School's back, traffic better or worse?

[unterhausen]

a couple of years ago they added a traffic light on the main road near me just for school traffic. The signal just wastes time other times of the day. Statistics on school traffic in the U.S. are horrible, with about 1/3 of the cars on the road during morning rush hour just delivering students. We're as guilty as anyone, my daughter caught the bus very few times during her school career, and was late most days.

We have a double jolt of reality this time of year, with the Penn State students back and k-12 in session. The PSU students haven't started studying yet, so traffic is horrible and they are driving kookoobanananuts. Takes a couple of weeks and they don't drive so fast, for the most part.

Originally Posted by smead

It irks me. Is a public school bus ride too dangerous of an option? How about a short bike ride? I remember riding my bike to school starting in 3rd grade, or taking the bus. But I guess that was back in the day .., before helicopter parents hovered in.

My son used to walk to middle school with his friends. It's pretty dangerous because they had to cross a couple of roads with high speeds, and the yokels that drive on them are not aware of their responsibility not to hit anything. The school system would never have the bus pick up on our street instead of the highway even though people passing the bus while its stopped happens regularly. The big road through town really needs a traffic diet. They built a bypass decades ago, but the highway used to go through town so everyone still uses that. I know our township has sponsored a study for a traffic diet, but PennDot is loath to sponsor any project that reduces traffic throughput no matter how stupid the throughput might be. It's ridiculous to have two 4 lane highways going through such a small town. You should be able to walk anywhere in town without risking your life. We lose a pedestrian occasionally, but I guess that's a small price to pay for a little unneeded traffic capacity.

[Spaghetti Legs]

The big change here is Univ or Virginia starting back so my routes through “Grounds” are congested now. I don’t mind it too much though as I like to see the kids going about their business. Last weekend watched a kid at the Kroger with a shopping cart stacked full of Busch Lite cases buying ping pong balls.

City schools don’t have too much impact on bikes or traffic here as a lot of kids walk and ride buses. County is a different story, but no schools on my routes. My 13 year old walked to school last year, but he’s at a different school much further away (other side of the mid town corridor and major hospital center) and riding a bus. He’s a late bloomer on the bike, so I’m going to work with him and hope eventually to have him riding the bike to school some.

[smontanaro]

Around travel-to-school time one morning a couple days ago, I got passed by a Range Rover going bat-out-of-hell on Sheridan Road in Highland Park, IL. I figured it was probably a kid getting his first chance to drive to school.

[5oakterrace]

I lived in the suburbs and used to commute 9 miles in the morning darkness. Had front and back blinking lights and a bright headlight on my helmet. I was on the main road and twice a school bus almost wiped me out as it pulled onto the main road from a side street. I learned two things: go slower than usual and watch out for these buses; bus drivers sit higher and I am thinking they simply do not see cyclists, despite all our lights, as they are focused on looking for cars. Does ot help that I was on the side of the road and perhaps obscured a bit by trees. I suspect the buses might be in something of a hurry as well. I also tried to veer toward the middle of the road (had a rear view mirror to do that safely) in order to be seen.

[redir]

When you live in a University town and 50 thousand kids come back to camp it gets pretty insane. Add on to that the regular school schedule and yup it gets worse.

[rzthomas]

Tuscaloosa got crazy last week: the college kids came back and city schools started back up.

My 4 1/2 year old got into the blue ribbon-winning elementary across the river for pre-K, which means I no long can walk to my job at UA from my downtown home. I now have to drive and fight all the other traffic to drop her off since pre-K kids can't ride the bus. Next year she is allowed to ride the bus and she will.

Consolation prize: the fairly legit in-town MTB trails are adjacent to her school so on some select days, I'll bring my bike to work, bust out a little early, and then get a shred session in before getting her.

[benb]

I wish they would disallow driving your kid to school. It's all going 100% the wrong direction. I think there are a few schools near me where they have cancelled the busses it's gotten so bad.

My son's school I don't understand at all how the parents think it's sensible to drive. The town even did a construction project over the last year at the school that included reconfiguring the school grounds to make it easier for people to drop the kids off instead of riding the bus!

I have had to go to the school in the morning a few times. What it looks like is the parents sit in the car waiting for drop off. They line up before the kids would get on the bus at the house. They are not allowed to actually drop the kids off till the busses arrive, so they sit and idle in the car! Once the busses arrive the kids on the bus can disembark much faster than the kids in the cars, because the car drivers have to wait in line till they can pull up to the unloading area, while the busses go to their dedicate drop off area and all unload at the same time.

So your options are:
- Put your kid on the bus and go directly to work
- Drive your car to school and wait till the busses arrive and then leave from there for work

I can't say what I think about traffic yet. I live in Bedford, MA, school starts next tuesday. I rode this AM and I think Lexington, MA has already started, I saw the older kids waiting for the bus this morning. There was a bit of frantic early morning drivers on my route but I don't know that it was related to school. Most of these people looked to be driving to the civilian areas of Hanscom AFB and this was before 8AM.

The idea that middle schoolers can't walk to school is insane. My son better be allowed to. We live less than a mile from the middle school and high school. Absolutely 0 sense in him driving or taking the bus when he's that age. Right now he's going into first grade, he's already almost capable of navigating to those schools safely on his bike. If he can't do it alone by the time he's in grade 6/7/8 something is going to be very wrong. I was safely riding my bike much further from my house at that age. Where I grew up was about 1/2 the size of town where we live now but there was still plenty of traffic.

[unterhausen]

people have organized bike buses around here. Always heartwarming to see 30 kids riding their bikes to school

[bikingshearer]

School's in session (K-12 & Cal/Berkeley), so getting around is noticeably more challenging, on local streets, on area highways, and on BART. 'Tis the way of the world.