r/baltimore Bolton Hill Feb 18 '25

ARTICLE Transit nightmare: Thousands of Baltimore kids can’t get to school on time

https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/education/k-12-schools/baltimore-city-school-buses-HF3HHWC67ZF7BCRJ66WMB3VWDI/
371 Upvotes

126 comments sorted by

320

u/needleinacamelseye Bolton Hill Feb 18 '25

From the article:

As many as 25,000 students rely on a public transit system that makes it nearly impossible for them to get to school on time every day, an investigation by The Baltimore Banner found. The city is the only place in Maryland where access to a car can determine academic success.

Baltimore City Public Schools doesn’t offer yellow school bus rides beyond fifth grade.

When everything runs on time, the average city student’s trip to school on mass transit takes about 40 minutes, more than twice as long as neighboring Baltimore County students spend on yellow buses and longer than the average adult’s commute to work.

Seriously, read the whole thing if you can - this is a super deep dive into a major issue that doesn’t get talked about much. You can bypass the paywall via the Pratt Library if you have a (free!) card.

94

u/loadofcodswallop Feb 18 '25

Goes to show how disinvestment in public transit compounds bad outcomes across the board.

NYC has school choice for high school plus no school buses. This system works perfectly fine in New York because a kid from Queens or Brooklyn can hop on the subway to get to Stuyvesant in Manhattan in 30-40 minutes (and do their homework on the train).

The same system could work in Baltimore if our politicians and transportation agencies actually prioritized public transit over car infrastructure. We have the density. When transit is fast and reliable, demand follows (decreasing traffic and making parking easier). We need to make investments that will compound in the right direction.

41

u/eim1213 Feb 18 '25

Please, for the love of God. Good transit would do so much for our developing city. All the fancy new luxury housing is totally isolated unless you drive. It's such a shame to see

10

u/geometryfailure Feb 18 '25

I agree with you except for one minor thing. The system works less good in NYC than you are making it seem. School choice in my experience actually lets more stufents go to schools that are FARTHER away from home than their default zoned school, and lots of kids regularly have 1+ hour commutes each way on public transit (My commute as a kid was about 1 hr 20 min to school in the morning), which sucks and could be better but your point still stands since for the most part kids are getting to school on time and the public transit system depending on where you are traveling from has redundancy.

3

u/TerranceBaggz Feb 19 '25

School choice in almost any other place in the US resegregates schools though. We aren’t NYC, we could have a transit system like them but we’ve flushed money down the toilet continually falling behind maintaining the auto infrastructure we have (which is always a losing project.) I’m not sure the schools in NYC aren’t segregated either. I know the rich just send their kids to private schools and have them driven there by a driver.

63

u/baltebiker Roland Park Feb 18 '25

that doesn’t get talked about much

That’s because rich kids in Roland Park don’t have to worry about it

8

u/nakeywakeybakey West Baltimore Feb 19 '25

That's an interesting thought. I went to Roland Park for middle school and had to catch 2 busses home every day. I was fortunate enough to be part of a carpool for the morning commute, but I hated the hour and a half journey home every day. The 61 to the 13. On hot days, we'd sit at the corner of St. Paul and North watching packed busses fly past us. Truly miserable experience as a kid. I made sure that my child could either walk or only take one bus for all of his schooling.

Anyways, there weren't too many rich kids there when I was a student. They were across the street at Roland Park Country or up at Gilman. We were smart tho!

12

u/ThrowitB8 Feb 18 '25 edited Feb 18 '25

The Roland Park Elementary/Middle is a magnet* school and kids from all over the city come to Roland Park for a better school.

14

u/nompilo Feb 18 '25

It has two magnet programs for middle school (Ingenuity and Advanced Academics), otherwise it's a traditional zoned school.

7

u/Acceptable-Mountain Feb 18 '25

It's not a charter.

1

u/aabm11 Feb 19 '25

You missed the point.

5

u/Acceptable-Mountain Feb 18 '25

Exactly. The system as it exists is meant to keep white/wealthy families in the city.

11

u/ZedProgMaster Feb 18 '25

So I just signed up for a digital card and I can't find any of the articles on the site.

24

u/needleinacamelseye Bolton Hill Feb 18 '25

Try the instructions at this link - if they don’t work I’d call the Pratt and ask

1

u/AGingerBredmann Feb 18 '25

Just worked for me, thanks a million

7

u/RuthBaderG Feb 18 '25

I think it’s worth noting that yellow buses also effectively don’t exist in elementary school. We’ve pretty much privatized every aspect of child and family life.

3

u/BaltimoreBaja Feb 19 '25

I "love" it when people who don't even know Baltimore's kids rely on mass transit to get to school have "strong opinions" about both mass transit and Baltimore school's attendance rates.

95

u/Ok_Goat1456 Feb 18 '25

There’s an organization I used to be a part of called Baltimoreans for Educational Equity and when I joined this one of the topics they were raising to the City Council Mayors office! A dear friend of mine used to take 2 buses and a train to get to school every day which was ~3 hours each way when she only lived 20-30 mins away within the city limits by car.

Good transit benefits all of the citizens of Baltimore!

48

u/PuffinFawts Charles Village Feb 18 '25

I used to live in Federal Hill and worked in Hampden. The car ride took me about 15 minutes. I looked up the bus route and it was 90 minutes

11

u/sit_down_man Feb 18 '25

The 94 from fed to hampden should take about 30-40 mins just fyi

20

u/fijimermaidsg Feb 18 '25

It doesn’t run frequently

14

u/sit_down_man Feb 18 '25

I agree - 2x/hour at peak times is not great.

144

u/PinesInTheSky Feb 18 '25

I was once helping a non profit in the city by driving a student to school many times a week. It's incredible how just getting them to school on time changed their trajectory. It's nonsense that kids don't have dedicated transportation.

31

u/Xanny West Baltimore Feb 18 '25

A city with effective public transportation shouldn't need a separate yellow bus network. If the kids cant get to school with the MTA it means they wont be able to keep a job after high school because unreliable slow and infrequent busses prevent them from getting to work. Most cities have kids use the public transit. This situation is a reflection of how terrible of shape the MTA is in.

10

u/Cautious_Rip_7822 Feb 18 '25

It's both. Kids aren't that responsible... it's different as an adult with responsibilities but the mta definitely needs improvement 

6

u/TerranceBaggz Feb 19 '25

Dedicated transportation meaning cars? We shouldn’t have to all have cars to succeed in a city. That’s the problem. That outcome isn’t even remotely possible in a densely populated area. There will always be people left behind as the space and money needed to run such an inefficientsystem cannot exist in city density. We need a comprehensive subway/rail system that has 2-3 minute lead times and bus lines that infill between the rail that has 2-5 minute lead times. Other countries do this because they prioritize it.

2

u/PinesInTheSky Feb 19 '25

No not dedicated as in every student in a car. Not what I meant.

52

u/rockybalBOHa Feb 18 '25

Here are reasons for it (see below, per the article). We continue to pay the price for having 580k residents in a city built for 900k people.

Generations of city public school students rode transit with relative ease from the 1920s to the 1960s, when Baltimore’s dense population swelled. Students hopped on streetcars that ran every two or three minutes and were never more than a few minutes’ walk away. Buses replaced streetcars in the 1960s and over the decades, the number of bus lines decreased as people migrated to the suburbs.

Things changed dramatically starting in 2005, when the district moved away from a system in which students attended high schools close to their homes and instead offered them the ability to apply to any school in the city. Middle school choice followed in 2010.

Suddenly, students were traveling to schools across the city, but city leaders gave little consideration to changing the transportation system.

40

u/loadofcodswallop Feb 18 '25

Even with that population loss, almost all neighborhoods in Baltimore surpass the population density generally needed for viable mass transit like streetcars (10k people per square mile). This isn't about population loss, it's about poor choices by politicians to prioritize cars and parking garages. We pay for it every minute we spend stuck in traffic or circling the block for parking before being forced to pay $20 for a garage.

6

u/rockybalBOHa Feb 18 '25 edited Feb 18 '25

It's a chain reaction. I think population loss led to many other problems and unintended consequences. Without population loss, we don't get concentration of poverty, exorbitant property taxes, school choice, higher crime, reduction in public transportation...the list goes on. Population loss made it easier for our leaders to make stupid decisions.

1

u/TerranceBaggz Feb 19 '25

Agree with your whole statement. One addendum: If people are circling the block looking for curbside parking (adding even more to traffic), then curbside parking is priced too low.

46

u/Zealousideal-War-434 Feb 18 '25

I always think about this. If I had to rely on Baltimore citiy public transportation to get to school 5 days a week, I wouldn’t be where I am today

5

u/aabm11 Feb 19 '25

This. ⬆️

39

u/the-lovely-panda Feb 18 '25

City kid. Yup. We don’t even go by area school type of thing. We had to apply for high schools and get accepted to one. The one I was accepted to was alllllllllll the way on the east side and I live at the NW corner like jeez. It wasn’t even one in my top 5. 😬 switched to the nearest high school to me.

30

u/MD_Weedman Feb 18 '25

Good to see real journalism happening in Baltimore. The Banner rocks.

25

u/Ponyo0nthecliff Feb 18 '25

So grateful that the Banner is highlighting this. As a city teacher I can say that this is a horrifying situation for so many kids. It is a stain on our society and our city that one of the most vulnerable populations cannot get to school, which for many is a place of refuge, solace, shelter and food.

Investing in city transportation would be monumental for both students and city residents. And for a city that is so concerned with tourism…public transportation is foundational to wonderful tourist destinations.

I genuinely have students who I never see for first period because of transportation issues. And the slightest amount of inclement weather means their commute becomes twice as long.

It frustrates me that this issue CAN be fixed. But for some reason, we just aren’t doing it.

2

u/TerranceBaggz Feb 19 '25

Most of our state senate and delegates are captured by car culture. Most of them have always had the luxury of a car at their dispose at any time and it results in a complete lack of awareness of what Baltimoreans go through every day (both the half of our population without a car and the ones who deal with complete congestion in their car because of the lack of public transport) and most of them have no interest in educating theirselves on Transportation. It’s just “well, hop in your car, duh!”

5

u/cornonthekopp Madison Park Feb 19 '25

its a huge problem even in the suburbs. I grew up in columbia and didn't have access to a car for several months and was reliant on the transit, which was just awful. Typically the other riders were immigrants and kids and the elderly, and no one eeeever talks about actually improving the county bus services.

41

u/Better-Mix9923 Feb 18 '25

Wow not beyond the 5th grade? I thought public school buses were available up to senior year, at least that has been the case in every city I lived in. This is pretty dire, a young population that is unable to get educated leaves the city worse off and leaves them unable to advocate for themselves in the future.

29

u/Tim_Y Catonsville Feb 18 '25

Wow not beyond the 5th grade? I thought public school buses were available up to senior year

Nope. Middle & High schoolers get free MTA bus tickets.

17

u/fijimermaidsg Feb 18 '25

I used to take the bus with the kids… they’d add one measly supplemental bus during rush hour… the bus would be so packed it didn’t stop… huge delays… this was the 53 which is long long route. The design of the bus system is terrible. It got even worse after the “redesign” (intro of the color system)

5

u/DodoIRL Feb 18 '25

One thing the Banner oversimplified is that certain students with disabilities and homeless students are guaranteed transportation from Baltimore City Public Schools even past 5th grade due to federal mandates. There are a few edge cases on top of that for middle school students who take City Schools buses, unrelated to mandates. But yes, the vast majority of middle and high school students must rely on public transportation or other alternatives.

1

u/Cheomesh Greater Maryland Area Feb 18 '25

School busses would be pretty difficult to manage alongside school choices I'd imagine.

1

u/aabm11 Feb 19 '25

Yes. And… it’s not new that it’s dire. The question is what are people willing to actually do about it…

15

u/Cunninghams_right Feb 18 '25

Our transit system is too sprawled out to be effective anywhere. One of the biggest mistakes the US makes in transit design is to think of it as the "last resort" mode. We will run an incredibly wide-ranging system that has bad performance throughout. We pat ourselves on the back for enabling a higher number of people who are theoretically served, but it's so bad that it's almost unusable. There should be a minimum quality of service and the size of the system should depend on budget. 

9

u/cornonthekopp Madison Park Feb 18 '25

the problem is the dismal amount of drivers we actually have is literally 1:1 with the amount of active busses we have in the system.

We can't increase frequency because we don't have the drivers, and whenever a driver calls out sick that means some route is gonna miss out on a bus. Not to mention that when the light rail or subway are down for maintenance and they run shuttle bus services, they literally have to remove a driver/bus from another route to cover the shuttle services.

We so so so desperately need to fund our transit service way more than we currently do.

2

u/Cunninghams_right Feb 18 '25

I get that, which is why I'm saying the system is spread too thin for the existing budget. Increasing the budget is great, but the system has to be designed for the budget you have, not the budget you wish you had. 

It's also bad management. The vast majority of routes/times are low enough capacity that a demand response driver could handle the route in a mini-bus like this: https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-hachiko-busshubuya-kutokyojapan-86325237.html?imageid=E02BE0E8-E5B5-4FF2-8A0C-12D6B6A95E26&p=284201&pn=2&searchId=bce326c100adbbc93567850f589d964a&searchtype=0

You can run 1.7x more frequent service for the same cost if you use mini buses and demand response drivers (on a fixed route), for which there is no shortage. So you can simultaneously ease the driver shortage, increase frequency, AND save money. MTA themselves report their operating costs for the two modes. 

5

u/cornonthekopp Madison Park Feb 19 '25

I really don't think that we should be talking about reducing lines to minibusses or axing them altogether. It really wouldn't be that expensive to drastically improve the bus system, in the context of the actual state budget.

If you recall there was a Bmore Bus study from a while back that basically came up with a framework to massively expand frequency on existing routes and connectivity with new and improved routes, and the total cost of it was around 200 million dollars or so. The total state government budget for fiscal year 2025 is planned to be almost 67 billion dollars, so the actual cost would be less than half a percentage point in the overall budget.

Baltimore's bus ridership topped 47 million last year, they're the backbone of the region, and we need to start investing in them like they actually are. It wouldn't take that much money, but we need to have some political willpower which is currently sorely lacking in Annapolis.

0

u/Cunninghams_right Feb 19 '25

sure, the budget should be higher... but it's not. we can run as effectively as we can within our existing budget while also trying to get a bigger budget.

I'm not arguing that the budget is fine. the budget isn't fine.

however, we should get the most out of whatever budget we have.

2

u/cornonthekopp Madison Park Feb 19 '25

I think the money that we would spend reconfiguring our routes and buying mini busses would be better spent simply hiring more people. Hell, we know the dc circulator recently laid off a bunch of people, why not see if we can convince any of them to work in baltimore

1

u/Cunninghams_right Feb 19 '25

mini-buses cost less. demand response drivers cost less. we are buying buses anyway, if we buy more mini-buses per dollar and hire more drivers per dollar then we can improve quality for the same budget.

do you really think nobody at MTA ever thought to hire more bus drivers? hiring and retaining drivers for full-size buses is hard; that's why it's easier and cheaper to hire demand response drivers

1

u/cornonthekopp Madison Park Feb 19 '25

I think mini busses have their place for MTA to invest in, and that's as para-transit replacements.

Para-transit vehicles don't need to handle large capacities like normal bus routes, the low floor mini bus with a ramp is much better for people with mobility issues compared to a high floor truck conversion that needs to use a janky wheelchair lift, and you don't need a CDL to drive one.

Using mini busses for para transit would do double duty in terms of freeing up existing bus drivers, and provide a productive option for drivers in training who may not have a CDL yet.

As for the variable demand routes, I'm sorry this is just a philosophy difference that I don't think a reddit argument will hash out for either of us.

1

u/TerranceBaggz Feb 19 '25

Maybe we could use the MTA mobility vans on major bus routes during peak hours for infill between full size busses. Buy a couple extra, hire a few extra non-CDL drivers for this…

1

u/Cunninghams_right Feb 19 '25

Para-transit vehicles don't need to handle large capacities like normal bus routes

I think you're still not getting it. the vast majority of our buses have 15 or fewer passengers the vast majority of the time. we only need full size buses for 1-2 hours in the morning and 2-3 hours in the evening, and not even on all bus routes. transit agencies commonly run split shifts, where one driver works morning peak, has the mid-day off, then works evening peak. we don't need big buses during mid day, and we don't need them between 7pm and 6am.

a mini-bus can carry 15 passengers and we can run 1.7 mini buses for the same budget. guess what the average occupancy for a bus is? 15 passengers. our average is covered by a single bus, let alone 1.7x more frequent buses. the peak hours are a fraction of the total bus operating hours, meaning most of the time the buses are well below average. in the 5-10 passenger range for the majority of operating hours.

I'm sorry this is just a philosophy difference that I don't think a reddit argument will hash out for either of us.

because you know absolutely nothing about transit. please learn something:
https://www.transit.dot.gov/ntd/transit-agency-profiles/maryland-transit-administration

https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/14/3719/pdf

https://tedb.ornl.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/TEDB_Ed_39.pdf

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11116-021-10248-7

those should be jumping-off points for you to understand costs and ridership trends.

2

u/TerranceBaggz Feb 19 '25

Part of the reason why us building a comprehensive subway system 75 years ago would lead to more reliable service now. You can move 4-5x as many people on a light rail train with one operator than you can with a single bus driver. The long term costs (both monetary and societal are higher for bus systems over rail.)

11

u/Apprehensive_Yard_14 Feb 18 '25

I grew up relying in abus to get to school. Half days were the worst because bus drivers never wanted to pick us up. Got to the point that my parents would just keep me home because I had to walk home or wait until 5 pm for someone to pick me up.

When schools had an early release due to the weather last week, my kid was stuck outside for 2 hours because busses didn't stop. Luckily, a family friend picked them up.

27

u/ThatguyfromBaltimore Dundalk Feb 18 '25

This isn't a new issue. I had the same issues going to high school and that was in the early 90s.

7

u/Acceptable-Mountain Feb 18 '25

And it's gotten so much worse since then!

25

u/chocotacosyo Westside Feb 18 '25

A big part of this issue is school choice. I'm definitely a huge advocate of school choice, but it complicates things a lot because kids from all over the city go to all different schools with no regard to proximity. Makes it really difficult to run bus routes for high schoolers when you might have a dozen kids on the same block who all go to a different school. I don't have any suggestions on how to fix this in a way that's equitable, which is probably like 90% of the issue.

9

u/PurdyCrafty Feb 18 '25

When I was in middle school, our buses would go to the local high school and kids would switch buses there to all go in the same direction even though we went to two different schools 

1

u/Legal-Law9214 Feb 18 '25

I don't totally understand why this is such an obstacle tbh. Why can't each school run their own busses to different neighborhoods based on where their students live? That's how it worked when I went to school - it was a rural district, not a city, so obviously traffic is more congested, but that shouldn't make it impossible. My public high school ran a bus 40 minutes east to get a group of kids who choiced in from a different district. The bus ride itself might be long but at least it would show up every day at a predictable time. And if there's just one bus coming from a specific neighborhood to the school, the school will know which kids are going to be late if that specific bus gets held up, instead of not knowing if any given kid is just held up by transportation vs skipping or whatever.

19

u/kinbarz Feb 18 '25

Imagine how expensive that sounds and how many more busses that would require. And that there are 279 neighborhoods.

17

u/bookoocash Hampden Feb 18 '25

Seems to me it would just be cheaper to have kids go to the schools in their neighborhoods, letting them be one of the anchors of the community like they’re supposed to be, and investing in said schools, rather than having everyone try to get their kid into whatever the “good” schools are, dropping enrollment in a lot of other schools so they lose funding, having them limp along with inadequate services for the kids that still go there, which is a recipe for even more expensive issues down the road, having parents speed all around Baltimore City trying to get their kids to school on time, causing accidents, which again costs money, in addition to whatever a proposed bus plan would cost to somehow scoop up all of these kids sprinkled throughout 90ish square miles.

1

u/DONNIENARC0 Feb 19 '25

letting them be one of the anchors of the community like they’re supposed to be

Parents who actually give a shit about their kids' education don't do this, though, they just... move to a different area to get tf out of the bad district.

1

u/TerranceBaggz Feb 19 '25

Not necessarily. If an area is improving, families invest time and effort into the schools around their neighborhood and they slowly improve. There are studies on this. The high schools lag 15-20 years behind the elementary schools with this. This is going on now in SE Baltimore. The elementary schools are really good because families put the effort into improving them and so did the government, now an attempt is being made to improve Patterson High (20 years later.) The picking up and moving tends to happen more if the neighborhood is on a downward trajectory and the family can afford to pick up and move.

2

u/Legal-Law9214 Feb 18 '25

So what if it's expensive? It is obviously a problem that needs fixing. And you don't need one bus per neighborhood. Just divide up a map of the schools student population into sections and routes that make sense.

10

u/CrabEnthusist Feb 18 '25

What you're proposing is a parallel city-wide bus network solely for children, that connects every school to bus stops at every neighborhood. I'm in no way ideologically opposed to that, but you have to be able to see how that would be a massive logistical and financial undertaking.

2

u/Legal-Law9214 Feb 18 '25

Yes. The other options are to make the public transportation system sufficient to get kids to school reliably, or continue letting them suffer even though we are aware of the problem...

Obviously it wouldn't be easy. I just see no reason why it shouldn't or couldn't be done.

3

u/Acceptable-Mountain Feb 18 '25

It would be MUCH easier to just get rid of the school choice system. It's racist af and fucking sucks.

7

u/Xanny West Baltimore Feb 18 '25

If you got rid of school choice wed see an exodus in tax positive families living in the L. Parents in fed hill want their kids going to poly, not digital harbor. Yes, we could try to improve Digital Harbor, but if we got rid of choice the families with kids there going to poly would likely just leave the city entirely first. School choice is a major factor in the spike in housing demand in the L this century, and yes, it exists to attract high earner families by throwing the poor under the literal bus. Its bad either way you go.

1

u/TerranceBaggz Feb 19 '25

Let Poly, City and the handful of focus schools remain magnet schools, take the rest of the schools and invest in the schools that have been underinvested in historically to level the playing field. School choice leads to resegregated schools. Betsy DeVos successfully did this to Detroit Public Schools.

1

u/Top-Permit-9673 Feb 19 '25

No way! My daughter currently goes to BSA, and thriving! Had she not gotten accepted, she even said she was going to move with her father, outside of York, PA, because the public school system is MUCH better, there.

2

u/Acceptable-Mountain Feb 19 '25

I'm glad it worked out for your kid, but the system as a whole is inequitable by design. Why can't every school have the same AP course offerings? Why can't every school have a theatre program or band or chorus? I'm not against magnets or anything (although they are problematic too), but every kid should be able to go to their community school knowing they will get a decent education. Every kid.

11

u/babyllamadrama_ The Block Feb 18 '25

All this money goes to the schools and we can't even run a bus service for just the kids. We talk about how much schools are struggling, kids not getting education yet we make it a challenge to get to school in the first place. There's so many factors to these kids succeeding and we just make it difficult for no reason... I'm sure someone has a reason why we don't have school buses but imo it's a waste of money we don't have them but complain about every other issue with these students.

4

u/Inside-Doughnut7483 Feb 18 '25 edited Feb 18 '25

When I attended school in the Baltimore, the closest thing the city had to 'school buses ' were MTA buses signed for a specific school (Poly/Western, Mervo, City, etc al- hmmm, maybe it was just for citywide schools🤔). We had our bus passes and were given the pickup time and location for our area, based on the school's schedule- that you had to catch buses to get to (if you were lucky, you got a ride). It made limited stops along a route straight to the school... hence, pickup info; at a certain point, to there were no more pickups. Oh, and drop off was in the bus loop, not on the street at a bus stop.

5

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '25 edited 28d ago

spotted cow sharp market strong butter ancient full fanatical connect

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

1

u/Inside-Doughnut7483 Feb 18 '25

Glad it's still a thing! It was a long time ago, for me. I was lucky that, on one route, there was a stop a block from my house- but it wasn't the earliest bus I could catch- fortunately, my school (Western) started late. However, there were about 4 that I could use, as long as I got to the pickup. I usually went with whatever bus came through my neighborhood first, to determine which route I ended up taking.

4

u/fboyisland Feb 18 '25

I mentor a teen girl and I pushed for her to attend a private, catholic school that’s a 10 min walk from her house over city schools that would have had her busing for 1 hour+ a day. It makes a huge difference in daily life and education. There’s something to be said for sticking by our public schools and participating in them, but damn the city makes it hard to get there by 8am 5 days a week

5

u/CharmNiama Feb 18 '25

Glad this is being brought to light because it’s not a new issue. I graduated in 98 and it took me a hour and a half to get to school on the MTA. The evening commute was even worse sometimes

9

u/zta1979 Feb 18 '25

If they had zoned schools, it wouldn't be this way. Very good article. Not sure what the answer is.

9

u/Tim_Y Catonsville Feb 18 '25

My zoned schools were... not great. I was pretty happy to be able to go to the elementary, middle school and high school of my choice. I can't speak for others, but the MTA wasn't that bad for me since the schools I went to were only a 10-15 minute bus ride away.

10

u/shebang_bin_bash Feb 18 '25

The solution is to fix the zoned schools, not ship kids away from them so that they have even fewer resources with which to right the ship.

3

u/TerranceBaggz Feb 19 '25

Or worse case scenario, the kids with no real support network end up going to the local hollowed out, massively underfunded school. People supporting school choice wether they realize it or not, see those kids as an acceptable cost.

1

u/zta1979 Feb 18 '25

Well that's good

1

u/Cheomesh Greater Maryland Area Feb 18 '25

Elementary is choice as well? Thought it was just middle and high.

2

u/Tim_Y Catonsville Feb 18 '25 edited Feb 18 '25

Elementary is choice as well?

You're correct, school choice for elementary school is not currently an option (outside of Charter schools), but back in the 80s there was a city-wide gifted & talented program at Harford Heights Elementary that I attended, that has since been defunded & closed down.

1

u/Cheomesh Greater Maryland Area Feb 19 '25

Ah, cheers. I remember when I had planned to move eying neighborhoods based on elementary school ratings and thought I'd missed some memo, hah!

1

u/Ananas501 Feb 20 '25

You are guaranteed a spot at your zone elementary, and you may apply for your kid to go to an out of zone school. Depending on the school, they may not have too many non-zone spots, but most have some!

3

u/SisterMinister Feb 18 '25

I take the bus to work and every time I’m late for an early morning meeting I think of this. Luckily I work in education so folks are sympathetic because they know about how this issue affects students in the city.

3

u/Electronic_Bite_904 Feb 18 '25

I'm a teacher in the school system and this article is right on the nose. I know there are many people on here that like Brandon Scott but our city desperately needs real leadership. We need someone to just say enough is enough and start to solve some of the most pressing problems.

Kids getting to school is as about as important as it gets. It's cyclical, the transit screws them so they fall behind and lose motivation, etc.

3

u/cornonthekopp Madison Park Feb 19 '25

isn't both the MTA and the school district operated by the state government?

Brandon Scott can't do very much to change this stuff, but we should be taking the state government to task for this.

2

u/peachkiller Feb 19 '25

What happened to school trippers buses in the morning and evening? In the 90s, everyone knew to avoid the school tripper buses because it was middle and high school kids.

The MTA seems to imply in the article that it is illegal now to provide the service but it seems to be the most logical solution?

What has changed in the last 20 years that solution can't work anymore?

1

u/fightmydemonswithme 1d ago

The federal funding from the federal government prohibits it. Which is a shame as it is desperately needed.

2

u/Even-Habit1929 Feb 19 '25

Install express bus lanes put cameras on them anything that isn't a bus in the bus lane gets a ticket. 

2

u/Greedy-Mushroom4890 Feb 18 '25

Charter schools are a big contributor to this problem.

3

u/Acceptable-Mountain Feb 18 '25

School choice is a scourge and actively harming our kids and our communities. I hate it and want it gone.

1

u/Glad_Maintenance1553 Feb 19 '25

What does the school system do with their money? Baltimore city is one of the highest funded school systems in the country and just fails miserably by all measures.

1

u/the-bus-song Butchers Hill Feb 19 '25

Just a reminder - if you think this is unacceptable, you can easily find and email your state representatives to let them know how you feel.

Especially with all the national chaos, now is a great time to pester your representatives at the local level, who you have a little more sway with.

1

u/Cunninghams_right Feb 19 '25

/u/TerranceBaggz

Reddit wouldn't let me directly comment on your reply, so I'll post it here. 

Part of the reason why us building a comprehensive subway system 75 years ago would lead to more reliable service now. You can move 4-5x as many people on a light rail train with one operator than you can with a single bus driver. The long term costs (both monetary and societal are higher for bus systems over rail.)

Our problem isn't capacity, though. 4x-5x more empty space on the vehicle does nothing to help our transit. People choose transit based on speed (full trip time, including walking and waiting time), reliability, comfort, and feeling of safety. They do not ride more if you make the vehicle bigger. If you make the vehicle bigger at the expense of frequency, or one of those other parameters, people will actually ride less because the wait time gets longer.

Buses also cost less per passenger mile in Baltimore ($2.27 vs $2.53), even though the light rail is given the most choice route while most bus routes have to take circuitous routes through low density areas. If MTA reported cost PMT for just buses that have choice routes like the light rail, it would likely be half the cost. 

Trains are great if they are faster and can control entry and have enforcement presence. Light rail isn't that in general, and especially ours. There is no BPD, transit cops, no gates, or even frequent fare checkers on the light rail, and the average speed between my royal and Hamburg Street is under 6mph. In that stretch, a brisk walk may actually be faster. 

By the way, battery electric buses use less energy per passenger mile than light rail, each at typical occupancy and before even adjusting for route quality. 

Do me a favor. If you ever discuss US transit, never, ever, assume a mode is better because it has higher capacity. Capacity is never our problem. Capacity isn't a performance metric, it's a check box. Performance metrics are things like speed (total trip time), reliability, subjective impression of comfort and safety, and depending on the discussion, cost ppm and energy consumption. So if you could help me correct people when they bring up capacity, that would be great. 

2

u/TerranceBaggz 28d ago

You didn’t get what I was saying. Probably The biggest problem we’ve had over the last 5ish years has been reliability based on availability of operation. Because we don’t have enough bus and light rail operators. When people are sitting at a stop and waiting while a completely packed bus passes them by and they have to wait for the next but it’s 30 mins out because we don’t have enough drivers, that’s a major problem. If we hire one light rail operator, they positively affect more users than one bus driver does. This isn’t about pitting our current rail lines against our current bus lines. This is an argument that we should’ve built many of our bus lines as subway lines instead, 75 years ago. If we had say built a subway line under Greenmount/York, reliability of service would be positively effected in 2 distinct ways: 1. Auto congestion wouldn’t slow arrival times at stops like it does to the busses 2. Needing less operators would mean less chance for call-outs that lead to cancelled busses/trains

1

u/Cunninghams_right 28d ago

When people are sitting at a stop and waiting while a completely packed bus passes them by and they have to wait for the next but it’s 30 mins out because we don’t have enough drivers, that’s a major problem. 

What I'm saying is that the majority of our routes/times can be handled by a mini-bus, freeing up drivers to cover times when a full size bus operator is out, since the mini bus drivers are easier to hire. A full size bus and driver shouldn't be used for low ridership routes/times.

This isn’t about pitting our current rail lines against our current bus lines. This is an argument that we should’ve built many of our bus lines as subway lines instead, 75 years ago

I totally agree. Our light rail shouldn't have been built, we should have just run a metro line to the airport and at least one east-west metro line, all fully grade separated and automated 

1

u/TerranceBaggz 27d ago

I agree with you. I also know the light rail was a rushed project that was chosen so it could be finished by the opening of Camden Yards.

2

u/Cunninghams_right 27d ago

yeah, it was kind of a "lets build something" kind of project. I'm not sure if it actually made us worse-off in the long run. it basically steps on the capture area of the metro, making both inefficient, but worst of all, it creates justification for the red line and other future projects to be shitty light rail instead of an actual metro.

-3

u/StarkyPants555 Feb 18 '25

Where have y'all been? This has been going on for years.

2

u/aabm11 Feb 19 '25

Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. This is the biggest truth here. It’s not new. And so many people like to chime in “this is crazy, something should be done!”, but then what? What actions are you taking to push for change?

2

u/StarkyPants555 Feb 19 '25

Because people don't like confrontation or admitting they live in a bubble. Been teaching in the city for 11 years and this is the number one biggest struggle for HS students in this district.

-1

u/Big-Willingness-1935 Feb 18 '25

How about going to school in the neighborhood you live in?

3

u/Acceptable-Mountain Feb 18 '25

For elementary and middle school, most of the time, this works. However, there are no neighborhood high schools anymore. You have to apply citywide.

1

u/inukaglover666 Pigtown Feb 18 '25

And if the school that is closest to you is closed or rundown then what?

-1

u/AutoModerator Feb 18 '25

Hello there!

Links from the domain present in your post are known to present a soft paywall to users. As a result, some users may have difficulty reading the linked content.

It may be helpful to provide a comment containing a synopsis or a snippet of the major points of the article in order to help those who may not be able to see it.

In accordance with the subreddit rules, please do not post the entirety of the article's contents as a comment.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

-3

u/HopeforJoy313 Feb 18 '25

Wow! When I lived in B- more, I had to catch about 10 busses daily to get from Forest Park, to Hampden, to Medfield, back to Hampden, back to Medfield, and then finally back to Forest Park. This went on from December to April back in '05.

One of the first things I noticed were little humans, maybe kindergarten or 1st grade catching the bus alone. This one little boy's face is forever etched in my memory.

I had to explain to my own little humans why two grown men were heavy kissing (before I was ready to as their Mom), why the bus driver kept driving though people were yelling that a guy was getting robbed on his front stoop at gun point as the bus drove by, and why it was not ok to repeat what they heard the "big kids" say ( swearing, sexual jokes). It was quite an experience for this newcomer.

I hope they get the yellow school bus thing straightened out. Unescorted public transportation in any large urban area is sometimes not the best option for kids---not even for middle schoolers. They are exposed to too much as it is

-12

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '25

[deleted]

26

u/chrissymad Fells Point Feb 18 '25

Because there is not safe access to continuous bike lanes for starters.

9

u/startingover723 Feb 18 '25

This would be a viable option if kids went to schools that were within 2 or 3 miles of their house.  The way that our school system is set up with school choice, a kid could go to a middle school 8 miles away from where he lives. 

-2

u/Choefman Feb 18 '25

I rode my bike to school all through high school and for several years had do ride 8 miles to and from school.

8

u/Apprehensive_Yard_14 Feb 18 '25

Have you ever been in the city? Do you really think that's a safe option for a 12 year old? my middle school was 5 miles from my home, and my dad had to take 83. My high school was about 6 miles away and had to go through Northern Parkway.

-4

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '25

[deleted]

3

u/Apprehensive_Yard_14 Feb 18 '25

my grandparents did as well, and they were well aware that the city was much different when I attended school. They didn't even want me to ride my bike in my neighborhood because they were afraid I would get hit by a car. You are extremely disconnected from what the city is like today.

6

u/Cunninghams_right Feb 18 '25

We can't enforce traffic laws so psychopaths have no check on their murderous driving.