The primary goal of every school transportation system is getting students to school safely and on time each day. To do so, America’s fleet of roughly 480,000 school buses drives nearly 3.5 billion miles every year. More than half of students also travel to school in personal vehicles, contributing millions of miles for school transportation.

School transportation is often a necessity for students and families, but daily trips to and from school have significant environmental effects for students and their communities. All of these vehicles emit millions of tons of greenhouse gases per year into the environment — contributing to global warming — and expose children to harmful pollutants that can affect their health and academic performance.

In a new policy brief, “From Yellow to Green: Reducing School Transportation’s Impact on the Environment,” Bellwether Education Partners analyzed how school transportation affects the environment and what steps states and districts can take to provide more environmentally friendly transportation services. This webinar, hosted by the brief’s co-author Phillip Burgoyne-Allen, will provide an overview of the school transportation policy landscape, school transportation’s environmental impact, and the costs and benefits of a number of impact reduction strategies.

Speakers:
Brianne Eby, Policy Analyst, Eno Center for Transportation
Phillip Burgoyne-Allen, Policy Analyst, Bellwether Education Partners

Missed the Webinar? Watch the recording here:

Powerpoint Slides from Webinar

Phillip Burgoyne-Allen is a policy analyst at Bellwether Education Partners, a national nonprofit focused on dramatically changing education and life outcomes for underserved children. He has written for WIRED on electric school bus pilot programs. In addition to “From Yellow to Green,” Phillip and the Bellwether team have produced several other resources on school transportation, including “Intersection Ahead: School Transportation, School Integration, and School Choice,” “School Crossing: Student Transportation Safety on the Bus and Beyond,” and “The Challenges and Opportunities in School Transportation Today” in 2019, as well as “Miles to Go: Bringing School Transportation into the 21st Century” and “Better Buses: Three Ways to Improve School Transportation, in Under 3 Minutes” in 2017. He can be reached via email at phillip.burgoyne-allen@bellwethereducation.org or on Twitter @PBA_DC.