Updated Forecast: In Excess of 8" of Snow, Plus Wind
And Now, 10-20 Inches
Federal Govt. Closed Tuesday
Snowmaggedon 1.0 in Time Lapse
You have to feel sorry for the 15-year-old son of Vienna's Jenifer Joy Madden, who got outed by his mom in an op-ed in Sunday's Washington Post for having only just now learned how to ride a bus.
We couched it as another test of their mettle. After all, if these 15-year-olds could swing at objects flying 90 miles an hour and get whacked by titanium lacrosse sticks, they could walk to a bus stop and ride a few miles across town.
The story of Madden's teenage son's first public bus ride home from school comes off sounding like a joke to those of us who live inside the District (one commenter on the Post's web site, who noted that they were "sure the kid was about 10, not 15!", neatly summed up my initial reaction), but we suppose sometimes we forget how different life is out in Fairfax County. And hey, if Madden's article inspires a few other suburban families to rethink their car-centric lifestyles just a little bit, then that's certainly a good thing.
But pair that with this story in this morning's paper, about how high school students in Loudoun County are aghast at having to pay a fee to park in their school's parking lot, and it's hard not to feel like our more far flung Virginia neighbors are living on a different planet. I get that acquiring a driver's license and being free of the embarrassing yellow school bus is a big deal to a 16-year-old, but quotes about how out in Loudoun, there's a presumption that parking should be free, kinda boggle my mind.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
What kills me about the article is the fact she had to micromanage EVERYTHING! If your kid is as smart as you think he is, he can figure out a damn bus schedule, trust.
Oh lighten up. It's not like all the youngster transplants in DC took the bus all that much back when they were in high school in the suburbs of Pittsburgh and Ohio or the sticks of WV.
Exactly. This post is so self-righteous I had to speak on it. Most kids who do not live in the cities of DC, NYC, or Chicago (I might be missing a few cities, but the point is, CITIES) do not regularly use public transportation. For one, the schedules are not as regular or reliable and two, since no one actually uses it and there's no around, it's not exactly safe for kids.
And I don't think it's odd or especially entitled to expect public school parking to be "free" or cost a de miniumus out of pocket amount; in fact the only reason it is not is because the country is in recession, the likes of which haven't been seen in 40 years. DCist, your mind boggles easily.
Couldn't agree more with this. I know lots of city people who take the bus in the city without hesitation, but would never consider taking suburban public transportation because of its inconsistencies and lack of use. This mom is trying to set a good example, and ensure the safety of her kids/teens. If something had happened to her 15-year-old son while waiting for the bus, we would all probably be jumping on her case for not micromanaging enough, not viceversa. Give the woman a break...
Seriously. There's so much space out in Loudon County that it's probably unusual to have to pay for parking anywhere.
While I went to high school in the City of Pittsburgh, not the suburbs, I did in fact take the bus. The city gave out free bus passes rather than sticking us on school buses - and wonder of wonders, I actually figured out not only how to get to school and back, but I also figured out how to take the bus all over the city.
Mind you, I graduated from high school in 1993. There was no internet back then, only paper bus schedules that you had to pick up from an information center dahntahn.
Agreed. +1001. Tranplants who grew up in the suburbs looking down their noses at suburbanites growing up, having not yet transplanted to the city. Yawn. I remember riding the suburban bus a handful of times growing up in the suburbs. SUCKED! After you wait 40 minutes it took an hour to get to the other side of town, a ten minute drive or a half hour bike ride. I would rather ride a thousand city buses in the worst neighborhoods of the most terrifying cities in America than ride one suburb to suburb bus.
learning how to deal with city bus schedules, etc., was tough for me at first too as a rural kid who moved to the big city. but it doesn't take much to figure out.
i don't do this usually, but i'm having a little sympathy for the suburbanites here.
despite the headline of this post and what some of us bus riders might think is a little ridiculous, the point is that the author of the Post article took the initiative and now she's saving time and her kids are apparently just as happy. Kudos to the them. Now if only some of my friends in DC would learn to ride the bus...
however, I am all for charging for parking passes... taxpayer money shouldn't pay for creation and maintenance of the lots when it isn't necessity that the kids park.
Don't they have school buses in Fairfax County? I don't understand why the kid can't take that. I didn't set foot on a public transit bus until I was 25 (ironically, this was after I'd moved to Fairfax County from the district), but I spent hours on the school bus every day when I was this kid's age.
Regardless, the same thing happens in the wealthier parts of DC. I know of someone who has been house hunting for 5 or 6 years now because she and her husband have a very strict requirement that the house be within walking distance from their child's school, and "walking distance" constitutes maybe a block or two.
Yes, but in most places there isn't a bus after football/soccer/band/chessclub practice and all the other after-school extra curricular stuff.
In many places outside of cities, most parents can't wait until their kids can drive so they don't have to play chauffeur so darn much.
The thought of parents doing this is nasty, but I know lots of times I got home from track practice and mine would be mysteriously home from work early- meaning they scheduled some whoopee time while me and my bro were out of the house. (Yes I know, eww)
Paying for parking out in the sparse suburbs is definitely a foreign concept. Just look at the photo of the high school parking lot in that Post article. It's huge, and it's surrounded by a whole lot of nothing.
If I lived out in Leesburg and had to pay for parking just like a city dweller without all the benefits of actually living in a city, I'd be pissed too.
but the lots cost money to create and maintain. Why should this be subsidized by the taxpayers?
At my high school there was no student parking, so students would park their cars on nearby streets. This naturally pissed off residents and businesses located near the school, so the city had to put up additional signage within a half mile radius restricting who could park there. They probably had to hire a few more people to enforce the parking restrictions as well.
So the taxpayers end up paying for it one way or another.
I doubt they cost $200/spot/year to maintain.
also to build, and rebuild when the time comes. Plus opportunity cost. I guess here in the south they don't need to salt/sand/plow, so the maintenance might be a little lower
You serious? Are you not aware of how education (and its attendant facilities) are financed?
Because you sound a bit like the parent in the article, who said, "Then for them to try to hit up families to subsidize the budget?...It's not very family friendly."
So who do y'all think pays for education? Magical fairies?
I went to high school in Fairfax County and distinctly remember paying for a parking pass. It cost $200/year of $50/quarter depending on when you applied for the pass. None of us thought it was strange because that's how it had always been done. I'm not sure what these Loudon kids are whining about; VA schools are broke and they need to suck it up.
Those of us living in the District have not necessarily ridden a Metrobus. I have lived in the city for 7 years, and have NEVER ridden one.
You serious?
Buses suck. I don't blame deadpirate one bit. The bus ride themselves are fine. Waiting at bus stop, especially at night, is dangerous. If I go the next 7 years without riding a bus, I will consider that 7 years well spent.
I live in DC and take the bus everyday--at all hours of the day. I've never had a probelm other then a long wait at the bus. I usually get home quicker then my friends who only take cabs. I have however been mugged several times at suburban metro stops and suburban parking garages (Vienna and east falls church to name a few). Metro bus is not that scary.
You've been mugged several times at bus stops. So what you are saying is that waiting for a bus is dangerous? Right? Lemmie guess. The suburban stops were empty and you were standing alone, right?
Waiting for a bus is dangerous.
Oh, sorry. I misread that. Metro stops and parking lots.
Regardless, I will not stand alone stationary anywhere in the city for any reason.
McSpanky,
Anywhere? Outside Verizon Center before a Caps game waiting for your friend? Outside McCormick and Schmick's awaiting the rest of your dinner party? At the bus stop in front of Sidwell Friends H.S.? Or do you just mean in SW or Anacostia.
You're about as viable as the 15-year-old.
what a smug and self-righteous post.
Being from Texas (big cities there, not the country) the thought of riding public transportation down there is laughable. The first time I ever rode a public bus was up here just a few month ago. I now actually use the bus system almost more than the metro. I went back home for a visist and decided to give the public transportations shot... I was quickly reminded why I never rode it in the first place.
DCist is a bit large city elitist in it's thinking that everyone should know public transportation...outside of the large, urban cities, we non-hipsters just don't have the public systems that get us from a to b in a decent amount of time.
I grew up in Texas. I rode the bus. I'm not saying it didn't suck, but some of us weren't lucky enough to get our own cars with our licenses.
I grew up in Indiana -- and not Indianapolis, nor suburban Chicago -- and in junior high I took the city bus home from school. If I had football practice, I just took a later bus. Even in flyover country, a lot of cities have bus systems and they may not be frequent or convenient but a half-bright twelve year old can make them work.
(My high school was actually much closer to home than the junior high, so I just walked. Also, the high school charged students for parking. And this was in the late 80s and early 90s, believe it or not.)
"sometimes we forget how different life is out in Fairfax County"
You got that right. We 'suffer' too.
SMUG ALERT!
Sommer's bien pensant slip is showing.
I've lived in Fairfax county for near 25 years and I can't say I can remember ever taking a Metrobus anywhere.
When I worked in the city, I took the Metrotrain in and my office was within walking distance of the station. I drove to the station, because I never knew when I would get out of work, and didn't want to be stuck at the station with no bus going anywhere near my house if it was too late in the evening.
When I worked in the county, I looked into using the buses, as there is a stop just down the street from me, but invariably there was no efficient route, and I'd be looking at 2 hours of bus rides vs. a 45 minute drive.
I don't think the piece is smug at all; I think it's hilarious.
First of all, this family isn't living in the wilds of the suburbs that many of us grew up in (Omaha, for me.) They live in the greater D.C. area and there's loads of public transports - so, that's the game. It doesn't matter that when you lived in East Texas and had one bus stop three miles away...not a factor here. I Metro, bus, bike, etc. to my work at Tysons and between the MetroBus system, the Fairfax Connector, the Cue, the George in Falls Church, and the ART in Arlington, if you don't know how to use a bus by the time you are 15 then, quite frankly, it's embarrassing. The opportunity for a kid of that age to see the city, get around, and be independent you'd think would be a blessing, but nope; this kid and his friends just sit on their asses. We have one kid in the house that Metros and buses to school everyday, oh my! He's 13. My daughter visits from Omaha (also 13) and she rides into D.C. and to Sidwell for Summer school, and heads off to meet the girlfriend for lunch on K St....on a bus! Oh my!
It's not about micromanaging the kid's trip, it's that kid is so clueless that if left to his own devices - no doubt enhanced by a mother who probably drove him a block to elementary school every day - he would be able to sort out a schedule, a fare, how to pay, or anything else. A 15-year old kid going to the Mall (shopping type) better be damn well able to use the plethora of transport available - he's not on a timeline.
There, I vented. have at it.
I live in the "wilds" of Fairfax County. The best-case scenario I have for getting to work by public transit takes 2 hours-- this works out to 6 miles an hour and involves 3 different forms of transit.
I lived here for several months before I even attempted the public transit commute, and even now I usually drive because it's so much faster and it's less expensive. Public transit just isn't practical in the DC suburbs unless you've mapped out your life to work with the system.
engineer,
Very true and I don't disagree with you at all. But, you are going to work so you have some timeline to meet. Two 15-year-old knuckleheads coming home from H.S. don't. That being said, you did sort it out after a few months but they've lived here for their entire lives - with hundreds of buses passing them by - and they and the parents are just now thinking...hmmm, I wonder that the hell those things do?
These folks aren't actually in the Wilds of the county with you - I live in Farifax, also - because the have WMATA buses. Those bad boys run all over Vienna and the area near Tysons.
I think what's most comical is that between the bike path, walking, and myriad buses, they've gotten to 15 and have no idea how to get from their house to .... well, anything if they can't sit there sweet little asses in a car.
or even their asses. I should type slower...
I also can't get over the "test their mettle" idea. She is going to let them drive a car in less than a year and she feels that riding a bus contributes to "mettle". I shutter.
I think I'm beginning to grasp what's meant by "precious snowflakes".
I grew up outside a minor city with nowhere near as many transit options as the DC area, nor even Fairfax County, and I still managed to learn to regularly ride the local buses to get to the things I wanted to do as a teen younger than these boys.
Then again, I also had three paper routes by their age and used the proceeds to buy my own computer, back when Apple II was state of the art. I'm guessing they probably have never earned any money on their own, nor have had any incentive to get out and do so.
Oh my goodness. You were the most wonderful child, ever. Obviously, just brimming with character. Not like these kids today. Please tell us more. My chin is resting on both palms. I want to drink from the chalice that is your example.
Make the little snowflakes pay for parking. In my Southern hometown, which had crappy bus schedules and abundant parking, I paid $45 a month to park my clunker at my (public) high school.
And before I got my license, I took the bus every day :) If you make your kids suck it up and fend for themselves every once in a while, they will grow into far more independent adults.
the article is a testament to the suburban centric attitude of the Washington Post ( outpost?) . newsflash: 15 year old boy takes bus to school!
seriously? and the fact the mom on the "Transportation Advisory Commission " is odd to me.
but i guess whatever. its great that she cares about this and hopefully she's in a position to help change minds toward utilizing public transit more.
i dont know fairfax so i dont know how easy/common buses are. nor do i know the routes. hell places in dc that take two or three transfers are places i dont go.
i guess the sad part is that this IS news. crazy huh?