Electric school buses are a breath of fresh air for children | Nearly $1B in federal funding could help clean up the unequal health impacts of diesel pollution.::Nearly $1B in federal funding will help decarbonize transportation and clean up some of the unequal health impacts of diesel pollution
Adam Something videos are great, but his opinion shouldn’t be taken uncritically. Doubly so in a North American context, which has very different economic issues with mass transit adoption compared to his EU roots. Note how YouTubers who do have an NA background, like Not Just Bikes or City Nerd, are more cyncial about trams and trollys while still supporting the general idea.
In any case, trollys and trams aren’t going to work for school buses. They need to serve every nook and cranny of a city. That’s why they’re separate from other public transportation in the first place. Short of having wires literally everywhere, it’s not feasible.
I think the most important thing about schools in the US would be to reduce their size. The minimum size for a primary school in my state is 80 pupils under ordinary circumstances, arbitrarily few if the location requires it (the commute would be intolerable, we don’t do boarding in primary education), Nordstrandischmoor (an island) has a primary school with one teacher and two students. Average size is about 270, scattered throughout towns and every village with a population over 1k or so. Our rural density is lower than that of US suburbia so it’s definitely doable to have a primary school within what 500m of most of pupils and 3km max for anything but exceptional cases. Probably few enough that you don’t want to use a bus but a minivan if it’s a place where public transport doesn’t reach.