Reply to So annoyed at bus - is this par for the course in MCPS?

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Reply to "So annoyed at bus - is this par for the course in MCPS?"

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[quote=Anonymous]I'm sure there are many things going on here.  I have no idea what may or may not apply to this situation.

Over the last 12 years of dealing with neighborhood and magnet buses, I have learned that the reason our neighborhood bus comes at the right time for elementary, middle and high school in the morning is that the buses all sit in a parking lot for between 5 and 15 minutes and then start the route through out neighborhood at the exact same time every day so they get to our third stop on the route within 1 min of the projected time every day.

The elementary HGC buses with a bit longer to travel often have only two of the three routes so they to manage to be on time.  What we did to get out kids on time for these buses when they were younger was to use Bar-T before/after care so that we got them to Bar-T the same time every day and then Bar-T got them on the bus when ever it happened to arrive.  The buses are very responsive when Bar-T calls to say that somehow the bus didn't show up and missed say 5 kids who are now waiting so you don't end up fighting with dispatch.  We have neighbors with old but bad horror stories about dispatch.  The afternoon buses were MUCH more dependent on traffic.

Lately, with HS magnet buses, there seems to be basically no leeway.  The bus comes when it says it will and is off to the next stop within a minute including boarding almost 20 kids.  I think this has to do with our stop being relatively near the bus depot and as the OP said, at 7:00 am traffic isn't that bad, yet.  One thing to note with HS is that you really can change your bus route on the fly and go to which ever stop is most likely to still be waiting for the bus even if you end up changing routes each day.

Overall, all of these variables make things hard on dispatch.  The only time dispatch shouldn't be given the benefit of the doubt is if you have gotten to the point that dispatch is on your speed dial.  They know they will lose their jobs if they can't fix transportation problems, so they are trying.  A month of problems seems bad but the issues are complex enough so that you should give them a pass for a month.  After that, they go on your speed dial and they need to know you are now the squeaky wheel.

Good luck
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