Infrastructure law is about to turn school buses in all 50 states green!

[SaysWho?]

Government awarding $1 billion to schools for electric buses | AP News

APNEWS.COM

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly 400 school districts spanning all 50 states and Washington, D.C., along with several tribes and U.S. territories, are receiving roughly $1 billion in grants to purchase about 2,500 “clean” school buses under a new federal program.

 

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School districts identified as priority areas serving low-income, rural or tribal students make up 99% of the projects that were selected, the White House said. More applications are under review, and the EPA plans to select more winners to reach the full $965 million in coming weeks.

 

Districts set to receive money range from Wrangell, Alaska, to Anniston, Alabama; and Teton County, Wyoming, to Wirt County, West Virginia. Besides Washington, major cities that won grants for clean school buses include New York, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta and Seattle.

 

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Only about 1% of the nation’s 480,000 school buses were electric as of last year, but the push to abandon traditional diesel buses has gained momentum in recent years. Money for the new purchases is available under the federal Clean School Bus Program, which includes $5 billion from the bipartisan infrastructure law President Joe Biden signed last year.

 

[PaladinSolo]

Rural districts are the absolute worst places to start this...  The 3 major manufacturers offer 120, 135, and 200 mile ranges on their full size busses, and all of them will tell you to take 30% off those numbers to start, then additional reductions in mileage for hot and very cold temps, on top of that rural routes can have busses doing 100 miles in just the morning or afternoon portion of their runs.  Long story short start with the cities and work your way out and hope along the way they get better.

[Ghost_MH]

33 minutes ago, PaladinSolo said:

Rural districts are the absolute worst places to start this...  The 3 major manufacturers offer 120, 135, and 200 mile ranges on their full size busses, and all of them will tell you to take 30% off those numbers to start, then additional reductions in mileage for hot and very cold temps, on top of that rural routes can have busses doing 100 miles in just the morning or afternoon portion of their runs.  Long story short start with the cities and work your way out and hope along the way they get better.

 

Just reading those distances makes me think about how my son couldn't get a school bus last year because we were half a mile outside of the FIVE mile limit a bus in our district can travel. He's now in a school 2.5 miles from home and I had no problem getting him on the bus this year.

[DarkStar189]

25 minutes ago, Ghost_MH said:

 

Just reading those distances makes me think about how my son couldn't get a school bus last year because we were half a mile outside of the FIVE mile limit a bus in our district can travel. He's now in a school 2.5 miles from home and I had no problem getting him on the bus this year.

That's crazy.  We are fortunate that our work schedule is flexible enough that we can take our kids to school.

The school just sent out emails yesterday desperate to find more school bus drivers. They are currently 12 drivers short and are telling parents they may need to make other arrangements if they can't find more drivers.  Especially as cold/flu season ramps up and drivers start calling out sick.

[PaladinSolo]

1 hour ago, Ghost_MH said:

 

Just reading those distances makes me think about how my son couldn't get a school bus last year because we were half a mile outside of the FIVE mile limit a bus in our district can travel. He's now in a school 2.5 miles from home and I had no problem getting him on the bus this year.

Well in NY anyone within 1.5 miles of the district we don't get state aide for, but we pick up everyone outside of .5 miles for the most part, never heard of a district having a 5 mile only though.

[mclumber1]

I've driven through Nye county (next to Clark county in Nevada, where Las Vegas is) and it was crazy thinking about the bus routes there for all of the kids in public school. I would not be surprised if the bus did over 100 miles on a single trip in the morning.  Electric is great for urban/suburban districts, but rural districts will still need to be serviced by diesel busses, at least for the time being. 

[CitizenVectron]

The school division I work for (entirely within a city) will only bus kids that live more than 1km from the school, but also are living within the school boundary. Our city is divided into ~30 zones, and you legally have to attend the school in your zone. The only exception is if you have a sibling attending a different school because you moved (since you can stay at the same school if you move). But <1km you are expected to walk to school, etc.

[Ghost_MH]

52 minutes ago, PaladinSolo said:

Well in NY anyone within 1.5 miles of the district we don't get state aide for, but we pick up everyone outside of .5 miles for the most part, never heard of a district having a 5 mile only though.

 

Depends on the type of bus you're taking, though I guess I didn't specify. We ran out of bus drivers, so many school buses have been replaced with city buses. Up side there is any kids that take the bus now had a bus pass that'll work all year round.

 

My two oldest are on the special needs bus that goes door to door. There shouldn't be a distant limit on those, but they capped it at five miles due to the shortage of drivers. That's the same as the furthest bus stop for regular buses. Technically, you can live ten miles from the school, you'll just need to drive five miles to nearest bus stop. Same now applies for the special needs bus, but that kind of defeats the purpose of those buses since they're supposed to go door to door.

 

The entire push is there to keep kids in their local school zone and dissuade parents from cherry picking schools on the opposite side of town. That doesn't really stop parents willing to drive their kids, though, so we still end up with a lottery for the better schools in the city. Now they just weigh the lottery on distance to school.