Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack
The school bus routes are that bad? Or are we talking public transit?
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A mix of everything. Although in my case, I was talking about elementary work.. err I mean school. So kids aren't "allowed" to take public transit.
Part of the problem is all of these parents who move out to the middle of nowhere where there are no schools. So, the kids will have to go to a school 5-10km away. Or more. It's gonna be a long bus ride. Next, as you yourself allude to, there are way too many people who think elementary school means everything, so they insist that little Suzie goes to a "special" school where she'll get a better education in finger painting. Said school is almost never anywhere remotely close to home. Then you combine with what lubicon said - omg, the horror of kids sitting on a school bus for a while. It makes much more sense for mom or dad leave work early to drive the kids, this way 7 year Johnny's day is optimized so he can fit in the 8 scheduled extra-curricular activities he's enrolled in.
But mostly, there are just a lot of stupid parents in this world. I certainly haven't interviewed thousands of them, but I know some who drive their kids to the school here (and similar situations in other cities). SOME OF THESE KIDS LIVE A 5-10 MINUTE WALK AWAY. Now, I know crime is at all time highs and children are being snatched up by complete strangers by the thousands each year in Canada, but I'd have to think a school bus over that kind of distance would be acceptable. Apparently not, for reasons varying from "no seatbelts", to "I wouldn't trust a stranger to drive my child", to "it gives me an excuse to leave work early", to "I'm a housewife and we pay someone clean to the house for us, what else am I going to do with my day, plus I get to spend more time with the kids" (no lie, I've heard this exact line from 3 different couples).
The upside is that because these kids will have chauffeur service until they're 40, and apparently kids today aren't ever going to get their licenses because anything you need to drive to (work or pleasure) isn't worth it, they won't drive much and demand for gasoline is going to plummet in about 10 years, which means gas prices will be like 70 cents before we know it.
For the record, I've actually seen schoolbuses here. I think the school gets 2-3 loads of kids a day. When they first built it, I was really worried that driving around here would be non-stop buses and having to stop for them and such, but there's so little utilization of them that I'm almost never actually on the road around them. It's the SUV and minivan parade that interferes with traffic the most, by far. To the point that they've brought in traffic control measures.