Buses and Buildings and Babies

Aug. 27, 2015

Next week the yellow buses will once again be among us.

More than 70 percent of northern Michigan school children will be riding those buses. Their safety will be in the hands of the courageous men and women who drive them (yes, courageous. You try driving up to 70 children twice a day, five days a week and then tell me that doesn’t require courage) and the motorists who interact with them.

We need to remind ourselves to pay attention.

The rules regarding our interaction with school buses are reasonably simple and there are none more important than this: If they are slowing or stopped with red lights flashing, other vehicles, both approaching and following, must stop. It doesn’t matter if the lights are at the top of the bus or in the middle; flashing red means you must stop.

There are unpleasant consequences if you do not. The lights are flashing because the bus is either loading or offloading students. Those children sometimes act impulsively and dart into the road. At worst, you could hit a student, be arrested and go to prison. No exaggeration.

If you think you can just ignore the flashing lights and scoot around that stopped bus, be advised many districts, including Traverse City Area Public Schools (TCAPS), now have cameras in their buses that cover both the interior and exterior of the bus. They will record your license plate number and report you. A serious ticket, hefty fine and businesslike but unpleasant letter from your insurance company will likely follow.

Statistically, the safest way for student to get to and from school is on a school bus. Of the 350,000 vehicle accidents in 2013, only about 1,200 involved school buses and only 20 percent of those were the fault of the bus driver.

For the children who take the twice-daily bus trips, the most dangerous part is getting on and off. That’s when they are at our mercy. Flashing red lights on a school bus mean stop. So please stop.

Just a few more questions about High Rise Traverse City, the proposed downtown nine-story building that would include affordable housing.

Are "workforce housing" and "affordable housing" something developers and the City Commission can actually define or are the terms simply public relations BS?

Do you have to be employed to live in the workforce housing? Employed downtown or nearby? Are retired people excluded? A Traverse City official said these new urban residents won’t be driving cars. Will there be driving restrictions? That will require a pretty long hike, especially in the winter, just to get to the closest grocery store.

Have we defined "affordable" housing? Will there be qualifying income levels? Maximum levels above which you are disqualified?

Isn’t 12 feet a trifle close to a rising river with pending dam removals that could add to erosion on the banks? Shouldn’t we maybe wait until the river decides what it wants to do?

Are looming grant deadlines really the best reason to rush into a decision? The future of Traverse City’s downtown will be quickly decided so developers can get some taxpayer money?

Perhaps everyone should stop deceptively overselling and call this project what it is – more condos and apartments and cars. That’s all.

Ironic that of all the issues the Angry Wing of Republican presidential candidates could have chosen, the American-born children of illegal immigrants have become their primary target. "Anchor babies" they like to call them, adding an unnecessary insult to the rhetoric. Babies. Unbelievable.

Despite the current bloviating, the fact is illegal immigration is way, way down from its peak of a couple decades ago.

The current president, accused of being soft on the issue, has deported and prosecuted more illegal immigrants than George W. Bush and Bill Clinton combined. He has not created a path to citizenship for anyone here illegally. Unlike the candidates, the president understands actual citizenship is the constitutional purview of Congress.

He has deferred deportations by executive order but thus far granted no one permanent residency.

The round-’em-up-and-send-’em-home gang would even deport those who were brought here as infants and have no home other then the United States. This is their home. Children. No matter; they have to go, we’re told.

This is the issue on which some will hang their presidential campaign hats?

Not Syria or Iraq or even Russia. Not infrastructure or military procurement. Not – God forbid – Social Security or Medicare. Not the debt or the deficit or any other budget items. Not even the Affordable Care Act.

No, illegal immigrants who have no voice, the children they brought with them and children who are legal American citizens are the targets. Children.

They’ve actually stooped to a new low in presidential politics.