Sign up for Chalkbeat Detroit’s free newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system and Michigan education policy.Students across Detroit will be able to ride city buses for free in a new program the city council approved Tuesday.The Ride and Rise program is being launched Wednesday in part to address high rates of chronic absenteeism of Detroit students attending schools in the Detroit Public Schools Community District and charter schools.In her proposal to the council last week, Mayor Mary Sheffield said the free bus passes will also expand access to safe and reliable transportation, extracurricular activities, employment opportunities, and supportive services. Sheffield, during her State of the City address Tuesday night, described the program as a “show your ID, ride for free” program.It’s unclear how much it will cost.“This is an opportunity for us, under Mayor Sheffield’s leadership, to learn more about how transit and DDOT in particular can work more effectively for students and their families,” Detroit Department of Transportation Director Robert Cramer said during the council meeting on Tuesday. Cramer said DDOT will also seek feedback about bus routes, schedules, bus stop changes, and amenities. Cramer said they’ll present the feedback to the council and possibly submit an ordinance amendment to change the fare system and create a longer-term program in September or October when students return to school.DPSCD doesn’t provide yellow school bus transportation for high school students, though exceptions are made, including for students with disabilities and those experiencing homelessness. The district does pay for bus passes for high school students who want them.The district won’t have to pay for the city bus passes during the pilot. DPSCD “is working on plans to reinvest that funding in strategies that expand our work in improving student attendance and enrollment,” Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said.Sheffield was more specific during her Tuesday evening speech, saying the city “reached an agreement in principle with the board and the superintendent so that the money currently spent on bus fare for students will now go towards much-needed after-school programs.”Vitti said in an emailed statement that the district supports the city’s effort “to empower youth to use citywide transportation without cost or barriers.”“This investment by the City will create greater awareness and access to citywide transportation,” Vitti said. “We believe this will support the District’s efforts in promoting stronger student attendance citywide.”Transportation has long been a challenge for Detroiters, and it’s particularly so for families trying to navigate a range of options: yellow school buses, city buses, ride share services, their own transportation, or relying on others to get their children to school. Those challenges have made it difficult for many children to get to school regularly. About one-third of families in Detroit don’t own a car, and 30% don’t have a reliable way to get their children to school every day, according to a report on transportation from Detroit Partnership for Education Equity & Research, or Detroit PEER, at Wayne State University. Researchers there have done extensive research on chronic absenteeism and its causes.Half of the school-age children in Detroit attend DPSCD schools. The rest attend charter schools or suburban schools. While many of the city charter schools provide some form of transportation, parents often have to get their kids to a preset location for them to hop on a bus.“Transportation is one of, if not the most important issue for student attendance in Detroit,” said Jeremy Singer, assistant professor of educational leadership and policy at the University of Michigan-Flint and research affiliate at Detroit PEER.Singer said the mayor’s initiative is an admirable way to tackle a challenge that schools can’t solve. He hopes the city goes further by addressing safety issues on city buses and at bus stops, as well as the frequency and reliability of bus service. In a survey Detroit PEER completed in 2022, 40% of parents said free DDOT rides would be at least somewhat helpful. High school parents were more likely to say it would be helpful.Among the transportation recommendations Detroit PEER made in its report last year:The city should work with Detroit schools to coordinate public transit schedules and stops with public school schedules and locations.DDOT should collect better data on public school students who ride public transportation to better understand their schedules and needs.The city should work with local schools to increase safety, lighting, and complete sidewalks so more children can walk or bike to school when they live close enough.Few students now are taking DDOT buses daily to get to school, Singer said. Results from the 2022 survey showed that just 10% of parents said their children rode DDOT to get to and from school. Broken down by grade level, 18% of parents of high school-aged children said their kids sometimes took DDOT, compared to 6% for parents of K-8 children, Singer said.For parents of high school-aged students, 8% said their children rode DDOT daily, 4% said they rode DDOT weekly or monthly, and 6% said they rode DDOT infrequently, Singer said.Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.
