3:00 buses overflow

Due to issues of overcrowding on local magnet and activity buses serving the Takoma Park Middle School and Eastern Middle School areas, Blair has implemented a bus pass system. According to Magnet Coordinator Peter Ostrander, bus drivers have seen a sizable increase in the number of non-Magnet and non-CAP students who want to ride 3:00 and 4:30 buses.

Only Magnet and Communication Arts Program (CAP) students who have a ninth-period class or students who stay after school for academic activities are allowed to ride these buses, Ostrander said.

In a Dec. 6 letter to Blair teachers, Ostrander outlined the new bus pass system created to prevent overcrowding. All students who have a ninth-period class were given a permanent sticker to attach to their student ID, giving them regular access to 3:00 and 4:30 buses. Ostrander also asked teachers who sponsored after-school activities to fill out bus passes for students riding 3:00 buses 6116 and 6120 and 4:30 bus 6111.

According to security team leader Cedric Boatman, more students who do not have a ninth period or an after-school activity want to use the buses as an alternative to Metro and Ride-On buses, which are no longer free. "When it comes up, it's all about economics," Boatman said. Many students who are released at 2:10 decide to leave campus to hang out at local restaurants and come back to Blair to get home. "If you were here and you went to McDonalds and you want to ride a bus, the answer is no," Boatman said.

As a result, buses serving the local Takoma Park and Eastern areas have had the most problems with overcrowding because many Blair students live in these communities, according to Ostrander. The increased volume is not fair to students who use 3:00 buses as their primary means of transportation and bus drivers who are forced to drive under more stressful situations, Ostrander said. "We want to make sure that students who come for legitimate reasons have transportation," he said.

Senior Ana Hall-Defoor who uses bus 6116 occasionally after using the Media Center said that the driver did not allow her to enter a bus one day because she was not in the Magnet or CAP programs. Hall-Defoor said she was not given the opportunity to explain why she stayed after school. Consequently, she is happy about the new bus pass system because she can show that she has a legitimate reason for using the bus.

Hall-Defoor said that racial profiling might have been an issue when bus drivers prevented students from boarding the bus. "It looked really bad because all the kids who weren't on the bus were black and Hispanic," she said. However according to Boatman, bus drivers are familiar with the students that regularly ride their buses. Because a majority of students who ride 3:00 buses are in the Magnet and CAP programs, there just happens to be more white and Asian students as opposed to black and Latino students, he said. Students are stopped simply because they don't regularly use the bus. "The bus drivers know who rides that bus," he said. "If you don't ride that bus, you're not supposed to be riding."

Other Magnet buses have also had increased volume because of canceled routes that covered the upper part of the county. According to Ostrander, the Magnet has seen a gradual decrease in the number of upper-county students every year after the opening of the Poolesville and Clemente magnet programs. This year, the MCPS Department of Transportation finally decided to cut these routes due to the lack of students. "The number of routes didn't really drop till this year when they could take them off the book," he said.