Just read an interesting story, (Union Tribune) about how the School buses in San Diego County are disappearing at an alarming rate. A decade ago, 1,148 regular education buses traveled 19 million miles to and from local public schools. Last year, 688 buses logged fewer than 10 million miles. Just when you thought well it will level out things have gone from bad to worse. This past spring due to budget cuts the decision was to cut school buses and shift the burden of transportation onto the students and their families.

California already has a very low school bus usage rate. Stats indicate that about 14 percent of the state’s 6.3 million public school students take the bus, compared with 55 percent nationally. In San Diego County, less than 11 percent of students took a bus to school last year.

What does this all mean and what is the overall impact well the burden for transportation becomes that of the parents to drive their children to school, further jamming clogged neighborhood streets, forcing teachers and others to serve as traffic cops and raising concerns about increasing pollution. Also if you are a parent you can attest to the fact that driving your child to school ads a significant amount of time you are on the road each day.

One solution to this problem would be to organize carpool and ridesharing options in San Diego and other counties. If you are part of a schools administration and you are looking to create a carpool or ridesharing group for your school send me an email and we will get you hooked up for free - Eric Dewhirst.

Cheers - Eric