Livonia Schools to end buses for High School

**BVos** · December-09-09, 09:43 PM

Interesting article in the Freep. The Livonia School Board is considering ending busing for high schoolers. Well maybe this will be good for getting suburbanites riding public transit. Oh wait, Livonia elected officials and voters said they had no use for public transit. So much for foresight!

http://freep.com/article/20091209/NE...killing-busing

MichMatters · December-09-09, 10:08 PM

Lots and lots of carpooling and new auto purchases, I guess. I hear that this is being proposed, or at least mulled, in many other school districts, these days.

**ASR89** · December-09-09, 10:44 PM

nb4 a trainman transit rant

MichMatters · December-09-09, 11:36 PM

I'd so love for that guy to be banned. lol

Bearinabox · December-09-09, 11:51 PM

Originally Posted by MichMatters

I'd so love for that guy to be banned. lol

Only cockpunchers get banned around here.

**reddog289** · December-10-09, 02:47 AM

Maybe its that Livonia hates buses. I don't really like them myself.

**ASR89** · December-10-09, 03:38 AM

I went to Wayne Memorial High School in Wayne from 2003-2007. My freshman year, my sister was a senior and she drove. My mom was always nice enough to drive me to and from school the next two years and I drove myself my senior year. I took the school bus home every once and a while and never thought of the ride as negative.

Hundreds of kids used the bus. I couldn't imagine how all the kids at my school would have gotten home otherwise. WMHS's territory is huge. For those unfamiliar with the area, the range extended to Inkster to the east, Romulus by the dump southward and Van Buren Township like 8 miles west [[although I don't remember anyone who lived that far out).

The Livonia kids would figure out other ways to get around - walk, bike, SMART bus [[oh wait, never mind), get rides with others, but I'm sure they would prefer the school bus if they can't get rides.

**detroitbred** · December-10-09, 08:24 AM

My kids went to Livonia Stevenson, and I cannot imagine what the morning and afternnon would be like around school if busing is eleminated. There must be at least one accident a day if front of it. It has very limited parking and the police ticket students who park in the adjoining neighborhoods. If they are all left to find their own way to school, it will be the biggest cluster f--k you have ever seen. I leave for work in the morning at the time they are all arrivng and I avoid going by the school at all costs.

**ggores** · December-10-09, 08:55 AM

Originally Posted by detroitbred

If they are all left to find their own way to school, it will be the biggest

benefit of positive experience which they will carry into adulthood.

**Novine** · December-10-09, 09:15 AM

Ironic that in the suburbs, people are consistently anti-transit but every suburban school district runs a multi-million dollar transit system to ship kids to school and back home each day.

**artds** · December-10-09, 09:17 AM

I think this is a wise move to consider in order to reduce the budget shortfall.

I attended Livonia Public Schools and as I recall, very few people ever rode the bus. Most who did were freshman, and of those, it was a convenience for most rather than a necessity. Most seemed to have a friend/sibling/parent that could drop them off or pick them up if needed.

I'm not saying the buses didn't have value. But if there's not enough money to pay for everything, something has to get sacrificed. Better the buses than the books.

**Sarah** · December-10-09, 10:06 AM

I agree with Detroitbred. My kids go to Stevenson [[by bus) and the few times I've driven them to school I have been horrified by the traffic around the school. There are accidents there constantly. I can't imagine what it will be like if busing is eliminated. There will have to be police directing traffic. It will be a nightmare.

**ghettopalmetto** · December-10-09, 10:11 AM

Originally Posted by artds

I think this is a wise move to consider in order to reduce the budget shortfall.

Yup, just force every parent to buy their kid a car. Problem solved.

**iheartthed** · December-10-09, 12:13 PM

Wonder how this will affect those kids who don't have a parent or someone available to drop them off or pick them up? It's not like they could go and catch the public bus system, since Livonia opted out of SMART several years ago......

**texorama** · December-10-09, 12:15 PM

This is on the table even in supposedly green Ann Arbor. We in SE Michigan have a basket marked Options, and there's a hole in the basket.

dharma4313 · December-10-09, 12:41 PM

Classic illustration why only pathetic, repugnant losers need government help. Government stops giving you a ride to school? Turn to family, friends, ride a bicycle, walk. Can't get to school? [[In Canada I walked a mile-and-a-half, uphill, both ways, in driving sleet and snow, a miserable accident of topography and meteorology, plus, I had to go home for lunch, then come back again). If you can't get to school without government help, your family thinks you suck, you have no friends, and you're too lazy to get off your fat, pimply arse.

**punky1** · December-10-09, 12:50 PM

Looks like "telecommuting" to school may be the next move. Look out teachers. You may be kissing those contracts good bye in the future.

**agirlintheD** · December-10-09, 01:02 PM

They're also proposing to reduce physical education classes in K-6. So, now they'll have obesity issues. The good news is, they'll get some exercise in high school when they have to walk!

**Funaho** · December-10-09, 01:40 PM

Originally Posted by dharma4313

Classic illustration why only pathetic, repugnant losers need government help. Government stops giving you a ride to school? Turn to family, friends, ride a bicycle, walk. Can't get to school? [[In Canada I walked a mile-and-a-half, uphill, both ways, in driving sleet and snow, a miserable accident of topography and meteorology, plus, I had to go home for lunch, then come back again). If you can't get to school without government help, your family thinks you suck, you have no friends, and you're too lazy to get off your fat, pimply arse.

Classic illustration of why this country is doomed.

**Novine** · December-10-09, 02:00 PM

"This is on the table even in supposedly green Ann Arbor. We in SE Michigan have a basket marked Options, and there's a hole in the basket."

Except Ann Arbor has an actual bus system that runs past the locations where kids need to get.

**English** · December-10-09, 02:05 PM

Originally Posted by Funaho

Classic illustration of why this country is doomed.

I agree. This is not surprising. It's part of larger trends in this nation to defund and privatize education, because there is no more money.

One of the reasons there is no more money is because the nation doesn't manufacture very much any more. When we were a major exporter of goods, we had an educational system that was the envy of the world. Now? Not so much.

**ghettopalmetto** · December-10-09, 02:07 PM

Originally Posted by Novine

"This is on the table even in supposedly green Ann Arbor. We in SE Michigan have a basket marked Options, and there's a hole in the basket."

Except Ann Arbor has an actual bus system that runs past the locations where kids need to get.

That, and a good deal of Ann Arbor is pretty walkable.

It wouldn't be such a big deal if kids were going to school within a mile of their homes. But it seems that we've grown accustomed to building large, centralized, and sprawling school campuses along main highways that resemble prisons more than educational institutions. If the kids could walk to school safely, you wouldn't need the damned buses in the first place.

**English** · December-10-09, 02:09 PM

Originally Posted by punky1

Looks like "telecommuting" to school may be the next move. Look out teachers. You may be kissing those contracts good bye in the future.

Guess who teaches classes online, provides online tutoring, and creates most of the materials that homeschoolers use?

Why, it's teachers, professors, and other educators!

So very sorry to disappoint you guys.

**English** · December-10-09, 02:11 PM

Originally Posted by ghettopalmetto

It wouldn't be such a big deal if kids were going to school within a mile of their homes. But it seems that we've grown accustomed to building large, centralized, and sprawling school campuses along main highways that resemble prisons more than educational institutions. If the kids could walk to school safely, you wouldn't need the damned buses in the first place.

I agree with you completely. Many of Ann Arbor's schools are within walking distance because they are truly neighborhood schools, a concept that also worked very well in Detroit until my lifetime. Why our nation decided to break the model that worked very well in the first half of the 20th century, I may never understand.

**EMG** · December-10-09, 02:14 PM

Originally Posted by English

Guess who teaches classes online, provides online tutoring, and creates most of the materials that homeschoolers use?

Why, it's teachers, professors, and other educators!

So very sorry to disappoint you guys.

Very true. But once work - of any kind - goes online, guess what? It can and will be outsourced - to right-to-work states. Goodbye, union contracts! Hello, long overdue taxpayer savings.