Ecobreves – MEXICO: Lawsuits Against Obligatory School Busing

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

MEXICO CITY, Apr 13 2009 (IPS) - Parents of schoolchildren in the Mexican capital are using legal action to fight obligatory school busing, ordered by the city government as a means to clear up traffic and scheduled to begin in September. The measure also aims to reduce air pollution, but between January and March, the city government's courts received nearly 1,500 petitions for exclusion from the rule.

Obligatory school transportation “is a dictatorial measure,” Antonio Carrasco, of the non-governmental National Union of Parents, told Tierramérica.

The authorities had scheduled the system to begin operating last September, but postponed it while dialogue continued with those opposed, and instead offered discounts for public transportation and exception measures for schools and families.

The Mexico City government maintains that the use of individual cars to transport children to school generates numerous problems. Less than nine percent of the capital's schools have their own buses.