More kids will walk to school

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Faced with soaring diesel-fuel costs, school districts are forcing students to use the old-fashioned way to get to class: on their own two feet.

Many schools are eliminating or reducing bus service because fuel had jumped to $4.50 per gallon, 36 percent more than a year ago, and is busting budgets.

Nationwide, school districts are consolidating bus stops, canceling field trips and forcing students to walk longer distances to school to control costs.

The Northshore School District in the Bothell area, for instance, is eliminating after-school activity buses and some elementary-school buses, for a savings of $200,000 a year.

Health advocates long have encouraged students to walk, stressing the fitness benefits. But school and transportation officials say they fear that abruptly reducing bus service could lower attendance rates, increase traffic congestion or endanger students where sidewalks and crosswalks are lacking.

"If you remove a school bus from the road, you're adding 40 to 50 cars in the morning and in the afternoon," said Bob Riley, spokesman for the American School Bus Council, which represents school transportation officials.

Major cuts loom in California, where schools are not required to provide transportation to campus. Districts squeezed by fuel prices and fewer state dollars are trimming millions from transportation budgets.

Increased fuel costs are especially punishing for large, spread-out districts. The school district in Montgomery County, Md., covers the sprawling Washington Beltway. It buses 96,000 children daily and burns about 3.3 million gallons of diesel annually. Each penny-per-gallon increase in the price of diesel means $33,000 more in spending.

Seeking ways to contain fuel costs, the School Board has authorized its superintendent to force students to walk farther to school. The current limits now stand at one mile for elementary school students and up to two miles for high-schoolers.

Small towns are feeling the pinch, too. School officials in Shirley, Mass., 40 miles northwest of Boston, are going from eight buses to four starting this school year. Students who live within two miles of school must walk, bike or get a ride.

Parents in Shirley are worried about safety. Mary Day, a single, working mother, said she can drop her children off at school in the morning but cannot pick them up. Her street runs parallel to train tracks and she fears her 9-year-old and 12-year-old sons will be tempted to take shortcuts by darting across the tracks outside the designated crossings.

"I remember being a kid," Day said. "Are you going to walk a half-mile down the street to cross in the appropriate way when you see a clear way right there?"

Times staff reporter Isaac Arnsdorf contributed to this report.