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Here is my personal experience. My child goes to our neighborhood assigned school. It is 2.7 miles from our house. It does not have a walk zone due to it being off a (once) 4 lane road, surrounded by 4 lane roads and requires a bridge crossing (not allowable according to WCPSS). We used the bus for AM and PM for the last 2 years, no major issues. This year, the bus is taking almost 90 minutes after school dismisses to get my child home. They cut 6 bus routes and jammed them all together. I absolutely dislike carpool in the afternoon. The line forces at least 50% of the waiting cars to sit on the side of the road outside the school. I do not want to add to the traffic, but we have life after school and I cannot wait until after 5pm for my child to arrive home. I have been in contact with WCPSS Transportation and they agree it is a problem, but apparently they do not have the resources to add the routes back and it is the way it is.
Not only are there long lines AT the schools, in my neighborhood there are many parents who drive their kids to the bus stop and sit in their cars idling away burning gas until the bus shows up. Some of these parents live just a few houses down the street. After the bus leaves many of them do a U turn and drive a short way back to their house.
My neighborhood has sidewalks and multi-use trails that should make it easy for parents to walk with their kids to the bus stop and wait with them.
It does not seem to matter if it is a good or bad weather day.
I don't think it has anything to do with it being "down here" instead of "up north". In Chapel Hill-Carrboro there was a robust walking/biking culture when my kids were in elementary. I did drive my youngest, but that was because I had to drive my oldest to her charter school anyway and youngest's elementary was on the way. She took the bus home a few times when she was in elementary. There were always some other drivers, but it seemed a reasonable amount to me. Far more kids took the bus. And probably an equal number of kids walked or rode their bikes as were car-riders.
It's because the buses suck. Up north, your kids get out of school at 3:00, the bus leaves at 3:10, and little Johnny and Suzy are home at 3:30. Down here, not so much. It is THE worst thing about county schools. I count myself lucky that only one of my kids has to deal with the "hit or miss, will it or won't it come" bus issue this year. And transportation doesn't respond to calls or emails. So if you have kids that you need or want to be home at a certain time of day, an appointment to get to, or anything resembling a schedule, you pick your kids up from school.
I do find that outside the northeast the "bus culture" is not really entrenched, with a lot of parental fears - but that's true of many places that I know people, not just around here. Up north, schools aren't even built with car pool lanes and procedures. That says a lot.
And many schools around here are not walkable. I've spent many work hours this past month getting my kid from Green Hope HS...walking is not an option if I want to see him again in this life.
I've seen parents asleep in the car pool lane. Trust me, most don't enjoy it.
I don't get it. Why are there parents waiting in long lines burning gas daily to pick up their children?
I am from up north and a good generation ago. We lived in a town with a town elementary school and town high school. 95% of the students took the bus.
Two things, I bet:
"...a good generation ago..."
When I was a kid, we almost all took the bus (and that was in Raleigh). One year I rode my bike often. But modern "helicopter parenting" and fear of abductors on every corner (and fear of being turned in as a "negligent parent") seem to have wrought a generation of parents who feel the need to be with their children from door to door at all times.
"We lived in a town with a town elementary school and town high school."
And this is the main thing--if you live in Wake County, surely you're aware that the entire county is one school system. And an explosive growth rate means lots of shuffling around of kids as new schools are built or renovated. This is not a small town with one school that everybody attends; it's a large county with students coming from everywhere, and some of the bus routes take an hour each way to get to a school that a car can get to in much shorter time.
Things have changed from your small town "a generation ago", I wonder if even there they have a lot more carpoolers?
At our elementary school, the pickup line starts forming by 3pm....for 3:45 dismissal. I've seen cars parked in line before 3pm too. I used to pick my kids up because I was home in the afternoon, and I tried to get in line by 3:20pm. Otherwise I'd be 1/4 mile down the road sitting on the shoulder of a busy two lane country road, and it would take 20 minutes to get to the pickup circle once the line started moving. It's a vicious cycle. We lived 1.5 miles from the school, but it's not a walkable route. It's a 45mph two lane road like I described earlier. No sidewalks, etc. The trouble of walking the kids 1/8 of a mile to the bus stop and waiting who knows how long, is no easier than driving 1.5 miles.
But only a VERY small percentage of the kids at our school bus. I think there's only 3 or 4 buses at a school of 500 children.
Have the Principal walk out to the car line and announce that everyone should turn off their cars, lock them where they are and come in and read to the k-3 graders for the last hour of the day.
Location: Chapel Hill, NC, formerly NoVA and Phila
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I can only compare it to school districts I've been involved with "up north." Here the walk zone is larger than in either district I've been previously involved with. In both Chapel Hill Schools and Wake County Schools, kids can and live up to 1 1/2 miles away from the school and still be a walker. That's pretty far for young children to walk by themselves, and I'm guessing with two working parents, many parents don't have time to walk 3 miles every morning and afternoon.
In my previous district which was Fairfax County, VA (about the same size as Wake County), elementary school students were bused if they lived more than 1 mile from their school. In the small school district I grew up in in PA, students were bused to school if they lived more than 3/4 mile from school. I'm guessing that both of those school districts are better funded than those here or at least have more put toward transportation.
I find that the carpool lanes are "okay" in our elementary school here on nice days, but a huge mess and backed up when it's raining out.
The carpool traffic for Davis Drive extends about a quarter mile at its worst and blocks east bound Waldo Rood. It's horrible and dangerous.
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