BPS bus ridership is declining as costs rise

The decline in passenger numbers largely reflects: a decline in the number of students that has been going on for over a decade in Boston Public Schools and offers another insight into the financial burden it causes. With fewer students attending the district’s 119 schools, more bus seats remain empty because BPS must maintain routes to get students to schools that students do not attend.

Superintendent Mary Skipper was to make the announcement a large-scale school consolidation plan in the springwhich could shorten bus routes, But reduced it significantly.

The Globe’s findings make clear that BPS cannot continue to delay making a decision to close schools, said Marty Walz, interim president of Boston’s Office of Municipal Research.

“Rising transportation costs at a time of declining enrollment highlights the savings BPS could realize if schools were consolidated and the money that could be put toward children’s education,” she said.

BPS is under pressure from some city councilors and watchdogs to cut spending as Mayor Michelle Wu grapples with a sharp financial crisis decline in commercial tax revenues. Wu is seeking Beacon Hill’s approval Shifting more of the tax burden to commercial properties to prevent skyrocketing taxes on homeowners.

School buses have long been a source of frustration and a sign of potential bloat: BPS operates one of the most expensive bus systems in the country and one of the least reliable, according to a review of various public reports, and calls for some city leaders to cut spending have been noted, according to a Globe review of various public reports for transport in the district.

“We should be doing a better job,” said City Councilwoman Erin Murphy. “No one in BPS management takes this seriously and they would rather we stop talking about it.”

City Councilor Julia Mejia said the council should hold a public hearing to take a deeper look at ridership and rising transportation costs, but added: “We need to be thoughtful and cautious in how we approach this issue.”

She said she was particularly concerned about any action that could negatively impact BPS’s ability to repair late buses, especially since the issue put BPS at risk of state takeover two years ago.

Tensions have risen again over late buses this fall, after BPS and its transit contractor, Transdev, rolled out a new bus tracking app that was supposed to make bus fleets more reliable and on-time, but was instead hampered by long delays and service disruptions, particularly during afternoon drop-offs.

The move came as BPS entered the third and final year of a state-mandated district modernization plan that required BPS to have at least 95 percent of its buses arrive on time every month, a benchmark the company has yet to meet.

Since the beginning of this school year, arrival times have dropped below 90 percent on almost all mornings and below 80 percent on most afternoons, although these numbers are improving.

According to BPS, the increase in spending in the face of falling passenger numbers is due to a variety of factors, including rising fuel costs, vehicle liability insurance, new buses and parts, bus station leases and contractually negotiated pay increases for drivers, staff and other union positions.

Another important reason is changing demographics of people traveling by bus. BPS experienced an increase in the number of homeless students who often travel long distances to their schools. The number of disabled students requiring home pickup and drop-off has also increased from 2,400 a decade ago to 6,500 this year.

“The increase in door-to-door service means that the number of bus stops has not been reduced,” Dan Rosengard, BPS executive director of transportation, said in a statement. “Door-to-door stops typically have to be made on smaller buses that can run on smaller streets. This translates into maintaining the same fleet size and total number of drivers, even with fewer students.”

Providing transportation services to students with disabilities comes with other costs: The number of students needing monitors on buses has more than tripled since the 2014–15 school year to 2,800, resulting in a doubling of the workforce. Many students with disabilities are also transported to private programs, including some out of town.

Many parents accuse BPS of not doing enough to fix late buses, but increased spending and an overall decline in ridership do not appear to be improving service.

“They have all this money, but where does it go,” said Christina Ingram, whose fourth-grade autistic son is supposed to be picked up door to door, but the bus is often late or doesn’t arrive at all. “The only people who get punished are the children.”

Her son often misses almost an hour of morning classes at Henderson Integrated School in Dorchester because the bus picks him up late. And the buses that didn’t show up in the afternoon panicked.

Earlier this month, Ingram had to call 911 to report her son missing after the Department of Transportation incorrectly told her he had been dropped off in Roxbury – near their Dorchester apartment. As it turns out, he was still at school because the bus didn’t come to pick him up. Since then, she said, buses that do not show up continue to fail due to a lack of monitors, even though BPS stated this summer that would be fully staffed.

The Globe review examined transportation data since Transdev signed its first contract to operate the BPS bus fleet, which began in the 2013-2014 school year and was expected to signal a turning point for a bus operator that had long struggled with service delays .

At that time, BPS bused over 31,600 students. Ridership began declining a year later when the district stopped busing most seventh- and eighth-grade students and instead gave them MBTA passes, reducing overall transportation spending that year by several million dollars.

Initially, BPS was able to maintain the rate of growth in its transportation budget as ridership continued to decline, but eventually cost increases became greater and annual expenses are now approximately $60 million higher than in the first year of the Transdev contract.

Greg Maynard, executive director of the Boston Policy Institute, a nonprofit research center, said it will be difficult for BPS and the mayor to address bus lateness and reduce transportation spending until they develop and implement a school consolidation plan, noting that infrastructure and transportation are too closely related.

“We have a system that was designed for many more children than it serves, so costs will continue to rise even as school enrollment continues to decline,” he said. “We’ve seen this administration really take its time to address the biggest, most systemic problems at BPS.”

James Vaznis can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @globevaznis.