I agree, school districts should not be in the transportation business. Private contractors provide the service much more efficiently and at a significantly lower price. (http://www.cgcs.org/publications/KPI_Report2.pdf)

Regarding the polution issue, today’s school buses produce 95% less emissions as pre-2004 school buses(http://epa.gov/cleanschoolbus/regs.htm). In 2010, the standards change again, making school buses even cleaner.
Hybrid school buses are just becoming commercially available, and currently cost more than three times the cost of a normal diesel school bus (If a prius cost $75,000, would you see many on the road?) My company will be taking delivery of the first Hybrid School Bus on Long Island, New York in about six months from now in a test program for the state. These prices will come down eventually. I believe that the hybrids will make a real impact in the future.

In addition, it is important to remember that the average school bus in the US is responsible for taking 39 cars/suv’s off the road which otherwise would be taking kids to and from school. Even if all 39 cars are hybrids, the school bus is still the cleaner, more fuel efficient alternative.

Regarding the need for school buses at all, I point to the current seat belt debate on school buses (I am for them, by the way). The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s research indicates that by spending many millions of dollars fitting buses with lap-shoulder belts, we may be able to save one life annually. However, if all students were simply mandated to ride a school bus to school (at less cost, since the service is already available in most areas) we could save over 450 lives annually (http://www.trb.org/news/blurb_detail.asp?id=673) This is why the NHTSA has reccomended not putting lap-shoulder belts in buses, but instead, spending money trying to get kids to ride the buses in the first place.

Putting aside all of the above, the issue here revolved around unfair competition. Can a transit agency provide transportation less expensively that a private school bus contractor? This is very very deceptive… Transit agencies get 80% or more of their funding from government agencies in the form of grants. While the School District may only seem responsible for a smaller amount, the taxpayers are getting hosed, big time. If you include all costs, you will find the transits are far less efficient, dollar for dollar. Also, creating a system where the older kids are on transit and the younger kids on school buses.. requires many more buses and drivers, for what can be easily avoided by simply adjusting bell times for multiple routes.

I challenge any school district anywhere to prove there is a safer, less expensive form of transportation for their children than school bus contractors. Can’t be done.

My hometown had surprising amounts of public transit for a sub-50,000-person-town, but neither the capacity nor the routes to handle the school system. Alas.

Though I will say that from my understanding of local government, the large houses usually pay high property taxes. In law school, we learned that local governments are more leery of families with kids living in apartments, b/c they pay (per capita) lower property taxes. Schools are mostly subsized with property tax funds from business and larger, single family homes.