PANORAMA CITY : Launch of New School Shuttle Service Delayed

A delay in the start of special bus service for underprivileged school children has forced some parents to pay $40 a month to get their children to school safely.

Those fees are four times higher than the cost proposed for the Metrolink shuttle bus service promised by the city Department of Transportation.

The expanded Metrolink shuttle service was promised as a way to stop children living near Blythe Street from taking a well-used shortcut over to Valerio Street Elementary and Fulton Junior High School by crossing Metrolink tracks.

Because the students live only about a mile from the schools, the Los Angeles Unified School District does not provide them with buses, school officials said.

Private entrepreneurs driving 15-passenger private vans, some which charge up to $40 per child per month, are offering rides in the area.

“I do not want kids to use either what sounds like illegal transportation systems or crossing over the railroad tracks. We need to get them to school safely,” said City Councilman Richard Alarcon, who called the private van charges “crazy.”

School and transportation officials met with representatives of Alarcon’s office this week, and the service was delayed at Alarcon’s request in order to allow time to educate the community about the new service.

One child talked about the hazards of the shortcut.

“I’ve been doing it since sixth grade,” said an eighth grader living on Blythe Street who took one of the vans back from Fulton Junior High. “My mom knows that some kids pass through the railroad tracks. My mom’s afraid a train could get me.”

The youth said his mother spends $10 a week for the van rides, instead of buying him new school clothes.

Private van operators Eva and Braulio Seville of Panorama City said that the DMV told them they were not required to have a commercial license to provide rides, for which they charge $5 per week. Theirs was among six separate vans observed shuttling about 100 students.

“This is not a business,” said Braulio. “We take our sons and their friends.”