The warmth may not just be for the children's sake.

The one bus stop in my old neighborhood would have actually made for a less of a walking distance on the homeward bound run, but the sad part is that there is no longer a morning bus on this route, only one afternoon run. No morning run makes for either a three mile/one hour walk, a twenty minute bicycle ride in much heavier traffic than when I was a student, or driving or being driven to school each day.

There is a mass transit service that is only a block away, but goes in the opposite direction, a conflicting schedule, and does not go anywhere close to a school that I would have taken a bus to as a student.