District Administration - February 2009 - (Page 35)

Transportation Routes Districts help the environment while saving money. BY CARL VOGEL ROM LAST SCHOOL YEAR to this one, the St. Lucie County (Fla.) Public Schools reduced the number of buses it operates from 399 to 362, despite opening two new schools. Add in some other smart changes in policy, and the district lowered its annual transportation costs by more than $3 million over last year. Saving $3 million a year doesn’t come easily, especially since the district wanted to keep the adverse impact on service to a minimum. Solutions included analyzing bus route eﬃciency, promoting walking or bicycling, and shifting school schedules. “We use data to drive our decisions—our management structure will look at data almost weekly,” says Marty E. Sanders, the executive director of growth management, land acquisition and intergovernmental relations for the board of education of St. Lucie County. For most of last year, it looked like the cost of fuel might upend the budget of nearly every district in the country. While the price of oil might have returned to earth, diesel fuel is still on average $1 more per gallon than gasoline, and in today’s environment, money is tighter than ever. Consider this: e total cost of operating one bus for a year is about $50,000, and bus service can eat up 3 to 10 percent of the district’s budget, according to TransPar, a student transportation consulting ﬁrm based in Lee’s Summit, Mo. But the bottom line is more than www.DistrictAdministration.com F ﬁnancial. If 700 students in a district started walking or biking a two-mile round-trip route to school instead of taking the bus, more than 11,500 pounds of carbon monoxide, as well as more than 230,000 pounds of carbon dioxide, would be kept out of the atmosphere in a school year, according to the National Safe Routes to School Task Force. And those students would have spent 84,000 hours being active. No one is more pleased with the enthusiasm generated by this reality than Sean Miller, director of education at the Earth Day Network, which grew out of the original Earth Day in 1970 and steers environmental awareness worldwide. In 1964, about 40 percent of American students walked or biked to school. Today only 20 percent do, which has led to higher obesity among youths, a greater disconnect with nature and an increase in gas consumption. “We seek to green America’s schools, and one of the best ways to do that is through your school’s transportation system,” Miller says. He adds that “it’s great to see individuals take action on a local level,” instead of such action just being about the Arctic polar bear or endangered species. Miller identiﬁes various safe and sustainable ways to get kids to school, such as bicycling and walking, certain bus policies, and better site placement of schools. In addition, the Earth Day Network is kicking oﬀ this month an anti-idling campaign for all buses nationwide, recom- mending that bus drivers don’t let their buses idle for more than 30 seconds, either when starting up or waiting for students to board. For each bus that reduces idling by ﬁve minutes each day, 7.5 pounds of fuel are saved each year, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency. A More Efﬁcient Bus Route e twin variables to building a better bus route couldn’t be more elemental: time and space. e bus itself, the driver’s paycheck, and the fuel are sunk costs—they’re essentially the same if one child is riding or 50. So ﬁlling as many seats as possible is crucial. ere’s a catch, however. Most districts try to keep the amount of time students ride the bus to no more than 45 minutes, or an hour at most. But with the clock ticking from when the ﬁrst child boards the bus, it often is impossible to maximize the number of riders in a timely way. “Most buses run out of time before they run out of seats,” says Kyle Martin, vice president of TransPar. “It’s critical to look at any runs that can be combined. But ﬁrst and foremost, you have to manage your starting bell times, so one bus can be used several times over.” More than 90 percent of the districts TransPar works with have diﬀerent bell times for their schools, but typically, they have one start time for all high schools, one for all middle schools, and one for all elementary schools. Of those, Martin says, half could probably change some start February 2009 35 http://www.DistrictAdministration.com

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District Administration - February 2009 Contents Advertiser Index Editor's Letter News Update Security Curriculum Crisis Response Supervisor's Opinion The Rise of the Virtual Teacher Speaking Their Language Alternate Transportation Routes Opinion The Aftermath of the New 403(b) Regulations How Well Does This Web Site Work? Problem Solution New Products Product Focus Professional Opinion

District Administration - February 2009

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