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Maryland
Busing Costs Soar as Sprawl Separates Schools from Communities
''We must change development patterns to build more walkable communities closer to schools,'' said 1000 Friends of Maryland Executive Director Dru Schmidt-Perkins, releasing the group's Yellow School Bus Blues report on just one ''hidden cost'' of recent sprawl practices statewide, which shows that total school fleet trips in the state's 23 counties have increased between 1992 and 2006 by 23 million miles to 117.2 million, and that combined county busing expenditures have risen from $215 million to $436 million.
''The location and design of new development greatly affects the cost incurred by governments and taxpayers,'' and public schools ''are no exception,'' the report states, allowing for the fiscal impact of inflation, wage and gas-price increases, and school closures or construction, but stressing that local land use decisions do influence the numbers of county students, along with their household locations and children's opportunity to walk or bike to school.
To curb related costs, 1000 Friends of Maryland recommend local policies to maintain neighborhood schools, locate new ones where more students can walk or bike, and build bike lanes and sidewalks to make students' biking and walking safe.
''Smart growth better supports schools and makes communities stronger,'' the report points out. ''School budgets are too tight to have scarce dollars disappear out of school bus tailpipes.''
And Director Schmidt-Perkins told reporters, ''There're other places that money could go. These dollars are urgently needed in school maintenance, in teacher salaries, in arts programs (and) gym programs. And they're being poured into school buses in order to get kids to school.'' -- Baltimore Sun, 1000 Friends of Maryland 11/1/2007
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