+1 we live just under 3 miles from our school and my kid gets there in about 15 minutes, the same or faster than his bus |
Are you kidding? I can drive a mile in 5 minutes. This is Arlington not LA traffic. |
It’s only on major roads, and even the most frequent only comes every 15 minutes. In almost all cases, walking will be significantly faster, and possibly not much longer depending on where stops are. ART is designed to funnel people to the metro stations, not to schools. |
But swim and crew are optional; school start time is not. |
| Carefully in that neighborhood. |
Taking the public bus usually involves some amount of walking in lower density neighborhoods, which is a healthy practice. There are free apps that show public transit arrival times. There are many cross county buses, and they are on most all major streets. That said, a 1.5 mile walk to school radius is not unusual for school districts. |
This is news to me. I always thought my kids were pretty average. I did not know that expecting them to manage their time in the morning (at age 14+) was a super-human expectation on my part. |
Why did you cut out the original snarky comment? "Look... you do you. If you don't want your kid to wake up a few minutes earlier to walk to school, then that's your right. But there are plenty of HS klds who can manage getting up on time to walk to school." Per your excellent advice, I am doing me. My kid busts his ass at his extracurricular and gets excellent grades in hard classes (through excellent time management) and is a positive, contributing member of our family. So I drive him in the morning because I don't mind. To restate, he can walk. He can manage to walk. He can manage his time. I drive him because I want to. |
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Before 2010, students could walk to the nearest bus stop and ride it to WL, which means the longest walk was probably 0.75 mi (someone 0.75 to 1 mi could walk to a closer bus stop rather than to school).
After financial crisis and budget impact, APS implemented bus passes and no allowed walkers to hitch a ride. So the 1.5 mi full walkers is a modern invention to save money. |
Students ride free as of last year. |
That’s the ART bus. Which only is useful for military rd and Langston etc. and schedules are less aligned with school day. |
| My kids walked 1.5 miles in middle school with frequent afternoon pickups but sometimes walked home. It’s not unreasonable at all. It was nice suburban walk for them. |
middle school kids aren’t up till midnight doing homework. |
The climate here sucks for walking. |
Not at all. Better here than Montreal. Or on the other end of the climate spectrum, Houston. Silicon Valley or San Diego weather would be nice, but it's not for everyone. |