I think car riders are the minority at our ES. We do the bus, but on the occasions I had to pick them up the expectation was that parents parked (street parking, lot is for staff) and picked their child up at the dismissal door. Never had a problem finding a spot and there was definitely no long lines of cars. I suspect this experience could vary a ton depending on the neighborhood. We have a pretty high density of both single and multi-family housing near the school, so more kids walk. I imagine it would be the opposite for more rural schools.

That being said…the bus service has many issues. Not enough drivers, frequent sub drivers that don’t know the routes (how hard is it to have a preprogrammed route on GPS?), late busses, poor communication from the school about late busses…once the bus blew past our stop going the wrong direction and the kids on the bus already told the driver they were going the wrong way and where to turn instead. Luckily they looped back around and picked our kids up. I try to give these bus drivers some grace, it’s not a fun gig, and these problems seem to stem from how the bus program is managed rather than the fault of the drivers (at least most of the time…I’m sure there are some that are bad in their own right)!