It’s 7:00 a.m. Eva Xie (‘30) stumbles onto Bishop’s Bus Three, exhausted from studying for a test last night, and finds an empty bench. Soon, all benches fill with at least two students — and as of this year, often a third. The last students to trickle in beg to sit with Eva and her seatmate. Squished against a window, Eva sighs and braces herself for a long, cramped ride to school. 

Last year, Bishop’s Bus Three comfortably seated two students per bench, with extra empty rows or single-seaters. At the beginning of this year, however, all benches were filled with two students; some even loaded with three. “It’s uncomfortable at best,” Eva noted. 

Dante Pilarowski (‘28) shared similar sentiments. While he was always early for the bus, he witnessed latecomers struggling to find a seat. “A lot of the people on the bus don’t let [you] sit next to them,” Dante explained. For him, sitting with three people was “pretty bad,” although he usually sat at the window seat. “The person on the outside could barely sit,” he recalled. 

Despite student opinions, Senior Director of Campus Operations Mr. David Oden described the Bus Three’s issue optimistically. “I would tell you that there isn’t any overcrowding on the bus,” he noted. “Overcrowding would mean that we had exceeded the capacity of the bus, and the bus capacity on those particular buses is 84 people, and that would be three to a seat.” 

“I’m also guilty of this, but sometimes when there aren’t seats, people still refuse to give up their own to let other people sit,” Eva remarked. Raina Kim (‘32) added that she sat in a three-person bench only towards the beginning of the year, then tried to avoid the cramped situation by not making eye contact. This method seems to work for Raina, as she sat in a three-person bench “maybe once or twice.” 

Mr. Oden explained that while being in a fuller bus is “uncomfortable and maybe a little inconvenient,” it isn’t overcrowded, as the bus seats were designed for three students and not two. 

“Students are riding the bus, understanding that there may be a few more people on the bus than we would maybe like to put on there, [but that is] still not exceeding the capacity of the bus,” he reasoned. Mr. Oden continued that one of Bus Three’s prominent stops, Pacific Highlands Ranch, is a highly-Bishop’s student populated area and “more students who come to Bishop’s are trying to get on the bus up there.”

Mr. Oden revealed the transportation department’s response to the growth of the Pacific Highlands Ranch stop. No additional students will be added to the pick-up list, and the department is sending vans to multiple Bus Three stops instead, which he said, “should alleviate the inconvenience of having three people in a seat.”

This action has already been taken. Dante was originally on Bus Three, but his stop was handed over to a van. “The van is pretty quiet,” Dante noted. “There aren’t that many people, but it’s also really squished, so not too good for doing some types of homework.” Overall, however, Dante decided that he would “probably like the van more.”

Despite the van taking over a stop being a “great help,” Eva explained that there are still instances of “negative bus culture” like “littering, shouting on the bus, unsafe behavior, selfishness, et cetera” that the transportation department cannot fix. 

Sadly, these challenges arose amidst a tragic loss. Matt Baranowski, Director of Transportation, passed away on August 18 this year. “Losing Matt was huge for all of us,” Coach Myles Bacon, Transportation Driver and Coach in Athletics, explained. “Not only was he very on top of the various aspects of transportation, but he was also just a good guy to us. So losing him and his leadership was definitely not easy.”

Despite “being down one of [their] regular drivers,” Coach Bacon described the situation in the department as “fluidly stable”. He explained that this was due to “an outstanding group of drivers” and “the outstanding support group” of Ms. Pat Clowney, the Interim Director of Transportation, Mr. Oden, and Student Accounts and Volunteer Coordinator Ms. Chrissy King. The “support group” leads the transportation department, he explained, and “works together to keep things functional.”

Mr. Oden expressed that riding the bus is a privilege that the Bishop’s School provides to students. “We just all need to be polite, courteous human beings and allow people to sit down,” he declared, “and if we’re a little inconvenienced or uncomfortable for 20 or 25 minutes as we drive in, that seems to be a small issue in the grand scheme of life.”

Eva also noted that the bus is “much louder” this year than last year, theorizing it to be because of the addition of new sixth graders. Dante agreed, saying, “It was really loud. There were a lot of people and a lot of screaming.”

Dante shared hopes of the bus being less crowded in the future. “Someone brought fart spray onto the late bus,” he mentioned. “So less of that, too.”

Coach Bacon hopes the department will eventually have “true stability” and that route volume issues can be resolved. “As it stands right now, we have a transitional phase before us,” he concluded. “So not every part of the sheet will be ironed in the ways that everyone wants, in the time that everyone wants. But I think, hopefully, as we continue over the course of the school year and really this semester specifically, things will make themselves a little easier for everyone.”