Just commenting to support and remind you upvote/downvote counts are not representative of correctness.
I’m british and although it’s easy easy to believe we all walk and get thr bus, the TRUTH is 6% of our schoolchildren have fully complete end to end transport paid by the state (yes taxis) - this is usually due to negligence of the parents.
There is a real requirement for kids to be picked up by cars and removing that option will only hurt the education of the innocent child.
People on this site are very quick to binary extremism and would immediately struggle if given power of choice over others in real world scenarios.
So now imagine 33% (car dropoff from that statistic, vs driving yourself) of your students’ parents sitting in a car line outside the school. In a school with 512 students (USA average) that is 169 cars waiting in line. In Britain, with the same school size, that would be 30 cars in line…if a line existed at all, because it looks like in Britain 9 of 10 children using the HTST program actually share the taxi so it’s only ~12 cars in line.
With these numbers you wouldn’t even notice a line, which is why many people in this thread are talking about it like it’s crazy. It’s not that nobody uses cars in other countries, it’s that it’s so insane the number of cars us Americans use.
Notably, those numbers for America don’t actually describe the full picture. If you dig down into that spreadsheet you actually see that 20% of American schools report that over 50% of students are dropped off by car each day. The survey doesn’t go any higher than that, so the actual percentage of students dropped off by car each day actually might be much much much higher than 33%. So in a full quarter of the US we have more than half the school being dropped off and picked up by car each day, and we don’t even know how high that percentage goes! Finally, 69% of schools reported that their students do not have access to public transit, so it’s not even possible to get to a state like Europe has. We do have school buses, but that’s essentially the same thing as your taxis, except even worse cause we’re paying for them for almost 90% of schools! So not only are at least 33% of students getting dropped off by car at school, but we’re still paying for private school buses for those students, even if they’re not used or needed.
So in summary: 6% is really nothing. American’s pay for 90% for school buses alone. 33% of students are still dropped off by car, even though school buses might be available. Finally, 69% of schools don’t even have access to public transit.
The statistics around walking/biking infrastructure is even more telling. 22% of schools don’t even have sidewalks to walk to the school. 59% don’t have crossing guards. 65% don’t have speed bumps or tables. 80% don’t have bike lanes.
Just commenting to support and remind you upvote/downvote counts are not representative of correctness.
I’m british and although it’s easy easy to believe we all walk and get thr bus, the TRUTH is 6% of our schoolchildren have fully complete end to end transport paid by the state (yes taxis) - this is usually due to negligence of the parents.
There is a real requirement for kids to be picked up by cars and removing that option will only hurt the education of the innocent child.
People on this site are very quick to binary extremism and would immediately struggle if given power of choice over others in real world scenarios.
I think the point others are making is that 6% is essentially nothing. In America it’s 39%. That is just percentage using cars to go to school. Not using public funds at all. https://www.bts.gov/browse-statistical-products-and-data/info-gallery/modes-transportation-available-and-used-students
So now imagine 33% (car dropoff from that statistic, vs driving yourself) of your students’ parents sitting in a car line outside the school. In a school with 512 students (USA average) that is 169 cars waiting in line. In Britain, with the same school size, that would be 30 cars in line…if a line existed at all, because it looks like in Britain 9 of 10 children using the HTST program actually share the taxi so it’s only ~12 cars in line.
With these numbers you wouldn’t even notice a line, which is why many people in this thread are talking about it like it’s crazy. It’s not that nobody uses cars in other countries, it’s that it’s so insane the number of cars us Americans use.
Notably, those numbers for America don’t actually describe the full picture. If you dig down into that spreadsheet you actually see that 20% of American schools report that over 50% of students are dropped off by car each day. The survey doesn’t go any higher than that, so the actual percentage of students dropped off by car each day actually might be much much much higher than 33%. So in a full quarter of the US we have more than half the school being dropped off and picked up by car each day, and we don’t even know how high that percentage goes! Finally, 69% of schools reported that their students do not have access to public transit, so it’s not even possible to get to a state like Europe has. We do have school buses, but that’s essentially the same thing as your taxis, except even worse cause we’re paying for them for almost 90% of schools! So not only are at least 33% of students getting dropped off by car at school, but we’re still paying for private school buses for those students, even if they’re not used or needed.
So in summary: 6% is really nothing. American’s pay for 90% for school buses alone. 33% of students are still dropped off by car, even though school buses might be available. Finally, 69% of schools don’t even have access to public transit.
The statistics around walking/biking infrastructure is even more telling. 22% of schools don’t even have sidewalks to walk to the school. 59% don’t have crossing guards. 65% don’t have speed bumps or tables. 80% don’t have bike lanes.