In the United Kingdom, schools are banning “school runs,” the morning drive to drop children off at school. We should do the same in Newton.
With a few exceptions for children with special needs, there is just no reason that children need to be driven right to the front door of the school. We know that because a substantial number of kids walk all the way from school to home just fine. If parents must drive their children to school, they should drop them off a good distance away (a 1/4-mile?) and have them walk the rest of the way. If we create no-drive zones around schools, that 1/4-mile would be completely safe.
Adam Peller and I have referred to spots to drop kids and let them walk as light-blue zones. In the UK, they refer to them as park-and-stride programs. The point is to reduce the risk of conflict between automobiles — increasingly, ever larger SUVs — and vulnerable children, to reduce the exposure of concentrated around schools at dropoff and pickup, and to create a calmer zone around schools for children to start and end their days.
Undoubtedly, this would be disruptive to normal driving patterns. Some schools, like Bowen, are situated off main routes. There are easy alternatives if Cypress and Jackson were closed for a half hour three times a day. Around some schools, it would not be so easy, like Zervas and Angier on Beacon or Williams on Grove. It would be especially tough on folks who live within the zone who would be pinned in place or not able to get home during closed periods. It’s a trade-off we should make. As a policy matter, we should really stop choosing driver convenience over other objectives, like child safety and health.
What it would not be is an especially large imposition on parents, even working parents. There are some parents who have to drive their children to school. Many fewer than those who drive kids, currently, but sure some. Those parents would just drop the darlings a little further out, along a route that children are already walking every day, many of them unaccompanied. Except, with no-drive school zones, those routes would be completely safe and completely calm.
The article in the Guardian is worth the read. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/13/uk-schools-move-to-ban-the-school-run-to-protect-pupils-from-air-pollution The air quality around Newton schools should be measured. Most elementary schools have blue zones full of idling cars for 30 minutes or more. Go to the high schools in the morning and you will see long lines of cars waiting to drop-off.
NPS and School Committee are (finally) launching a School Transportion Working Group. Something Safe Routes to School and Transportation Advisory Group has been pushing for awhile now. Hopefully they focus on the air quality and health gains of changing the school transportation model and not just how changing transportation is necessary to support a later high school start time.
One way to reduce the number of cars near schools is to stop building mega schools and bring back neighborhood schools.
This would apply to all weather conditions right? Might work if it only applies to high schools
I did this for 7 years of middle school many years ago (elementary and HS were within walking distance). Never got into a traffic jam, the kids were fine.
I heard the number floated about that up to 40 percent of our morning traffic comes from the schools, which is why the summers are so much easier for commuters. Solving the issue of parents driving and dropping off kids at the front door is a huge step.
If only there were some sort of service where large vehicles would go around neighborhoods collecting school children and transport them to the school. The city could even paint these vehicles bright yellow and the state could enact special laws enabling them to stop local traffic while children are loading or unloading. The cost of such a program would be more than offset by reduced traffic during rush hour.
A good idea, except for the youngest students, say grades kindergarten and first grade.
Doug,
Plenty of buses available, the issue is families putting kids on them, rather than in the family hauler.
Andy,
Why not kindergarteners or first graders?
The city only provides buses for students who live more than 2 miles from school or if you live across a busy/ dangerous street. You can get on the school bus if you’re closer by paying for it.
You can ask Alicia (who has witnessed this and timed it), but because parents tend to drive their students, the buses often wait in lines of traffic just like cars.
Plenty of buses available? Not really – especially if the goal is to get kids out of cars and onto buses. First, as Chuck points out, the bus is only free for Grades K-5 and Grade 6 if you live more than 2 miles from school. Grades 7-12 pay a bus fee no matter where you live. But the biggest factor is how inconvenient the bus routes and schedules are. Existing middle and high school bus stops are generally about 2 miles from the school, so if you live a mile and a half from school, you end up having to walk a half mile in the opposite direction to get on a bus. For example, we live about 1.8 miles from North and there are two high school stops in our neighborhood. One is just over half a mile away, which is about a 10 minute walk, but it’s in the opposite direction from the school and the pickup time is 7:00am, so my kids need to leave the house by 6:45am to make that one. The other is 3/4 of a mile away, also in the opposite direction, with a 7:15 pickup, so that means leaving the house by 6:55am. In both cases, the bus then drives toward the school in the exact direction they just walked to the bus stop, passing within a block of our house. Same was true of the bus to Day. If I drop them on my way to work, we can leave the house 30-40 minutes later, which is a significant amount of additional sleep to a teenager with a 7:50am or 8:05am start time. Why not add stops for the kids who live less than 2 miles away, but more than a mile or so? The bus would be a much easier sell to both students and parents if more convenient stops were added along the route (that the buses are already driving through to get to the schools.) Adding additional neighborhood elementary school stops would also help get kids out of cars.
We live 3/4 of a mile from our elementary school, so we don’t get a free bus. I work part time and from home, so weather permitting we walk most days. But if I had a job where I had to be somewhere at a certain time, I wouldn’t necessarily have the time to do that walk every day as it is time consuming. So while I appreciate the sentiment, it’s important to note that for working parents they might have a short turnaround time. NPS is already inhospitable to working parents with its September kindergarten schedule, random early dismissals, and years-long waiting lists for after school programs. Let’s not make it worse.
Kids do not shrink when wet. My kids (3) walked/walk or bike to school every day or they took/take the bus. And they never complained. How did I get this miracle to happen? I never drove them, therefore, they never expected to be driven. If they were too sick to walk/bus/bike, they were too sick for school.
Until the last 30 years, anyone saying their able-bodied child ‘had’ to be driven to school would have been considered crazy.
I emphasize with Mary Mary Quite Contrary about how time constraints have dictated so many of commuting patterns including how we drive and drop kids off at school.
My experience goes back to the Stone Age during the 1940s and 1950s. Our parents would have been puzzled if anyone asked them why they didn’t drive their kids to school. Jim Smith was one of the young guys I biked with. His picture is featured in the recent old Polaroid accompanying my recent article about biking in Newton during the 1950s. Jim recalled that we either walked or took our bikes to Weeks Junior High and the old 3 building Newton High School where Newton North is now located. In winter and when the weather was dangerously bad, we hopped on the “corn popper” buses of the old Middlesex and Boston Street Railway line that ran through Newton.
As Amy Sangiolo notes, however, we did have neighborhood elementary schools within easy walking distance for most kids and a much easier lifestyle where kids going to school and auto commuters trying to get to work had more time not to feel so freaking rushed.
The neighborhood school train left the station when the property for a good number of elementary schools was sold in the 70’s and 80’s.
I’m with Lucia. The reason we did the quarter mile drop off was because we had to get to work and sitting in a 20-30 minute traffic jam wasn’t feasible. The kids never complained and, as elementary students, enjoyed the 1/3 of a mile walk. In fact, my youngest insisted on walking to school on his second day of kindergarten! He’d been enviously watching his brothers for years and was pleased to join the pack.
@Sean
Just because they are so young and would seem especially vulnerable walking even a quarter-mile by themselves (if they don’t have a neighborhood group).
Lucia – my kids often biked/walked the 1.8 miles to/from the high school and the 1.5 miles to/from the middle school. But that becomes problematic during sports seasons, as it’s not easy to bike with both a school backpack and a large, heavy sports bag, especially one with a couple of baseball bats or a field hockey stick (let’s not even talk about the hockey bag.) The school buses are often ridiculously crowded – in the morning, there is barely enough room for the kids to sit in seats, let alone for extra gear. When my son was in 7th grade, the driver banned big baseball bags and bats – not sure if that’s a district policy or a bus company policy or if it was just the driver’s policy because the bus was so crowded. Then add in the fact that if your kids play sports or do other activities every day after school, they are only taking the bus one way (in the morning) but you have to pay for both (the “late bus” leaves before many practices/activities are over.)
If getting kids out of cars and onto buses or bikes were a real priority, we’d be doing everything we could to make both options safer and more convenient than driving. In Weston, they provide transportation for all students, K-12, and they optimize the bus routes each year with stops based on where the kids live (as opposed to Newton where most bus stops have been unchanged for decades.) They also run two late buses – one at around 4 and another one at around 5:30, so kids can still get home on a bus after most sports/activities. They also try to maximize the number of students on each bus with a goal of 75% capacity – full enough to be efficient but not so full that kids are sitting on the floor (as they sometimes are on the Day buses.) In Wellesley they have two HS bus runs in the morning, so kids who don’t have a first block class can still take a bus to school. More kids on the bus would mean fewer cars around the schools, which makes biking and walking safer. Adding more places to safely lock up bikes would also encourage more bike riding. Of course, these things cost money now, and the benefits of fewer cars around the schools in terms of safety and health are long term and harder to quantify.
Amy, unfortunately data on our existing small, neighborhood schools does not back your argument. Mega schools would certainly make things worse, but the same Newtonians who treasure neighborhood based schools are clearly driving their kids door to door already.
MMQC, Bob: Changes since the 1950’s could be a car-based cultural shift as much as anything else. Except for the youngest students (and some of us wouldn’t even make that exception) parents shouldn’t have to walk short distances with their kids. I think it’s just become part of a morning routine to drive kids all the way to the front door of the school on the way to work, and one that’s so common it’s almost the expected behavior.
For those who do drive, it should be far quicker for a working parent to use a “light blue” zone** to than sit in a traffic queue in front of the school. Consider it a time-saving measure.
** Adam Peller does not necessarily advocate for altering neighborhood traffic patterns or time-based roadway restrictions, but it’s an interesting thought experiment.
@Adam: Hmm…I don’t know. I’m thinking of all of the redistricting that’s been going on and have to believe that has added to the number of cars going to a particular school. Does your data go back to when there were more neighborhood schools or when folks weren’t redistricted to the other side of the City for middle school or high school? I’d love to see the data on whether there was any increase in the number of cars going to any particular school (Brown or South come to mind) after redistricting. If you want less cars at the schools, consider: 1. Eliminate bus fees; 2. Add more stops – as Tricia said, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for a kid to walk in the opposite direction and have to get up earlier to catch the bus; 3. Add more buses – not sure how crowded your buses are but the bus to go from Auburndale to Brown or South have been crowded. Kids were sometimes sitting three to a row and if you have sports gear or instruments – forget it. And if your kid does an after school activity- having one late bus does not cut it. It would take as much as 45 minutes to an hour for my kid to get home from South after a practice. If Track gets out at 5:45 or 6 p.m. forget it. They’ve either missed the bus or they won’t get home until 7. Factor in homework and dinner and well – that makes for a very late night. 4. Change the start time for high school. After a very late night – it’s difficult to get those teenagers up to catch the bus and if they have a free block first period – it is downright cruel.
Trish – I completely agree the late bus is so infrequent and slow it encourages driving. And that after school activities or restriction on what you can carry make taking the bus difficult.
What if we completely rethink transportation beyond the big yellow bus?
Like running shuttles to Oak Hill, Brown and South from the Newton Centre T stop to utilize that asset more? Or smaller vans that have an on call aspect to them that allows them to be a bit more flexible in timing and routes? Or increased bike facilities both in terms of covered parking and protected lanes on the way to schools?
Amy, we can’t escape the fact that families which live well within walking distance of their neighborhood elementary schools are driving on a regular basis. Over the last generation or two, we’ve been dealing with a culture shift, not just redistricting. Even within 1/2 a mile, the walkers are in the minority.
The high schools and middle schools have a very different set of problems and even more people choose to drive. As a community, we drive these results by choosing which transportation modes to prioritize. Busing is very complicated, but the city does need to do more. Just as important is providing other transportation options, like safe bike routes along our streets and, once the kids arrive, making it safe to get to the front door (since the 1990’s, most South kids arriving by bike or on foot traverse a busy parking lot)
For our local elementary school with only one bus that picks up all the bus eligible kids it took 45 min to an hour to get to our stop after school. My kids often took the bus in to school but rarely took it home. If we had somewhere to be it just didn’t work for us. Now in middle school it is rare that they don’t take the bus both ways as the route is only 3 or 4 stops and typically they are home less than 1/2 hour after school ends. I’m not sure you can add enough capacity to the bus routes for the elementary schools and honestly that might not have the desired effect on air quality.
How about we just enforce existing laws on school grounds which limit idling vehicles on school grounds. $100 for first violation, $500 for subsequent. I am certain people would get the message.
https://www.mass.gov/files/documents/2017/10/19/540cmr27.pdf
Bob Burke
In those days, kids walked home for lunch, where mom had it prepared. I’m old enough to remember my cousin coming home for lunch everyday in elementary school ( this was in Syracuse Ny ) That’s why Horace Mann school has no cooking facilities. Kids walked home for lunch, or brown bagged it.
Families were one car families. Many fewer cars on the road. Many of my aunts didn’t know how to drive, and had to learn when their husbands died ( almost always before them, usually between 60 and 70).
Very different times.
I think one thing that might help is enforcing shoveling laws. Our walking route includes about a half of a mile on a busy road with no shoulder where a lot of people don’t shovel their sidewalks. And this last winter, a lot of the curb cuts were repeatedly packed with snow so even the city isn’t setting a good example. (It feels funny thinking about snow removal when it’s so sauna-like out there!)
Commentators are right that the shortsighted closing of village schools that virtually all students could walk to in their neighborhoods (Lower Falls to Hamilton; Newton Highlands to Hyde . Upper Falls to Emerson, etc.) would be extremely difficult and expensive to undo. However, there are instances where specific changes could be made now that would greatly reduce the number of students who would need to be driven to elementary schools.
The most obvious case in point is the re-development of Needham Street. A serious increase in residential density should be accompanied by assignment of a site for gathering place (i.e. school) for elementary school students and their parents from Upper Falls proper, the portion of Newton Highlands south of Route 9, the existing apartments in the immediate environments of Needham Street, etc. A one-time capital cost for a such a school would eliminate the need for a major influx of traffic from the new development into Upper Falls via Oak Street (a possibility strongly opposed by the Upper Falls Neighborhood Area Council and most of the residents of Upper Falls.) and reduce the permanent costs of buses, Maybe it would even eliminate the odious example of three children in adjacent homes in Upper Falls being bused to three different schools.
Maybe we can’t undo the terrible mistakes of two decades ago in closing village schools, but we should learn from these mistakes and try to undo at least part of them with creativity and openness to change when the opportunities arise.
My kids take the bus but the busses don’t solve all problems. The fees are outrageous for those of us that live far away from a middle or high school. And on top of that there is NO mechanism for bus passes. We are one of the few families in my neighborhood that pay for the fee! Many families have caught on that their kids can ride for free for years! That makes the bus over crowded. Don’t institute fees without a way to check for passes.
The fees encourage families to drive!!! More cars on the road. More catering to special schedules. Have the busses pick up the kids and have enough busses to make it reasonable. On any given Monday, Wednesday or Thursday my kid gets out of South at 3:20 but his bus arrives at south at 4 pm. Technically he is old enough to wait for the bus but now he is late for his job or after school activity which means someone has to pick him up or he is just late.
Make it work for the families by having enough busses so that families don’t have to drive to school.