Don’t Take Free Transportation for Granted

For some young parents, it might seem like free after-school transportation for children has always been around. That’s not the case. There was a time when City service picked up students and dropped them off door-to-door. Then to save money they established central bus stops. One can only imagine how difficult it was for a mother to walk for blocks with several children and a baby.

For decades, many families suffered from an inequitable and frankly dangerous denial of transportation services for certain New York City school children. Why dangerous? Boys and girls had different bus stops, so mothers with a son and daughter had to leave at least one child unsupervised. In addition, older Yeshiva students were dismissed from school in the late afternoon, so parents found themselves forced to pay for private transportation to bring children both to and from school. The average cost for this transportation was approximately $1200 per child. For those who couldn’t afford or reconcile the out-of-pocket expenses, the other option was having children use city buses. During the winter months, when dismissal occurred after nightfall, there was an additional safety concern.

It was only a few years ago that a NY State budget all children would receive door-to-door transportation at no cost to parents.
bill, which I was proud to sponsor, finally resulted in an amendment to the state’s school transportation law. At last,

It wasn’t easy getting it passed. The city certainly wasn’t interested. Liberal Democrats in particular opposed the measure vehemently and screamed that it would cost the city $300 million, a bizarre exaggeration on their part rooted in their accountability to the unions (who didn’t want to lose the bus services).

But my colleague Assembly Member Helene Weinstein and I fought hard, and we won. The result was genuine savings for parents, as well as measurable benefits for yeshivas and their students. Because they were now being reimbursed appropriately for transportation, schools could now afford new safer, and air-conditioned busses.

The new law did three things: It guaranteed transportation from city public or private schools for all children from kindergarten through sixth grade, even those dismissed after 4 pm; it mandated that all bus stops be no more than 600 feet from a child’s house; and, in the case where two or more school-age children in a family attended more than one school, it authorized the family to pick one bus stop for all children involved.

When the law passed, parents were happy, children were happy, schools were happy and I was ecstatic. But eventually, like with all good things, free transportation soon became a way of life, which everyone took for granted. I couldn’t take it for granted, though. Because of the way we were able to push transportation through initially, I understood that the statute had to be preserved and grown. That’s one of the things I was fighting for this year.

During the first year of the program, 9,500 children benefitted and by year two the number reached 14,300. More students meant more money needed to be budgeted. Then, this year, more than 20,000 kids needed transportation. Between new and existing students, more than $25 million was needed to continue funding the program. By Feb. 1st the City was ready to stop the program without a commitment of greater funding.

There was more than one problem to address. New York City complained that new students shouldn’t be funded. Their argument was based on the statutory language, which they interpreted as a temporary measure that had to be revisited each year. We needed to make certain that language was corrected this year so transportation would become a permanent part of state law.

My colleagues and I worked hard to devise a solution that involved increasing the budget and devising language so more children would be eligible. This required agreements with the State Education Department and the NYC Department of Education. I’m pleased to report: Mission accomplished.

Something can be a great idea but somebody has to pay for it. We fought hard for you this year to make sure that every student—children who had used after-school transportation, children who had not yet used it, and all new students—would be covered. Free transportation for our children is too important to lose. Once again, our families will have those benefits this year. But we shouldn’t take it for granted.

Simcha Felder

[This Op Ed originally appeared in The Flatbush Jewish Journal]