Seeing the ignorance that comes out of the woodwork in these news comments really makes me lose hope for our society.

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The school bus hate bothers me.

The number of parents dropping their single child off continues to increase. That might be great for school budgets, but does anyone really think this is the most efficient use of everyone's money?

The more parents drive their kid, the more people line up against buses. It's a cycle that is going to cause big problems in many areas.

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Have we forgotten that many of us live in towns with mandatory busing, in an effort to balance free/reduced lunch students, or to attempt to deal with our inability to build schools fast enough? So we're going to force them to a distant school, then cripple their best way of getting there?

I rode a bus from the 3rd grade until I started driving. In some towns, the bus stopped near my house, and in others I walked a mile to get on a bus in the dark and ride an hour to school and an hour and a half home (I was at the end of a magnet school route). It sucked sometimes, but I did it.

I don't know why, but seeing these people lined up 30+ minutes before school lets out just pisses me off. I was talking with my wife about something similar the other day. In my mind, I would probably drop my daughter off at school via bike when she gets that age. The other day, it hit me that this is the same thing the others are doing (only by bike instead of SUV). Now I have mixed feelings about the whole thing.

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I realize that schools aren't required to provide transportation, but how can you not? We've dug a hole with supersize schools, magnet schools, diversity busing, etc.

Financially, we're spending a WHOLE lot more money fueling personal SUV trips to school than we would be to properly fund the buses and ban car dropoffs.

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Finally, yes, I do realize that the woman in question was losing a special bus program. I'm replying more to the general issues with buses than this one case.