Hey, there! Log in / Register
Big rumble in Downtown Crossing yesterday?
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
Elimination of busing would solve problem.
If these kids weren't on the transit system in the first place stuff like this wouldn't happen. Because they go across town to school (they take school bus and subway) things like this happen every day. They should just go to school at a school in their neighborhood instead. Why are we busing when the city is racially balanced now?
They're high school kids
They'd need buses because not every neighborhood has a high school. Roslindale and Mattapan, for example. And now that the city has a number of speciality schools, how would you propose students get to those schools?
Racially balanced?
I'm not a big busing fan either, but Boston is racially balanced?
Ha ha ha ha!
Outright red-lining may be gone, and some neighborhoods may be well-mixed, but others are certainly not. Have you never noticed a difference between West Roxbury and Mattapan?
Do you work in your neighborhood?
Okay, in your perfect world, kids would walk to school. Fine. Know what they would do after school? Take the T to Downtown Crossing!
Do you take transit to work? To shop? Do you drive? Why don't you find a job in walking distance? Isn't every little Massachusetts city or town or Boston neighborhood self-sufficient, with all jobs within walking distance of all houses?
Why do you expect the same of teens, especially when high schools are somewhat specialized and there isn't one in walking distance of every home in the city (don't get me started on the obstacles to safe walking to schools). The older, smaller high schools were not cost efficient, bred segregation problems when certain of them were neglected, and lacked modern features necessary for a proper modern education - science labs, cafeterias, etc. Would you really want to pay for a high school in walking distance of every house?
The answer to many problems around here isn't "more isolation". The modern world demands that problems be solved at an appropriate level, not the tiniest unit because that's what Boston just does. There needs to be more security and accountability here, not "solutions" based on thinking fit for the 1880s.
Bussing via the Orange Line?
If these kids were being bussed home from school, they'd be on school busses, not on the Orange Line, wouldn't they?
The articles don't give much info, e.g. what schools were they from?
MBTA and Schools
High school kids use both buses and trains to get to school. They have $20 a month student T passes. (I will be getting these for my sons starting in 2010 as our city uses the T for high school kids too).
There was always a large contingent of Charlestown High kids at Sullivan Station waiting for the 93 bus and for the School Shuttle (a school bus that took up some of the load from the 93 - the kids preferred it, from what I could tell). Most had come from the Orange Line from other areas of the city. When I worked at Longwood, there was a mass of Boston Latin students jumping on the Green Line.
Dorchester to Latin
I lived in Dorchester, but attended Boston Latin. I took a trolley, then the Red Line, then the Green Line. There would be many trainloads of us in the afternoon. It had nothing to do with court-ordered busing.
Although I'm certainly in agreement that court-ordered busing should have never happened, there are far too many reasons other than that for kids being downtown in packs.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com