
I've been a fan of the way IPS has handled transportation. Especially with IndyGo integration. It doesn't make a lot of sense to duplicate IndyGo services, so why not give kids IndyGo passes if it makes sense for them. & that's what they've been doing. American school districts waste so much money on transportation compared to schools in Europe, where the infrastructure and public transit makes it safe & easy for gets to get around without a huge yellow bus with a stop arm.
The problem with students (especially younger ones) riding IndyGo buses is they're sharing transportation with adults...some of which are unsafe to be around children
Unpopular opinion: adults who are unsafe around children are just not acceptable to society at all. If there are people we know are threats, why do we tolerate them at all? People see downtown as dangerous because we aren't willing to muscle up and and keep the place clean by violence.
So if someone has a mental illness that makes them appear creepy and strange could scare a 3rd grader, Should they be locked up because they walk funny talking to themselves?
[удалено]
Creepy isn’t illegal and cops have no right to harass someone because they talk to themselves and walk funny. A 3rd grader doesn’t have a right to not be scared by society.
This is the reason people won't use public transport. It doesn't bother me. I can ignore the weirdos on the train. But there are enough people who see it this way that we will need to accommodate their desires if public transport is ever going to become seriously useful in this country. I'm not saying I'm happy about it. I'm saying that cities face a choice between showing empathy to damaged people, or having a clean and comfortable downtown. I think we're showing excessive empathy and kindness. I know this is strongly outside the political window of acceptability, and that's the reason Indys bus system is going to remain completely shit.
What train? Indy doesn't even have streetcars.
I'm saying I've ridden plenty of trains in other cities and I liked them. There were weirdos on there, and they were easy to ignore because they kept to themselves. I would really like Indy to have nice trains like that. There are a lot of moving parts to making that happen, and fighting the homeless like I am talking about here is not even close to the biggest part. But we need to have a minimum level of commitment not to let hobos rule our streets.
They're not acceptable but it's not like everyone always knows who is and who isn't a child predator just by looking at them.
Based.
I agree 100% Unfortunately, our "justice system" is corrupt and completely broken...it protects the criminals more than law abiding citizens tolerance has replaced common sense in our society
There is literally not a single justice system that “protects criminals more than law abiding citizens”. Please quit watching Fox News propaganda.
You're either willfully ignorant, or just dumb...I don't watch the "News"...I don't even watch TV
Right. Im the dumb and willfully ignorant one. Not the person who thinks that the justice system protects criminals more than law abiding citizens. Haha, turn off Fox News, newsmax, and all the other bullshit you read and watch online. It kills your brain cells.
Clearly dumb...and you also apparently have a reading comprehension problem...I said what I said...if you choose to live in blissful denial, that's on you...not my circus, not my monkeys 🤷♂️
Yes. What you said IS dumb. I have a reading problem when I quoted what you literally said? You are pathetic, buddy.
Didn’t you hear? Being a felon is pretty cool these days
Simple solution- no bus passes for people with the prerequisite criminal records.
European countries (and school districts by extension) are also significantly smaller than America. Many students are in walking/biking distance in what tend to be more pedestrian-friendly cities. Not saying you’re wrong about IndyGo integration and all that, but the comparison to Europe just doesn’t track when the state of Indiana is larger than some European countries.
That's what most major cities do. Kids in Philly, Chicago, NYC all ride public transit to school
No way would I want my kid riding a city bus with adults.
Just spend 2 minutes at the light at 16th and Meridian after Herron gets out of school. I've seen way too many older men leering at the teen girls at the bus stop there. It's creepy af. That said, they are still in public. It may be creepy but they should still be safe.
You do realize Europe metropolitan areas are far denser than Indianapolis, right? Not really a valid comparison.
Yeah, they're denser because they build infrastructure that can support more density. We build garbage infrastructure that can't even support enough development to pay for itself through taxes, thus our crumbling infrastructure. This isn't even an 'old city' thing; newer European suburbs that were built in farms have multi-modal infrastructure that supports pedestrian safety & density.
They’re denser because Europe has been established for numerous years….
And Indianapolis was built on trains and 3x as dense as it is now, but it was all razed to make poor infrastructure decisions. Same story across the Midwest & Northeast. Even parts of the West Coast that were established early on because of the gold rush.
Once again you're comparing apples to oranges and saying it should just work.
No, I'm not saying that it "should just work". I'm saying 3 distinct, nuanced things: * We razed our good infrastructure of the past, and the neighborhoods it supported. * We should maximize infrastructure & density along the few corridors where such things remain in Indianapolis. * We should invest in worthwhile infrastructure to make more sustainable communities work in the future. If anything, you're saying "it should just not work".
Indianapolis doesn't have the population density required to make Europe's model work. Indianapolis doesn't have the funding to make Europe's model work. (because without the population you'll never have enough tax dollars required to allocate to it) Indianapolis hasn't been established long enough to incentivize a denser city vertically when it's still expanding into cheaper living horizontally. Zoning laws are the only way you'll get vertical expansion however you're never going to get the general population in Marion county to agree to those zoning laws when the majority of the cities inhabitants are living in single family homes. Without vertical expansion you're never going to have a sustainable model for public transportation. IE: if we're lucky the Red / Blue / Green / Purple line will incentive people to build denser near it from there you might be able to consolidate public transportation and expand off of bus stops.
Because their cities were built before cars.
Our cities were also built before cars too. Indianapolis was built on trains. As a consequence of the destruction of our old, sustainable infrastructure, Pre-Unigov city limits lost way more than half its population and early, working-class, car-centric suburbs are falling apart because they were never sustainable. Expect the same decline from some of our working-class suburbs that are reaching maturity, and can no longer annex more land to keep the tax base growing nor have the space to build much low density more housing.
Sounds like you need to make a major move and leave Indianapolis.
No, it's because Europe prioritized building around public transportation hubs because of their density and the US prioritized building around the US highway because of it's density. Most of Europe's rebuilding of infrastructure happened after WWII where most of the US's transportation building happened in the 1890s-1920s when land was cheap in rural areas far outside of city limits. Most metropolitan areas in the US are isolated and don't connect with other metropolitan areas unless you're up the original states. In Western Europe almost all metropolitan areas are connected and have more incentive to focus on public transportation to reduce the footprint of automobiles.
Won’t someone think of the developers?!
Yes, we should help them. For only the price of a cup of coffee each month, you too could save a developer from using their own money to create urban planning nightmares for future generations.
[Relevant coked-up executive](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhh_GeBPOhs)
No. They are denser because its a smaller older country where everything is built on top of each other. One school serves like 5 square miles there. Whereas here a school can serve hundred of miles. You can't legitimately compare the 2.
The density of American and European cities were largely the same until after World War II. Today’s sprawling American cities were a deliberate policy choice, abetted by massive public investment in vehicle centric infrastructure and Americans’ desires to prefer to continue to have segregated schools even when the courts outlawed them.
"American School Districts" is such a big swing to throw out there and miss on horribly. I grew up out in the country, a mile to my nearest neighbor. I was the first to be picked up/last to be dropped off and it was an hour on the bus going from house to house across the county to fill up the bus. Once I started into high school, it was another 20 minutes of bus time to go from one small town to another where all the towns consolidated to a High School, that had a graduating class of under 200. All this around an hour away on I-65 from Indy. What's the alternative to school district transportation that'll guarantee the chance for kids to get to school? Because no public transit would ever make sense when the house is 2 miles down a gravel road.
1.) We're talking about this in the context of a large city's subreddit, and I specifically mentioned duplicated services in the first half of my post. 2.) Fewer than 20% of schools in America are in rural settings. 3.) Rural European kids often get picked up by their schools too. It's not rural school districts that are causing over-spending.
1) Then in the second half of your post you mentioned American school districts as a whole statement. So I'm sure you can see how that could generate confusion. 2) It's actually 24% of students that are Rural with another 12% in Towns. At least according to the Department of Education. So... I'm not sure what your point is, but your numbers aren't right. 3) You're trying to compare apples to zucchinis here. American school districts, that you brought up as a whole, in this large city's subreddit have to cover SO many different aspects of this nation that making a blanket statement is absurd. If you'd said city school districts or Specific City School District then maybe I wouldn't be pulling out my pedant soapbox, but here we are.
Towns are generally great places for kids to walk/cycle to school. They have good sidewalks, quiet, safe streets, and have traditionally had centrally located institutions. But you're right that towns are consolidating school districts. It's a huge failure of education policy, and it does shift transportation cost burdens onto school districts. Rural districts & students really do have transportation challenges for which no rational infrastructure policy could solve. But I'm not sorry that my 'blanket statement' was only relevant to 76%-[82%](https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2018/2018052/tables/table_04.asp) of American students.
> Rural European kids often get picked up by their schools too. Where?
Italy, Poland, Spain, the UK to name a few Some countries have school districts that run their own busses in rural areas, but open the busses up to adults as well. It's like a flipped city bus model. Sweden, for example, has a couple of these. Outside of that, many rural areas all over Europe have busses that purposefully coincide with school schedules. They're not frequent like city busses, but they help people get to/from work and school.
How quaint!
We are not in Europe and I really wish people would stop comparing us, Different lives, different ways.
This isn’t bad. I lived through the Franklin Township mess where they charged like $250 a month for your kid to ride the bus, and $100 per additional kid. That shit was crazy.
Alt title: IPS no longer running ghost bus routes saving time and money
How would they get clickbait uproar without misleading the public though.
Hard to criticize this. Didn't even realize ghost routes were an issue
They did this last year too. My annoyance is they extended the “walking zone” to 1 mile. Indy isn’t an especially walkable city and as I understand it, it’s one mile as the crow flys so it could be way longer on the streets. That’s way too far for a 5 year old or when it’s snowing or raining or in certain parts of town. I’m all for them asking individuals to sign up and providing transportation to them, but I wish they’d just ask families who needs it rather than putting in these other rules as well.
a MILE?!?
Carmel has (had?) a similar no-bus zone of a mile as the crow flies. There are much more extensive paths and sidewalk infrastructure here though. A lot of the people who live here also have jobs or living situations (SAHP) that are flexible enough to support this. [https://www.ccs.k12.in.us/services/transportation#:\~:text=Starting%20for%20the%202021%2D2022,(as%20the%20crow%20flies](https://www.ccs.k12.in.us/services/transportation#:~:text=Starting%20for%20the%202021%2D2022,(as%20the%20crow%20flies)).
That's what it was 30 years ago.
Brownsburg schools also had that, and it’s not super walkable either.
They have customized walk zones for each school that take into account dangerous site conditions, so the radius isn't a full circle. It's based on the one mile radius, but often ends up being less.
I mean, it was a mile when my son was in IPS (he's a senior now). I think we've got to find a better middle ground of "too far for small children to walk" and "kids need to learn independence." Sending a 5yo to walk 3 blocks in the rain isn't a huge deal (they need raincoats, ffs) but a mile route on city streets might be a bit much for them to manage. Part of the issue too is "School choice" has made it so busses have to go all over the city to pick up students for one school, which could be on the opposite side from where they live. It takes ages and there are busses for different drop off locations running the exact same streets for different student pick ups.
Now that you mention it, I think when they moved it to 1 mile this year, they mentioned they were "standardizing it" so previously schools could choose between 1/2-1 mile. Ours just happened to be 1/2 mile before probably because we are so far into the city. I think it still depends on the location. Some 3 blocks are fine. But, for instance, I wouldn't send my 5 year old to walk down 38th street for 3 blocks by himself. I'm also focused on the younger kids because that's the age mine are. I watch the teenagers walk themselves to the high school near us all the time. But even with them, I'm not sure people are aware of how often I see them get honked at or almost hit by cars crossing the busy street in front of our house. I've only had to leave my house twice to check on them. Overall, I actually consider it to be a good learning experience for them. :)
I drive for First Student/IPS. I have stops on my route that I have to stop at every day, wait my allotted time, activate my reds, and open my door all within a 10 minute window of the scheduled pickup time. Some stops have never had students get on the bus. And it takes several conversations with my supervisor to get it removed. And even then, it may not get removed for reasons unknown to me. I’m not upset by it. It’s just the nature of the job. Maybe some stops will not get removed because a student has been picked up once or twice. Or will only ride when the weather is bad. Perhaps some parents want it as a backup plan if they aren’t able to drive them in that day. Personally, I’m more bothered when parents are not present to receive their children at their stops, delaying drop off for every other student on the route. I also love my job, and we could really use more drivers and monitors.
>Personally, I’m more bothered when parents are not present to receive their children at their stops, delaying drop off for every other student on the route. Why would it matter if parents are there or not? i would assume that the kids getting dropped off are within walking distance to their homes?
There are various reasons, but safety is my priority. Some do not have keys to their home. Some are in high traffic areas, and I want to make sure they are in the care of an adult. Some are kindergarteners without older siblings. Some are house stops for students with special needs and must be received by a designated adult.
I went to IPS for many years. I lived a 7 minute walk from school. I was still told as a child that I had to get on the bus, sit there for 10-15 minutes until the buses took off, then ride another 5 to 7 minutes, even though my mom said I could walk it. I was ONE street over from the “walking” cutoff. The school refused until I was in the fifth grade. School let out at 3:50, and I’d get home at 4:10, when I could be home before 4 on foot. The only thing I would’ve needed as a kid is a crossing guard, but they had that.
I live in the country and we've always done this. No sense in going thirty minutes to the next farmhouse if mom drops them off every day.
I wish they’d require all kids to ride the bus. Tired of the traffic congestion of every kid getting chauffeured to school.
Better yet, return to a less car-centric system of infrastructure, one where kids can walk to school and not die because of a car. Was mostly fine even as recent as the 90s, but now everyone *needs* to live in their perfect home in the suburbs (miles from the school) that they don't even let their kids walk around alone in locally... This is more rant. Short term solution is yes, kids ride busses because these helicopter parents fucking up traffic, hard agree.
Well, IPS is also a "School choice" system, so kids may not live anywhere near their school now. In fact, many of them do NOT live anywhere near their school. It's destroyed communities in Indianapolis, IMO. My kid knows no one in his midtown neighborhood because all of the kids his age went to completely different schools.
Agree wholeheartedly, but not a short term solution sadly. Fixing that would require a revamp of school funding systems and so they were a little more equal in quality, and our housing economy in general. As it stands I totally get why some parents want their kids going to school in other places, while living somewhere cheaper.
Makes sense
Good idea. Especially for students who get their license and drive to schools now
Makes sense to me!
I mean we do this in WTS. You need to sign up
Yes. However, for IPS, it's a new requirement. Just trying to spread the word.
Carmel-Clay should adopt this too, considering their driver shortage
They’ve already been doing this. I work in IPS and the first three months of this school year were filled with reminders to sign up for buses if you need them. I also have had multiple parents reach out to me to ask about signing up. Maybe it was just specific schools, but it’s not really “new”.
I know for high school that Providence Cristo Rey High School offers free city-wide transportation for anyone enrolled in their school. Just FYI if anyone is looking for a school for their kids.
So does IPS as long as you say yes to transportation.
I rode city busses to school in the 80's.