FTA proposes policy statement on transit system school bus routes
Under the Federal-Aid Highway Act the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) provides financial assistance to public transportation operations that do not provide exclusive school bus transportation to students. FTA regulations exempt “tripper service,” which is mass transportation open to the public which accommodates the needs of students. The FTA has proposed to revise its policy on tripper service and school bus operations in response to a New York federal district court case. In this case, the court set aside FTA’s interpretation of the tripper regulation and allowed a public transportation provider to operate an additional 240 school bus routes. The court reasoned that because members of the public could hypothetically ride a bus on the new routes, the new routes were not exclusive. FTA opines that the court’s interpretation could allow a public transportation provider to “restructure … its operations dramatically to accommodate the needs of a local school district and its students, thereby displacing private school bus operators and their employees, provided the system keeps the service technically open to the public.” The proposed policy statement will narrowly interpret tripper service to allow a public transportation provider to utilize various fare collections or subsidy systems, modify the frequency of service, and make de minimus route deviations from existing routes in the immediate vicinity of schools to stops located at or near schools. Also, the proposed statement will narrowly interpret school bus operations to be any service that a reasonable person would conclude primarily was designed to accommodate students and school personnel, and only incidentally to serve the general public. Comments are due by June 18, 2008.
Proposed policy statement, 73 Fed. Reg. 28,790 (May 19, 2008)