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Bus-riding throngs dwindle

Gas prices don't seem to be deterring parents from driving their children to and from school.

By ASJYLYN LODER, Times Staff Writer
Published August 22, 2007

Cars start lining up outside Cotee River Elementerary School in New Port Richey by 3:00 even though the children aren't released until 3:30.
	[Times photo: David Degner]

ADVERTISEMENT [Times photo: David Degner] Peggy Denniston waits under her umbrella for the car line to start moving. She can't have a bus take her daughter home because she lives out of the district so she picks up her daughter every day usually arriving around 3:10.

After shelling out for notebooks, backpacks and new school duds, parents may find little spare cash left in their wallets. Looking for one way to save? Try putting your children on the bus.

At $2.65 a gallon for regular on Tuesday, those trips to school can add up. After all, everyone who pays taxes pays for the bus, too, whether or not their children use it. Yet the percentage of Florida students taking the bus is steadily shrinking.

Morning drivers encounter the consequences. Once school starts, morning traffic increases 30 percent between 7:15 a.m. and 8:15 a.m., according to a 2003 report by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Rising gas prices fueled a renewed interest in busing last year, said Ryan Gray, senior editor of School Transportation News, a monthly magazine published in Redondo Beach, Calif.

But with gas prices edging downward at the start of a new school year, will parents resume the role of private chauffeur?

A decade ago, more than 43 percent of Florida's students took the bus. Ridership dropped to less than 39 percent for 2005-06, the state Department of Education said. Nationally, the percentage has hovered in the mid 50s for most of the decade, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, part of the U.S. Department of Education.

Some parents don't have the luxury of waiting for the bus.

At Pasco Learning and Activities of Enrichment, called the PLACE program, some parents bring their children as early as 6:30. PLACE doesn't offer busing for most students.

"All our parents bring our children to the program because they need to be at work, and it conflicts with the starting and ending time of school," said Cynthia Rendeiro-Lontrao, PLACE child care program specialist.

Other parents make the choice to drive for personal reasons.

Debbie Bland, 42, drives her two sons and a school friend 17 miles from her east Hernando County home. She wasn't comfortable putting her 5-year-old son on the bus with older children for the trip to a magnet school on the west side of the county. She also felt guilty making her sons sit through a long bus ride.

"They get home from school late enough as it is," Bland said.

So she navigates the morning traffic and the long lines. But the traffic isn't her only worry. She's also concerned about the emissions from her school commute.

She grew up in St. Petersburg. Back then, she rode her bicycle to school. Judging from the long line of cars outside her sons' school, few children do that today.

Asjylyn Loder can be reached at aloder@sptimes.com or (813) 225-3117.

Percentage of students riding buses

In Florida, fewer students are riding buses today than a decade ago. Hernando, Hillsborough and Pasco mirror that trend.

	1995-1996	2005-2006
Hernando	71.6 percent	58 percent
Hillsborough	51.4 percent	40.8 percent
Pasco	57.5 percent	52.2 percent
Pinellas	37.9 percent	39.2 percent
Florida overall	43.1 percent	38.5 percent

Source: Florida Department of Education

Programs for the carbon-conscious

• The EPA has a program devoted to reducing emissions and fuel costs by urging school bus drivers to turn off their engines instead of idling. Hillsborough County has had a no-idling policy for the past five years, said district spokesman Stephen Hegarty.
• TerraPass in California lets parents pay to offset their emissions and invests the money in green-friendly projects.
• The EPA offers grant programs to retrofit buses to produce fewer emissions or use cleaner fuel.
• International Walk to School offers planning materials for communities interested in sponsoring a Walk to School Day.

[Last modified August 21, 2007, 23:50:17]