The Super School Bus System

The Super School Bus System

The Trusty Bus Sarah shivers on her short morning walk. It's a freezing winter day, but when she reaches the school bus stop, she knows she won't have to wait for long. The yellow school bus pulls up right on time. She greets the driver as she boards. After that, though, the bus ride is a part of her day she simply takes for granted.

Taxes to Transportation In the United States, Sarah and many other students depend on bus service to get to school. Few people ever stop to think about how that bus system works. Yet the American school bus system is one of the most important and complex mass transit systems in the country. Busing students to school requires the efforts of thousands of people. The vehicles, drivers, and everything else that makes the school bus system work are run by local school districts. School buses are often paid for with local property taxes. People are taxed on the value of their property. They pay that tax to local governments, which use it to pay for services such as schools. Buses support the American public school system, which promises every student an education.

Mass Transit on a Massive Scale Planning the system of buses that move students to and from school is an enormous job. The U. S. system uses more vehicles and moves more people than any other form of mass transit in the country. In 2013, about 480, 000 buses carried students to school each day. Slightly more than half of public school students, about twenty-six million of them, used school buses daily. In fact, the American school bus system has more than twice as many vehicles as all the other American mass transit systems combined. The American school bus system is so enormous for several reasons. The country's large size, its large population, and its lack of other public transit options for students in many areas make school buses necessary. Rural areas often have no public transit options at all outside the school bus system. Rural American school buses tend to have very large routes. The rural school bus system in Kingman, Arizona, for example, covers an area larger than the entire state of Delaware.

School transportation planners try to make sure that students don't spend too much time traveling back and forth every day. They try to set up bus stops that aren't too far away from students' homes. That way, students can walk to their stop. Many districts offer bus service to any student who lives more than 2 miles (3. 2 km) from school. Students who might be placed in danger by walking to school (by crossing a highway, for instance) are often offered bus service, too.

History American public schools began mass transportation for their students long before the modern school bus existed. In the 1800s, many students attended one-room schoolhouses in sparsely populated rural school districts. Some students walked. Others used horses or sleds to get to school. Over time, school districts discovered that it worked well to use a system of horse-drawn wagons. These wagons would pick up students and take them to school.