LETTER: Council Asks For Bus Pass Break Without Analysis

Dear Editor:

Let me see if I understand, a school district is closing a school and, because they have concern for the convenience and safety of their students, they initiate a bus service from the drawing area of a school they are closing to the school to which those students must go.  

They do this at a time when many school districts are abandoning all bus service altogether. To pay for the service, Cupertino charges $436 per student per year, apparently a recently increased amount.

The City Council of Los Altos determines that at this cost, it is more economical for parents to drive their children, increasing traffic on neighborhood streets and making them less safe. Since safety and traffic are a key concern of the Council, they protest the increase in bus pass costs.  There is apparently no analysis of impact of the cost increase, so let's do some back-of-the-envelope analysis of the cost situation. 

Let's see, the driving distance between Grant Park (the location of the schools that has been closed) to Montclaire School is 1.1 miles.  Of course, the actual distances will be more or less depending on where the children live, but the actual distance between the two sites is a reasonable estimate of average driving distance for parents chauffeuring their school children.

Parents would make this trip four times a day for 4.4 miles.  Of course, they may combine the school trip with other trips. On the other hand, the need to be at the school at a certain time may mean the parents travel from some place other than home, maybe to and from work, so the distance may be greater than the 1.1 miles, but we cannot know that so we resort to the time tested assumption for analysis purposed and say the two conflicting tendencies wash each other out. 

The US Government estimates that it costs an average of $0.55 a mile to operate an automobile. So we have 1.1 miles a trip, four trips a day at 55 cents a mile or $2.42 a day for driving their children to school. Readers will recognize that the 55 cents a mile is an average cost and the relevant cost for a decision of whether to drive or not should be the marginal cost of the trip—in this case gas, oil, and maintenance and not insurance, license and other fixed costs. Others may argue that the average vehicle in Los Altos is on the more expensive side. Once again, we're assuming a wash.

I'm not sure, but I think the Cupertino schools are in session about 184 days a year.  So, $2.42 a day for 184 days is an annual cost of $445.  This compares to a bus pass of $436 a year.

The actual dollar part of the analysis suggests it is no more costly to have your student take the bus than drive. But, you might say, that's for one student, what about families that have two or three or four students at Montclaire? On the other hand, we have not included in the analysis the parents' time not in value, convenience or mental distraction.

Some parents will drive, some parents will choose the bus for whatever reasons.  It doesn't seem reasonable to think that the cost of the bus passes weighs heavily into this decision.

Roy Lave

Los Altos