“Due to a variety of industry issues, Newton and other communities are experiencing severe shortages of bus drivers.” So write Newton Public Schools officials in a letter to NPS bus families. The consequence of driver shortages? “[S]tudents riding our buses may experience delays or gaps in routes.”
NPS Bus Families – please follow this link to our website for an important update on bus service. https://t.co/7c3olPax7W pic.twitter.com/CihhJTS6z4
— Newton Schools (@newton_ps) September 8, 2018
Any hypotheses about what’s going to happen as a result of “delays or gaps in [bus] routes”?
I’m not an economics professor, but I’m gonna guess a pretty quick cure to the “industry issues” resulting in a driver shortage would be increased wages.
We are so misaligned in Newton on school transportation policy. Any child living within two miles of school has to pay $350 (up to a family cap of $700). And, now, because the city (through contractor Eastern Bus) is not paying drivers enough, that $350 doesn’t even get you decent service. Meanwhile, it costs nothing to drive to school.
Is it any wonder that streets around schools are choked with traffic?
Kids in grades K-6 who live *less than 2 miles* from school pay the fee; it is free if you live more than 2 miles away. In grades 7-12 *everyone* pays the fee, regardless of distance from school. Also, if you live between one and two miles from school, in the vast majority of cases, there will not be bus stop near you – you’ll have to walk or get a ride to a stop that’s in the other direction, away from the school. And if you’re an athlete or do drama or some other activity that keeps you at school past 4:15 or so, you can only take the bus to school (but you’ll pay the same amount.). The buses are also chronically overcrowded. Newton seems to be doing everything in its power to discourage bus use.
Seems to me that fixing the bus system to make it more useful and affordable would be an excellent way to ameliorate the traffic problems around schools without draconian measures.
Of course there’s a school bus driver shortage – it’s one of the most difficult, unrewarding, and nerve wracking jobs imaginable. Imagine driving a busload of noisy kids, all the while trying to make sure little kids are getting on and off safely and in the right place. Tops on my list of “you couldn’t pay me enough” jobs under any circumstances, and then they aren’t paid enough. This certainly shouldn’t come as a surprise.
If you want more busses, you need more bus drivers. If you want more bus drivers, you need to pay them a living wage. Unless I’m mistaken, the city doesn’t pay the drivers – Eastern Bus does.
I got to say we have been struggling a bit to find quality bus drivers at Harvard as well and our drivers are well compensated. The T is having issues of staffing for the 59 bus too. Its a major problem in the area, and no autonomous vehicles are not going to do squat to help. Bump the pay and giving better benefits will help significantly…
The system is broken also. There are no enforcement of bus passes. Parents and kids know this so more kids board the bus than expected….. every day. My kids bus has kids sitting in the aisle. Multiple school bus drivers have gotten lost this week.
Our family has been taking the school bus for 12 years and this is the worst start of the year.
With this chaos more and more parents that can will drive their kid to school creating more congestion.
Of course this is the highest bus fee we have ever paid (and I know several of my neighbors have never paid the fee and those kids take the bus).
NewtonMom,
It should be simple enough for the city to do a sample audit of bus usage for 3 days to get an idea of % of payers. If more than 10% are not paying, then these folks are depriving the bus drivers from being properly compensated. I would be surprised if it was this high though…
The audit would simply be counting the number of children who get off the bus at each school, crossed referenced with the number who actually paid.. is it too much to ask? perhaps its considered discriminatory for trying to find out??
@Tricia the bus is free for kids in grades K-5. This change was made when they needed to bus Angier kids to Carr so they removed the bus fee for all of the elementary kids in the name of equity. Kids in grade 6 who live more than 2 miles from school also don’t pay the fee. Looks like the city website has old info in some places but this is the bus application form:
https://www.newton.k12.ma.us/cms/lib/MA01907692/Centricity/Domain/125/FY19%20Trans%20Application%20Form.pdf
There is only one bus for our local elementary school which makes for a long ride (45min – 1 hr) one way if you are on the end of the route as my kids were so that is also a deterrent to riding the bus. I was so happy when we got to Brown as the kids got home so quickly however now the bus is very crowded with everyone 3 to a seat but I guess that beats sitting in the aisle. The South bus for us stops at two stops relatively close together (which makes sense) but then two other stops far from these stops. Made me wonder what the person was thinking who created the route. The only rational I could come up with was that they were trying to combine 4 stops regardless of where they were located to reach a desired number of kids for that bus rather than making it a route that physically made sense. Since I the route takes awhile my child has decided to bike whenever possible (this may mean me picking him and the bike up on some fall nights when he has practices or games and it gets dark early).
Bugek, you are awesome at the default trolling.
This story is 100% creating the argument for Sean to suggest car free chaos and now it looks justified because of this headline.
Pay the drivers, audit the product, encourage use.
For a town of rich people Newton seems to lack basic business sense at times.
@Dan,
City…..
Yes to paying bus drivers a living wage and removing the fee for student bus riders. I’d advocate for greatly improving MBTA bus service in Newton and putting 7th thru high schoolers on the MBTA where possible (like Boston does).
I’ve also been told some towns take student transportation out of the school department and put it in the town’s transportation department because residents got tired of transportation issues consuming School Committee meetings.
Actually, the schools *do* check the bus passes. They don’t do it every day, but at some points during the year, they check for several days in a row to see if the kids riding the bus have passes. At that point they get in touch with families of those kids who didn’t have passes. I think that the non-payment rate is probably very low. There is a trade-off for how much effort the schools put in to checking passes vs how many extra passes get sold. At some point the cost of enforcement (paying someone to check each kid’s pass each day, for instance), will be higher that the marginal gain from catching a few more people.
As to counting the kids getting off the bus in the morning, that will give an undercount of riders, because on any given day, some kids will be sick/absent, some kids will be getting a ride from parents or biking. In the afternoons, some kids will take the late bus home, some will get a ride, and a few kids might be riding a different bus to go hang out with a friend. If you want to try and count the kids electronically (RFID readers in the bus passes, for instance), then you have to pay for the hardware/software, which is expensive (plus you have a tracking system on each kid…)
It looks like the last bus from Brown/Oak Hill/South leaves the school at 5:15 pm (not 4:15). The late bus isn’t a very good option, because this bus takes a very long time to get to all the stops, but it does exist. My kids have decided to bike to school when possible in preference to spending hours on the late bus.
Other people have suggested that raising the cost of parking permits for the high schools would increase bus ridership and maybe decrease traffic problems at the schools. This seems like a good idea to me.
But none of these measures increases the number of bus drivers which is the question at hand. Newton does not pay individual bus drivers, Eastern Bus does. I also wonder if the bus drivers receive health benefits. If they don’t, that in itself would make the job more attractive (to others).
Bret,
The audits you mentioned should definitively be good enough, anything less than 10% fraud would not be worth investigating.
Regarding high school parking, this is the age where students now have the freedom to drive themselves, raising the parking rates only hurts the poorer income students. The average newton resident can easily absorb any parking rate increase…
@Bugek – Really? You think low income students can afford to drive to school? My son wasn’t allowed to get his drivers license until he was no longer living at home because I couldn’t afford the extra $1000/year of insurance, let alone a car.
Meridth,
You can buy a car for as little as 1000 dollars, the insurance for such car is no where close to 1000 a year. The point is, the average newton resident will have no problem paying the extra parking rates
The public transportation in newton is so bad, low income residents have no choice but to have a car to get to part time jobs or run errands
Bugek, have you ever added a newly-licensed 16 or 17-year-old to an auto insurance policy? It’s not so much about the car as the driver.
While there is always a similar crisis staffing crossing guard positions, I’ve heard that crisis has reached new levels this year (if anyone has details, it’s worthy of its own post) What’s scandalous, however, is that there were cases where nobody was told about the reduction and posts going unfilled for the start of school last week.
Yet another reason for people to drive.
Bugek – I wasn’t making numbers up out of thin air. In fact, I was talking about my insurance increase if I let my son drive MY car and we didn’t have a 2nd car. Believe me, I checked this out and my insurance company said that because my son was at college 6 miles from home I would be required to have him listed on my insurance unless he was at least 50 miles away, so I couldn’t let him get his license until after he graduated college and spent a year abroad.
Meredith,
Assuming you could get an uber pool for 5 dollars one way for 9 months, it works out the same price as the annual insurance. Crazy
One of the issues with recruiting school bus drivers is that it is a part-time job. Some of the largest companies do provide benefits, pension and also offer pay during CDL training as part of their recruitment. But, drivers have to qualify not just on their ability to pass the CDL exam but they also need a medical clearance as there are various medical conditions and medications that will disqualify someone from driving a bus — an important requirement given that the typical big yellow school bus is 40 feet long and has a gross vehicle weight of 30,000 pounds.
As for ensuring that families are paid up for bus fees, some districts employ student tracking cards (RFID’s) which are scanned when the student gets on and off the bus. These are often in conjunction with GPS tracking hardware and software that allows the district to monitor where the buses are and whether kids have disembarked at the proper stop.
It is time we do a comprehensive review of the bus. Should Newton consider insourcing? And then use the buses to provide transportation for others during the day?
Yes. We should remove bus transportation from the school budget. City should be looking to maximize kids on bus.
Both municipalities and bus companies across the country are facing the same challenges in hiring, training and licensing drivers.
https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/06/why-wont-anyone-drive-the-bus/563555/
https://www.rtafleet.com/school-bus-driver-shortage-remains-top-challenge/
Watertown is currently looking at starting a town shuttle:
“The Watertown TMA (Transit Management Authority) is exploring the possibility of providing shuttle services in the area. If you are an employer, a property owner, or a residential location in the Watertown area and you are interested in a shuttle program, contact us for more information on how to get started. Whether it’s a first/last mile connection to a transit hub or a local circulator, we can work with you to establish a new service and make it successful.” http://watertowntma.org/Services/Shuttles
April 2018 Finance Committee Meeting minutes “Yes, the current transportation provider is paying approximately $40,000 a month in rent for two lots in the City to park buses. The contractor would reduce the City’s cost if the City found space for the buses. In addition, parking availability would draw other vendors to bid on the bus contracts creating competition. It would be a great thing if the City could find one or two places to park the buses.”
Maybe if the bus company didn’t have to pay $40,000/per MONTH to park the buses they could afford more bus drivers (at a livable wage) and we could get MORE buses! Middle School Children are SITTING ON THE FLOOR on the bus. The Brown Assistant Principal told a bus of students today that 66 students is to be expected. This is OVER any recommendation you will find out there for children in 6th-8th grade. This needs to be fixed.
ConcernedParent,
I am very concerned that is what a bus load of students were told. 66 kids is too many kids on the bus. Time to email Regina Moody, who by the way is amazing at what she does on the budget she is given, but she can’t get more busses without people communicating to her and others.