The issue of climate change is of major concern to Newton residents. There’s general agreement that one important step is reducing car usage, which also improves air quality. So why is our city discouraging people from using school buses, which leads to increased car trips and idling cars wasting gas and spewing exhaust in front of our schools?
This year we are welcoming a new group of School Committee members. One issue we see raised over and over again (including in the current discussion on another post) is school bus fees. Currently, parents need to pay $350 for their kids to take school bus, which often require long walks to get to the nearest stop and can have timing problems for after school activities such as sports. High school students pay the same to park as to take the bus, with no financial incentives to car pool.
The School Committee needs to take a serious look at getting rid of, or at least seriously reducing, school bus fees and finding ways to make bus stop locations work better for families. It should also cost more for students to park than to take the bus, and would be worth considering lower parking fees for students who commit to carpooling (for example, with others from their neighborhoods who participate in the same after-school activities).
What do people think?
You nailed it. We need to do better on this issue in Newton, because of both climate change and equity.
I do hope that the new school committee members will make this a priority. Kathy Shields had stated during her debate with Valerie Pontiff that she was opposed to eliminating bus fees, but was open to reducing or eliminating h.s.athletic fees. Hopefully it won’t be the sentiment of the majority of the incoming school committee.
I believe it will be on the Programs & Services City Council Committee agenda again on Dec 8. (It was on the agenda a few weeks ago as well.)
Item #393-21: Resolution from the City Council to the Mayor re school bus fees and the FY23 budget
COUNCILORS HUMPHREY, BOWMAN, CROSSLEY, DANBERG, GREENBERG, KALIS, KRINTZMAN, LAREDO, LEARY, LIPOF, LUCAS, MALAKIE, MARKIEWICZ, NOEL, NORTON, OLIVER, RYAN, AND WRIGHT, requesting a resolution from the City Council outlining the views of the Council to the Mayor on the upcoming budgeting process for school bus fees.
Thank you, Bill. I am glad to see that city councilors are supportive. My understanding (and correct me if I’m wrong) is that it is the responsibility of the school committee first to propose addressing bus fees before the city council could take concrete action, other than a resolution.
Unless the school bus program gets moved at some point to a different department (i.e. out of NPS), then the Council doesn’t have a role except insofar as we can make a suggestion to the Mayor to move additional funding (in the next budget) to NPS from what we refer to as “the city side of the budget,” so that they (NPS and School Committee) can include replacement funding in “their” budget. The Council can’t adjust the funding even during the budget process because our Charter only allows us to reduce spending, not move it around or increase it. The School Committee would need more money moved to their side of the fence to be able to make a change, and so the resolution will likely be about that specific point.
Councilor Humphrey, if the City Council were to work with the Mayor to fund the bus fees, has the City Council suggested what other service or program would need to be cut to generate the funds needed? Also, what would stop Newton Public Schools from taking the money, eliminating bus fees, only to reinstate bus fees down the road, (pun intended) when they decide they need or want the money for something else?
Randy poses a good question, and we need to answer it rather than committing one-time funding to an ongoing expense like school bus fees. The fees also help the department ensure they have enough seats for all the students—a free bus would be more difficult to predict.
While I fully support moving to more convenient, and eventually free bus rides (and note that NPS does not charge for bus riders in K-6), planning is the key—both for fiscal sustainability and for ensuring that NPS is routing buses where students need them.
To that end, this month NPS is sending a survey to all parents on how their students are getting to school, and what it would take for them to switch to the bus (or biking/walking). Once they have the results, NPS can move forward on routes & scheduling.
Simultaneously, NPS is taking with a local parent & consultant about how they might make a planned switch to electric school buses. Long story short, it’s complicated and funding is a key barrier—but also bus parking. If the buses are electric (no idling, little noise), could they be more welcome in neighborhoods? Otherwise, where can they be parked?
Fortunately, new School Committee Chair Tamika Olszewski has been on the committee, along with me and Councilor Bowman, that has been discussing school transportation improvements all this year. I have high hopes for better coordination between our two elected bodies next term!
“(and note that NPS does not charge for bus riders in K-6)”
While this is nice, the current bus service doesn’t have enough stops for many families to take advantage of this. Families living around a mile or more away from an elementary school and not having access to a reasonably walkable bus stop is unacceptable IMO.
We are nearly a mile from our elementary school and we actually love the walk. But when weather is very bad or the sidewalks are icy, it simply wasn’t doable nor should it be expected that a 5 year old do a walk like this on a daily basis.
We are even further from our middle school, with no bus stop within a reason distance. In fact, the families in my neighborhood who use the bus actually DRIVE their kids to the bus stop. This is a terrible solution if you ask me.
Question: What exactly is the cost/benefit of eliminating bus fares? How does this approach compare to other opportunities to increase funding to other carbon reducing efforts? We have limited funds, so putting funds towards the highest ROI carbon reduction projects is in our best interest.
Before we change the fee structure
— Understand reasons families do not use the NPS bus system. Cost? Convenience?
— — How many more families would take the bus if it was free?
— — How many families who can afford the bus can still contribute to the bus fare “Pay what you can model”
— What incentives can we create to encourage carpooling (has been complicated by COVID)?
— What incentives can we create to encourage non-carbon emitting travel to/from school?
— How will increasing the parking fee at the HS reduce the demand for parking? At NSHS there are already more requests for parking passes than available parking spots.
— Do we know how many children RIDE THE BUS each week (not the same as have bus pass).
— How will we measure “success” of changes to the model
I believe we make better headway on this issue if we think of school buses as a specialized part of our city’s transportation system, rather than a service of the school system.
School buses advance city goals that are at best secondary to the schools: reduce congestion, advance climate goals, provide convenience for families, and serve non-school purposes such as after school activities and sports needs. A seamless integration with NewMo would be transformative.
Schools can’t, won’t, and shouldn’t take on these larger tasks. They should be the biggest customer.
Mike- I agree that a comprehensive transportation plan integrating school buses with other modes of public city transportation would be great. However, when it comes to the buses and setting fees, only the school committee can choose to change the structure. Perhaps the Mayor becomes a strong advocate and allows additional funding or the SC or maybe NPS finds some funding form its very large budget.
If this is a priority, then things will change. If nothing changes, then Newton talks a good game about its climate action plan, but isn’t truly committed. I wonder which spews more pollution- cars idling in traffic and at the schools waiting to drop off or pick up their kids or leaf blowers (it really doesn’t matter). From a climate perspective, they both contribute significantly to pollution.
Surveys can be useful. My fear is that NPS tends to survey parents excessively and then say that they are doing something about the issue; all the while avoiding taking any concrete action or vote. I think about high school start times and how many surveys occurred over a number of year,. Still despite these surveys, ti was only until Covid-19 entered our lives that start times changed.
I am not averse to having surveys, but these surveys need to be followed up by actual actions and votes. One of my main gripes about NPS and the SC is that they avoid or kick the can down the road on issues such as these and never really address them. While bus fees have not been front and center, the issue is known and needs to be addressed one way or the other as Councilor Humphrey has stated. If the SC chooses not to reduce or eliminate bus fees, let them record their vote so the community knows where their elected representatives stand on the issue. This way the community can express its support or lack thereof when it comes time to vote.
At the very least, can someone please explain to me the logic of charging students the same amount of money to park their car at the high school as to take the bus? It genuinely befuddles me. I work in Boston and my employer allows parking for a fee. The fee is sufficiently high since parking is limited, making taking public transportation a more economical option for me. I am pretty sure they are not making a profit from these fees. The fees are based on a tight supply of spaces.
I’m with Bruce on this one. NPS surveys endlessly and takes minimal action.
Just make the bus free for a year. See how much ridership goes up and then see if it makes sense to continue. Not that complicated or expensive.
Some data to consider
https://motorask.com/school-bus-mileage/
With idling, down to 6 mpg
Probably still a net win, but someone should do the math.
Our buses are packed with kids. Plus reduced congestion. Plus parent productivity. Plus fewer vehicles at school means greater school safety. Plus conversion to electric buses.
You’re still going to win with the bus. A 6MPG bus carrying 50 kids for 3 miles will use half a gallon of fuel. The same 50 kids being sent by their parents in individual cars for 3 miles results in 150 miles driven. If the cars average 35mpg that’s 4.3 gallons of fuel used. So you’re using over 8x less fuel, emitting 8x less CO2, and resulting in a lot less traffic for everyone.
@J I think you’re basically correct. But picking up 50 kids is probably quite a few miles more than you model. If there’s 10 stops with 5 kids at each stop, I might imagine that the route is at least a Manhattan distance arc length within a 3 mile radius of the school. So let’s just say it’s a smooth circle of 3.14 x 6 ( diameter) or about 19 miles of bus travel. Or, as the math works out here 3.14 gallons for the bus. The bus still wins but if it’s diesel there might be more particulates. But less traffic.
Are they electric busses? And if they’re already packed with kids, maybe they’re already at capacity? I have no idea.
If climate change is the main goal ( not to say other goals are not important ) doing the math on the fuel matters. School busses are notoriously utilitarian, at least in my day ( ancient) and I’m sure initial cost is the main concern over fuel efficiency. Basically a big steel box with some seats in it, a big Diesel engine, no seat belts of course. And who can forget the random food fights put the fun into it
Plenty of bullying too ( I was the recipient ) only the driver was on board, and his role was to just yell “knock it off back there!” Once in a while he’d stop the bus and walk back sort of menacingly and move someone up to sit on the transmission next to his seat ( unsafe by today’s standards)…
But I’m getting nostalgic…
I had an exchange with the administration about electric school buses a couple of years ago. There are several issues/concerns:
1) The initial capital outlay is a big one as you note.
2) There would also have to be significant investments in charging stations at the parking facilities for buses when not in use.
3) There is range anxiety as electric buses perform significantly less well in cold weather than in warmer times. Cambridge had a pilot program that revealed some issues with this.
4) If the first route runs down the battery, it would take quite some time to recharge, making the second route impossible to run. This makes scheduling a potential problem and you might actually need more buses to make it work.
Overall there is rapid technological change/improvement all the time on these buses and it’s likely just a matter of time before it becomes feasible. I tend to think the city probably is more risk-averse than it should be on this, but I can understand where they are coming from.
That’s interesting Gary.
For a fleet, it seems like the answer to #4 would be a system with simply swap’able batteries on the buses – i.e charged batteries would be waiting at the charging station and just swapped in. That would require the bus manufacturers to build that into their design and probably make #2 (cost) even worse.
… just making s**t up here. I really don’t know a damn thing about any of this …but that’s never stopped me before ;-)
@Jerry That’s potentially a viable solution, but it still takes time to swap out battery packs, and you have to make sure there is a supply of charged packs on hand to swap out. In cold weather, you might have to do more swap-outs than at other times. These are all significant changes to administration/scheduling and I think there would have to be considerable adjustments in how the drivers plan their routes and such.
So, there are possible solutions but it’s not a simple swap out of the diesel buses for electric.
I would also add that electric buses are also quite a bit heavier. In icy conditions on hills the performance is tricky (have heard some issues with these electric engines getting up steep hills). Probably would need some re-training for drivers to make sure they can handle them safely.
My takeaway is that warmer, flatter places like Florida are a better place for initial investment. But we should monitor for technology improvements as they should resolve some of these issues in the near to medium term.
I’m not sure which transportation provider has the contract to provide bus services to NPS, but I am sure that Newton does not receive multiple bids. Finding a completely electric fleet realistically means you need to get a bid from the largest or nearly largest school transportation provider in the US to find a company with the capital to transition to electric and survive the pandemic shutdown. Bear in mind that Newton does not operate its own fleet. To do so would be a very significant undertaking.
As for how many and which students actually ride the bus, that information can be gathered provided the bus company offers student specific tracking software (essentially a chip reader) and the district purchases the data from the company.
Finally, as folks may be aware the school transportation industry has had a hard time finding and keeping qualified drivers. It is an enormous responsibility to operate a 9 ton, 38 foot long commercial vehicle filled with children. When school bus drivers lose their concentration the results too often are horrific. On the other hand, the industry does safe transportation for millions of school children every day. I won’t comment on the economics of the bus fees – I didn’t enjoy paying them either. No child should be denied any opportunity- whether bus or extra curricular due to a lack of funds. And while I know that fees can be waived, I suspect some of our neighbors and their children do without rather than ask.