Montreal City Weblog

Kate 08:20 on 2024-09-05 Permalink Reply  

• Chris 09:11 on 2024-09-05 Permalink

  Uh, yes. So many *everyone* is being ferried by car.

• jeather 09:40 on 2024-09-05 Permalink

  Yes, because the rules are — at least at the EMSB — very strict about who gets on a schoolbus and which stops you are allowed to use (not always the one nearest you) even when there is plenty of room on the bus. I won’t go into the details, but if you want kids not to be driven to their schools, reasonable school bus access is the actual solution. (This could be combined with more aggressive confirming of the rules surrounding car dropoffs, and a slightly longer dropoff window.)

• Joey 14:23 on 2024-09-05 Permalink

  The extent to which parent-drivers refuse to allow their kids to walk even a short distance (say, a couple of blocks) – or find a safe/legal spot, park and walk their kids to school – is crazy. This attitude seems to positively correlate with the price of the vehicle.

  The EMSB is always going to be tricky since it can’t just organize around neighbourhood schools, yet presumably lacks the resources/willingness to provide adequate transport.

• Kate 14:49 on 2024-09-05 Permalink

  Joey, you remind me of an incident when I was temping some years ago. A woman in the office was practically in tears because her husband had not been able to drive their daughter to the school front door. There was construction or something in the way. Kid had to walk a block or two.

  Other women were trying to soothe her.

  So I asked how old the kid was, expecting like maybe seven or eight.

  Kid was fourteen.

  I said nothing and got back to work.

• Tim S. 14:58 on 2024-09-05 Permalink

  The CSSDM also has pretty restrictive school busing policies, as I understand it.

• Sara_P 15:30 on 2024-09-05 Permalink

  Longueuil’s newspaper, Le Courier du Sud, reported recently on that city’s efforts to make its school zones safer.
  “The street giving access to the schools covered by this project will be temporarily closed, two days a week, for a period of 30 to 60 minutes, during the arrival and departure times of the pupils, in order to give priority to walking, cycling or scooting.
  Volunteers will ensure the smooth running of the closed street for the occasion. “

• jeather 15:48 on 2024-09-05 Permalink

  I’m sure both do, but I have knowledge of the EMSB. If you want kids not to be dropped off by car — a very good idea — there needs to be another option. You can’t carpool anymore, because giant cars don’t have enough seats, plus the car seat issues.

  There’s been a big change away from high school students taking public transit to school. (Though I note that one friend’s EMSB high school is not accessible by bike from where they live, and is an hour on two separate city buses, so there’s not always a great public transit option either.)

• Alex L 15:51 on 2024-09-05 Permalink

  What a nightmare. It’s a grim reminder that kids need safe streets, not only safe streets in front of their school. Though it has to start somewhere.

• Joey 18:49 on 2024-09-05 Permalink

  Does anybody track this stuff in a rigorous way? Almost every one of my sixth-grader’s classmates takes public transit to and from school – it helps that they are in a transit oasis (what’s the opposite of a transit desert?).

• Ian 20:21 on 2024-09-05 Permalink

  Transit hub? My kids didn’t have a bus, I took a city bus and walked with them the rest of the way when they were little – but I live in a hub, too.

• jeather 09:47 on 2024-09-06 Permalink

  The reality is that many people are going to drive some or all of the time unless something else is a similar level of convenience. School buses often are. City buses, biking and walking less often are. If you want to stop people from driving kids you can start by making it less convenient for stopping/parking, but you also need another option, aka a school bus.

  Not much can be done about the helicopter parents of teenagers, though it would be nice if the STM looked into specific coordinating of rush hour lines with high schools in the city and their catchment areas.