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School Bus Idiocy

The song & story are the same. I am months behind on blog entries! I do have a good excuse though, a complete reconstruction of the site! Honestly it was only supposed to be a week tops but I became busy with other things. Anyhow the site is back up, so you can party it up in celebration! Anyhow let me get back to “School Bus Idiocy”.

As you might recall, earlier this year many school bus routes were axed or combined. This led to mass confusion & complaints from parents throughout the city. Around the time of this story being big news, I read a very disturbing article about a 7 year old kid named Joseph Merizalde who was affected by the changes.

The Daily News featured a disturbing story on page 7 of their January 30, 2007 edition. The article was about Joseph & how he went from riding a school bus since kindergarten to having to take three city buses to reach his school!

His new school route consisted of:

Board the Bx26 or Bx28 at Baychester Ave. & take it to Bartow Ave.

Cross a six lane road for a transfer to the Bx12 which he would take to Pelham Bay Park

Transfer at Pelham Bay Park to a Bx14 which would take him to his school on Country Club Rd.

According to the article, two of the bus stops had no bus shelter in place. This was magnified even more considering these changes took place in the middle of winter!

His mother was quoted in the article saying

There’s no way I would ever put a 7 year old child in that kind of danger.

The kicker in all of this is the reason he was taken off of his school bus. The reason was because he lives ever so slightly more than a 1/4 mile from the school bus stop.

So let me get this straight, for a little over 1/4 of a mile, you are forcing a 7 year old to ride 3 school buses on his own to get his deserved education? Let me say this is so asinine, I could rant about it all day!

I happen to agree with his mother 100% in not putting her son in that kind of danger. No 7 year old or kid for that matter should be riding public transportation on their own! I know the exact intersection of that first transfer & it is very dangerous. I am an adult & I have had trouble crossing that intersection. If I did, you can not like the odds of a 7 year old dealing with it!

I am curious to find out if a follow up exists to Joseph Merizalde’s story. I’m hoping he was able to go back to his old school bus route.

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