6 ms·

After reading all of these I still think it's "the bus routes", or more generally speaking, "the commuting". I grew up in an asian country and my parents never

After reading all of these I still think it's "the bus routes", or more generally speaking, "the commuting". I grew up in an asian country and my parents never picked me up after I was 10. I just took buses from home to school and then from school to home. I'm not saying our system is better than the US, but it's a bit of culture shock that everyone commutes in their (parents') cars there.

katbyte 4y ago
Canada, I started finding my own way to and from school around 10 too
gnarbarian 4y ago
I'd wager the public transit is safer in your country.
- stonogo 4y ago
  Safer than, say, Baltimore, which uses the same system?
  - worstestes 4y ago
    Ah yes, Baltimore, the epitome of public transportation infrastructure
    - stonogo 4y ago
      Way to shoot down an argument nobody was making. OP referred to safe, which Baltimore isn't, and yet kids take the public buses as the primary transit to and from school all over the city for the past several decades.
      - gnarbarian 4y ago
        You know, now that I think about it. I bet the school buses aren't very safe in Baltimore either.
        stonogo 4y ago
        Baltimore does not have public school buses. That's what I've been saying. Students take the city bus system.
        yterdy 4y ago
        GP doesn't have any idea what he's talking about; he's clearly just fallen for the right-wing propaganda that puts Baltimore at the center of American ills, a la Chicago. Baltimore's public transit is quite decent, between busses and light rail, and (particularly downtown) its identity as a colonial city makes it hell for driving - which, consequently, makes it that much more pleasant to walk/bike. It could become even better, now that we no longer have a certain gubernatorial impediment. The only thing he has close to correct is the safety issue, but it's not like the entire city is a warzone. Rather, it varies block-by-block, and even then, I caution againt exaggeration. Certain people feel accosted by the ever-present window washers, while I can't remember ever feeling unsafe the dozens of times I was set loose as a kid for school trips or visited for Otakon.
- Symbiote 4y ago
  Having children use it — which covers the whole range of society in every demographic except age — might help keep it safer. It in parents' interest to keep it safe and useful.
- cafard 4y ago
  I commute to work most days on the bus in Washington, DC, and depending on the hour of the morning will see unaccompanied school children, admittedly more from middle-school age up.
RangerScience 4y ago
AFAIK this has a lot to do with cul-de-sac / suburbia development, combined with the US's chronic non-investment in public transit, combined with the comparative perceived-and-real safety levels. AKA - You literally can't take buses from school to home in most cases, and when you can, they're probably way to sketchy for kids to do.
- alistairSH 4y ago
  At the same time, the kids in my neighborhood are bused to school. The school is a mile away with zero road crossings (one short pedestrian tunnel). The rest is walking paths. Parents and kids sit in the idling cars at the edge of the neighborhood waiting for the bus. They could just about walk to school in that waiting time.
thewebcount 4y ago
I think there are 2 different things being discussed here: 1. Commuting via school bus vs. parents' cars 2. Commuting via public bus In the US, at least for the first 25 years of my life, most people I knew got to school by school bus unless they lived within walking distance or were old enough to drive themselves. Some kids parents would drive them, but it usually was either due to it being too cold to walk (or wait for the bus), a special occasion where they needed to bring in some large or fragile object for a project, or them being in an unincorporated part of the town that the school busses didn't serve. (I think this was fairly rare.) Since I don't have kids of my own, I don't know how it's changed in the last 25 years, but I still see school busses all over my current city (Los Angeles), so they're still a thing. Where I grew up in a rural part of the MidWest, there were no public buses. Our town was too small for them to run efficiently.
- karmelapple 4y ago
  I lived in a not-too-rural city in the Midwest of about 40,000 at the time, and we still didn’t have school busing for anyone in the city. It was only for rural folks. I was forced to get my drivers’ license at 16 to drive 10 min to school because the alternative was walking 1.2 hours every morning one way ti get to school… meaning leaving the house at around 6:00am. The city had no city bus, so there was zero public transit option. That was weird.
  - olivermuty 4y ago
    Bike not an option?
    - watwut 4y ago
      Quite possibly not. It is reasonably safe only if infrastructure allows it. Biking on a major road where a bunch of teenagers drives the car is neither healthy nor safe.
    - spicyusername 4y ago
      Most parts of the U.S. are not well designed for bikes or pedestrians, only cars. Also, many schools in the U.S. have really large districts, so some students live really far from the school. In many places this would mean children would be required to bike on 55mph+ 5-lane roads with no shoulder and no bike lane for 5-20+ miles. Nearly all public schools in the U.S. provide a free bus system for all students for this reason.
duringwork12 4y ago
I grew up in a part of the US and I think by second grade my older brother probably 10 was walking us all back to our grandparents house which was like 10 minutes from the school. Never commuted on a car or took buses since there were none. Just my town had the houses near the schools. I know now is worse because a lot of the schools have been consolidated into megaschools so I'm assuming this generation drives a ton more.

katbyte 4y ago

Canada, I started finding my own way to and from school around 10 too

gnarbarian 4y ago

I'd wager the public transit is safer in your country.

stonogo 4y ago
Safer than, say, Baltimore, which uses the same system?
- worstestes 4y ago
  Ah yes, Baltimore, the epitome of public transportation infrastructure
  - stonogo 4y ago
    Way to shoot down an argument nobody was making. OP referred to safe, which Baltimore isn't, and yet kids take the public buses as the primary transit to and from school all over the city for the past several decades.
    - gnarbarian 4y ago
      You know, now that I think about it. I bet the school buses aren't very safe in Baltimore either.
      - stonogo 4y ago
        Baltimore does not have public school buses. That's what I've been saying. Students take the city bus system.
        yterdy 4y ago
        GP doesn't have any idea what he's talking about; he's clearly just fallen for the right-wing propaganda that puts Baltimore at the center of American ills, a la Chicago. Baltimore's public transit is quite decent, between busses and light rail, and (particularly downtown) its identity as a colonial city makes it hell for driving - which, consequently, makes it that much more pleasant to walk/bike. It could become even better, now that we no longer have a certain gubernatorial impediment. The only thing he has close to correct is the safety issue, but it's not like the entire city is a warzone. Rather, it varies block-by-block, and even then, I caution againt exaggeration. Certain people feel accosted by the ever-present window washers, while I can't remember ever feeling unsafe the dozens of times I was set loose as a kid for school trips or visited for Otakon.
Symbiote 4y ago
Having children use it — which covers the whole range of society in every demographic except age — might help keep it safer. It in parents' interest to keep it safe and useful.
cafard 4y ago
I commute to work most days on the bus in Washington, DC, and depending on the hour of the morning will see unaccompanied school children, admittedly more from middle-school age up.

RangerScience 4y ago

AFAIK this has a lot to do with cul-de-sac / suburbia development, combined with the US's chronic non-investment in public transit, combined with the comparative perceived-and-real safety levels. AKA - You literally can't take buses from school to home in most cases, and when you can, they're probably way to sketchy for kids to do.

alistairSH 4y ago
At the same time, the kids in my neighborhood are bused to school. The school is a mile away with zero road crossings (one short pedestrian tunnel). The rest is walking paths. Parents and kids sit in the idling cars at the edge of the neighborhood waiting for the bus. They could just about walk to school in that waiting time.

thewebcount 4y ago

I think there are 2 different things being discussed here: 1. Commuting via school bus vs. parents' cars 2. Commuting via public bus In the US, at least for the first 25 years of my life, most people I knew got to school by school bus unless they lived within walking distance or were old enough to drive themselves. Some kids parents would drive them, but it usually was either due to it being too cold to walk (or wait for the bus), a special occasion where they needed to bring in some large or fragile object for a project, or them being in an unincorporated part of the town that the school busses didn't serve. (I think this was fairly rare.) Since I don't have kids of my own, I don't know how it's changed in the last 25 years, but I still see school busses all over my current city (Los Angeles), so they're still a thing. Where I grew up in a rural part of the MidWest, there were no public buses. Our town was too small for them to run efficiently.

karmelapple 4y ago
I lived in a not-too-rural city in the Midwest of about 40,000 at the time, and we still didn’t have school busing for anyone in the city. It was only for rural folks. I was forced to get my drivers’ license at 16 to drive 10 min to school because the alternative was walking 1.2 hours every morning one way ti get to school… meaning leaving the house at around 6:00am. The city had no city bus, so there was zero public transit option. That was weird.
- olivermuty 4y ago
  Bike not an option?
  - watwut 4y ago
    Quite possibly not. It is reasonably safe only if infrastructure allows it. Biking on a major road where a bunch of teenagers drives the car is neither healthy nor safe.
  - spicyusername 4y ago
    Most parts of the U.S. are not well designed for bikes or pedestrians, only cars. Also, many schools in the U.S. have really large districts, so some students live really far from the school. In many places this would mean children would be required to bike on 55mph+ 5-lane roads with no shoulder and no bike lane for 5-20+ miles. Nearly all public schools in the U.S. provide a free bus system for all students for this reason.

duringwork12 4y ago

I grew up in a part of the US and I think by second grade my older brother probably 10 was walking us all back to our grandparents house which was like 10 minutes from the school. Never commuted on a car or took buses since there were none. Just my town had the houses near the schools. I know now is worse because a lot of the schools have been consolidated into megaschools so I'm assuming this generation drives a ton more.