Photo: James Rojas/WBZ NewsRadio
BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — Late school buses were the subject of an emergency Boston City Council meeting on Tuesday.
Concerned parents who either attended the meeting in person or virtually said they are looking for answers to a problem they describe as Boston public school bus drivers who run late 'excessively' and are 'reliably unreliable.'
In the description of Tuesday's emergency meeting, three specific examples of school bus drivers arriving late were identified, including one driver who arrived more than one hour late multiple days a week.
One day, the bus was one hour and 18 minutes late.
Councilor Liz Breadon, who represents District 9 in Allston-Brighton, said, "In our district, I've noticed we have one street in particular where the buses have either not come at all or been chronically late."
Marie Frances-Rivera, a parent from Roslindale who attended the meeting, said her goal is to understand the scope of the issue and to have her concerns addressed. "I hope to get answers around how widespread, because it could be that our bus route is an outlier, but it could be that we're not an outlier. We hope to get some proposed solutions."
Breadon added that 'the city pays 200 million dollars' for student transportation each year, but the service they get in return is 'shoddy.'
The city actually spends about $189 million annually on student transportation.
625 Boston public school buses transport 19,000 students to and from school every day.
WBZ NewsRadio’s James Rojas (@jamesrojas.bsky.social) reports.