tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3429342286679609717.post1303133678861745122..comments2024-03-06T06:52:39.051-05:00Comments on The Lexington Streetsweeper: A Surprise And A New School Of ThoughtThe Lexington Streetsweeperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15951887343694165562noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3429342286679609717.post-89974281264991206062011-03-28T18:56:40.470-04:002011-03-28T18:56:40.470-04:00herrVebah, Back in the day, when I attended the Le...herrVebah, Back in the day, when I attended the Lexington City Schools, there was no busing of any kind. And I do mean even athletic events and other scholastic competitions. Kids who lived in the city made their way to school without the district's help, either by parents, walking or the city transit system. It was only after the systems merged (a few years before the governments) that I rode a school bus to the State Sweet Sixteen and a football semi-final game. The only two times that I rode a school bus as a student.<br /><br />The middle and high schools have been located along collector streets but are not directly served by Lextran, I would suppose due to the impediment that the mentioned traffic jams cause on the headway times. In these days of the coming energy tightening, we all need to cooperate a bit more.The Lexington Streetsweeperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15951887343694165562noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3429342286679609717.post-38628248335858335082011-03-28T16:46:33.114-04:002011-03-28T16:46:33.114-04:00"But, do we need to pick up and deliver stude...<i>"But, do we need to pick up and deliver students to school when their parents clearly demonstrate that they for the most part are willing to do it? Our state law says that a public education needs to be provided but I know of no requirement to provide for transportation to and from said education."</i><br /><br />Be careful there. Transportation is a fundamental part of provision of and access to government services, and we would all do better to recognize this.<br /><br />I don't know the specifics of Kentucky's education law, but I do know that the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that Medicaid's mission to "provide" health care means also providing transportation to covered health care appointments even if they are non-emergency. See <a href="http://caselaw.findlaw.com/ct-supreme-court/1461403.html" rel="nofollow">Sikand v. Wilson Coker</a>.<br /><br />The very same argument could be very easily applied to provision of public education -- and probably has been somewhere in the US, I'm just not familiar with it.<br /><br />This is not to say that there aren't inefficiencies in the school bus system, I think you're definitely right that there are, but simply that we can't be so quick to eliminate the school buses altogether.<br /><br />I'd love to see an arrangement under which LexTran provided some level of morning and afternoon service to and from schools, as a way to reduce costs for FCPS but also to increase the level of service on LexTran routes. The problem is that school bus routes run highly circuitous routes that make even LexTran's most inefficient routes look fast. I doubt if LexTran could operationally swing some of the routes that go deep into Lexington's suburban neighborhoods.Erik Weberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17097407398700498522noreply@blogger.com