Greens: Free school bus for every ward in Greens’ plan

[Derwan]

http://itsyourbrisbane.com/commitments/old-school-bus/

Under our plan, every council ward would get a free bus for local students and teachers only, allowing parents to send their kids safely to school without adding to the chaos on local streets. Buses would travel a dedicated route to school 3 times each morning, returning 4 times in the afternoon to cover after-school activities.

Thoughts?

[aldonius]

Interesting to see how this interfaces with existing school services.

[ozbob]

http://itsyourbrisbane.com/commitments/old-school-bus/

Free school bus for every ward in Greens' plan

We've all seen how much congestion increases when school goes back and it's no field day for parents waiting in line at the drop-off and pick-up zones. Your Green Team has a congestion-busting free 'old school' bus plan to safely transport school children and teachers to local schools.Under our plan, every council ward would get a free bus for local students and teachers only, allowing parents to send their kids safely to school without adding to the chaos on local streets. Buses would travel a dedicated route to school 3 times each morning, returning 4 times in the afternoon to cover after-school activities.

Brisbane City Council would dedicate transport planners to work with local councilors and school communities in each council ward to determine the best route. Some buses would cross council ward boundaries as needed.

We've developed an example route for Central Ward. The 11 km route would take children to New Farm State School, Brisbane Central State School, St Josephs (Terrace), Boys and Girls Grammar and Kelvin Grove State College. The free bus would also drop students close to Holy Spirit, St James College and All Hallows'.

The 26 school bus routes would cost Brisbane City Council $4m per year. This would be offset over time by significant savings in road construction and maintenance due to the resulting reduction in car congestion.

[#Metro]

Hmm. I don't really know to be honest.

Central principle of a network is that ic can be used for everything. On the other hand, I can understand that people want to separate school children from the general population on the bus.

Not sure what to think TBH.

[tazzer9]

How would it work.   

I went to a school that students rather heavily used PT.  But none of them used a BCC school route but a few used BBL's samford and dayboro school routes.   Saying more school buses is nice but would it actually help people.  Probably not. 

[Derwan]

Central principle of a network is that ic can be used for everything. On the other hand, I can understand that people want to separate school children from the general population on the bus.

I understand that there are already "school services", but they still require a Go Card and I think they could be used by the general population if they know where the bus goes.  (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.)  I think this was what Aldonius was referring to.

I guess the question would be - are the Greens looking at adding the free services in addition to the existing services - or simply converting the existing services to "free" buses - or ditching the existing services and adding new ones?

And as Tazzer9 touched on - what if none of the "free" services go near your home but your kids still catch BT buses to school?  Isn't it a bit unfair for them?

[James]

Nice in theory, but really a lot of students in high school already use PT to get to/from school and are serviced by existing bus routes. The majority of people currently using cars to get to/from school are parents of primary school students, who are either too young to be catching PT or there are fears about the safety of them catching the bus (and walking to/from the stop).

There are a minority using cars because of poor PT (not safety reasons), but I don't think bus routes like this will remedy the situation. In particular, segregating bus routes into individual wards doesn't address that transit occurs across ward borders (and in some places, probably in quite significant numbers).

This won't do much to ease traffic congestion in my opinion. The school drop-off is just one stop on a longer trip which takes kids to activities, the shops and so forth.

[verbatim9]

Yep agree no need for this! Students get a rebate from the Government, so technically free anyway.
Plus students do different things after school might head to sport or go to the library or meet friends for a coffee, which seems to be the in thing at the moment. Thus the current model with rebates is more flexible and appropriate. --->
http://www.tmr.qld.gov.au/Travel-and-transport/School-transport/Assistance-schemes/School-Transport-Assistance-Scheme.aspx

[techblitz]

im all for more buses funneling students in areas they reside......where thier parents are forced to drive to the school....
There are a few 'culprit' schools which i regularly see causing traffic chaos in thier associated areas needing attention....


kedron brook high(park/junction rd)
geebung state(newman rd)
moreton bay college(wondall rd)
bald hills state(gympie rd)
forest lake state high(grand ave)

a special note on clairvaux mcillop/mt gravatt schools which play absolute havoc with garden city and its associated bus routes(120,175)......seriously......its beyond a joke....
Im sure there are plenty of others around the region too....

There are a couple of success stories where there is heavy bus usage from students....heavy bus usage means far more cars have been pulled off the road.......the 2 standouts being ferny gove high and sunnybank high...

[Martin]

It's hardly an original idea, in the USA about half the school population takes a free school bus.  That's 26M students on 480,000 buses.

Here in Brisbane it is fairly well known that a lot of schools have significant traffic congestion around pickup and dropoff time.  No doubt this congestion flows into various choke points in the school area.  I certainly experience this first hand in the Centenary suburbs. 

Fortunately my child's school is doing something about this and will be starting a privately run bus service next term, at a direct cost to parents of course.  While this is great for our school and surrounding area, I think a fairer approach would be for the council to provide a free school bus to all schools in Brisbane.

Starting with 1 service in each ward would allow transport planners to baseline the effectiveness of this service and adjust to meet demand.  Some wards may need more services added on. 

One return school bus service may be able to remove 100 to 200 car trips from local roads, which could only reduce levels of congestion.

Sources:
http://www.yellowbuses.org/about-nsta/faqs/
http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372