I very seriously tried to be a no car household, I got to one car and I just walked a mile to work, rain or shine.
But my wife was a 6 minute drive from work, but due to criscrossing highways it was entirely unwalkable and like a 40 minute bus ride.
Not too far from me there’s a family with three kids in the school literally across the street from their house. They take the bus to school. Literally directly across the street.
Why? Some kid got killed there back in the 1980s. And instead of making it safe for children to walk to school they have them take the bus to cross the street.
Why? Because that street is a state route, and doing anything to calm traffic is anathema to it being a “highway.”
We have an awful 5 lane road in town with school bus stops all along it. The limit is 60 km/h but the average speed is about 85. There is 1 speed camera right where the 60 zone begins and ive NEVER seen a real cop doing radar on the road. There are many signs asking people to slow down and stop for the bus but no real effort has been made. One kid did die and we just plaster his face all over town yet still just accept that everyone is doing 25+ over the limit.
There are multiple solutions including using more speed cameras, running more radar enforcement in the area, redesigning the road, moving the bus stops to side streets that are safer to stop and cross on, but absolutely non of these have been tried or implemented. Hell the existing speed camera is vandalized so often I’d bet it costs more than in generates in tickets, people have thrown it in the lake multiple times (yet the city still insists on keeping the mailbox style instead of a pole mounted camera).
We live across the street plus a little bit from our kid’s elementary school. We don’t even get the option to use the bus. Either we pick up and drop off every day or he walks on his own. And he’s still little so realistically it’s we drive him or walk him.
But at the crossing for the main street the school is on, there’s a police officer serving as crossing guard every single day at start & end of day. So maybe our district took the sensible approach?
