School Bus Transportation News at STN Media

Transportation Issues More than
Meets the Eye, Waistline

By Ryan Gray | Senior Editor

As a working journalist for the past decade, I've reported on an array of topics. From sports games to city council meetings, art reviews to historical features there isn't much of news or current events that doesn't fascinate me. Such diverse projects are nothing new to most writers, as they are schooled in acclimating themselves to a given sector and snooping around to gather a pulse on the latest happenings and pass them along to the reader.

Having reported on pupil transportation now for about two years, one of which was spent as a freelance writer in 2001 and 2002, I've been surprised at exactly how much goes into pupil transportation. On the surface it appears to be a mundane activity of picking up children and depositing them at school and then reversing the trek back home in the afternoon. But the regulatory statues are staggering, as are the implications down the food chain from the federal to state level, from the local school district to the transportation employee, from the student to the parents. With so many questions to be asked, and clear-cut answers often hard to come by, the world of pupil transportation in the United States and Canada, and beyond, is about as complex as you can get.

How large it has grown in not quite 50 years of the modern school bus era. It begs the question, "Had he lived into the 21 st century, what would Frank Cyr think of the current pupil transportation industry?"

When the "father of the yellow school bus" first hatched his plan for uniform transportation of rural students to school in 1937, he couldn't have foreseen debates centering on seat belts - lap-belt or lap-shoulder belts and who is to pay for them - and new federal provisions for a school bus driver "S" endorsement on the commercial driver's license. He also had no idea how important funding would become, and how new technological innovations like GPS could alter pupil transportation departments.

Cyr passed away 10 years ago at the ripe age of 95, so perhaps he did see many changes occur, and possibly he even foresaw more on the horizon. After all, so much had already changed in nearly five decades.

With the 2004-2005 school year winding down, the industry finds itself in the midst of a new era ripe with complexities. As the EPA prepares to award its third installment of grants for the Clean School Bus USA program, school districts across the country are at least aware of the many cleaner alternatives available to their school bus fleet, including alternative fuels and retrofits in the form of diesel oxidation catalysts. And with those choices comes increased competition between the different manufacturers and suppliers of these products. Already, we've seen a legal battle between the Engine Manufacturers Association and the South Coast Air Quality Management District in Southern California over clean fleet rules that, if adopted as a state regulation, would require public fleets in the area to purchase or lease only alternative fuel vehicles when replacing their fleet.

And speaking of fuels, school districts are in a quandary over how to stretch already shrinking budgets to account for the highest fuel prices in our nation's history. The increase, which at press time hovered around 60 cents from a year ago, has eaten up any extra funds that school district transportation departments were able to muster regardless of any government subsidies or tax breaks. But the issue is not simply one of increased fuel prices compared to dwindling school district budgets.

For example, the increased rate of child obesity in the United States affects pupil transportation in more ways then how to fit a 90-pound six year old into the child safety seat mandated by federal law for his age and height requirements. What does that have to do with fuel, you ask?

Plenty.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention recently published results from a study commissioned by the Federal Aviation Administration on the relationship between increasing waist lines and the fuel consumption of commercial airplanes. With the average weight of Americans increasing by 10 pounds in the last decade, it found that the extra unchecked baggage caused airlines to spend $275 million to burn 350 million more gallons of fuel in 2000.

The CDC also found that the extra fuel burned also impacted the environment, as an estimated 3.8 million extra tons of carbon dioxide were released into the air. A spokesperson said the federal government has not yet requested a similar study be performed for school buses.

With many school districts logging millions of school bus miles a year, wouldn't it be interesting to correlate the affect of little Billy's additional baby fat to his school bus, and even to the health of his fellow passengers and other motorists on the road?