> The only place I’ve personally witnessed wide spread mass transit use for youth in school is Japan.
Kids have been able to ride the busses around Seattle for free for many years now (and before that, during the summer for free). It's worked out pretty well. Or at least the program as continued, and I've seen a lot of kids using the city busses.
Definitely a better system than yellow school busses.
And it's normal to see young kids walk to school unattended in Seattle. I live near an elementary school and see it every day. Totally unusual in much of the rest of the US.
I remember being on a train in the Bavarian countryside and was puzzled when at one stop it was suddenly filled with 10-13 year olds. Then I realized the time made about sense for school to let out. They got off at the next few stops
This happens fairly frequently in Vancouver Canada, although it's not from regular school commuting (we do have special school busses), but rather from daycamps that find public transit to be the best solution vs. renting a private bus; but also — perhaps surprisingly — school field trips, which seem to often find "just get on a city bus" simpler to arrange than getting the public schoolbus system(?) to get drivers to work a special spot shift hauling kids to who-knows-where.
Interesting, where I grew up school children could not use public transport (while at school at least). We had our own bus system (which was superior to the public transport) and sometimes used private for-hire buses.
I have seen a few young kids in school uniforms on the tube in London. Most, but not all, seem to have a chaperone. Two or three young kids traveling together is not unusual. We only noticed it because it is becoming unusual to see kids walking to school even here in rural America. They all get dropped off until they are old enough to drive (14/15 here). It probably does not help that community schools are getting replaced with massive schools on the outskirts (where large parcels of land are still available) of town.
Kids have been able to ride the busses around Seattle for free for many years now (and before that, during the summer for free). It's worked out pretty well. Or at least the program as continued, and I've seen a lot of kids using the city busses.
Definitely a better system than yellow school busses.