By EMILY R. WEST
At the chamber’s WillCoMoves summit, a handful of students tried their hand at creating a public service announcement to promote carpooling and bus ridership to school.
The winners came from Ravenwood and Franklin High School.
Check out their videos below:
Franklin High School:
Ravenwood High School:
As explained during Monday’s event, around 25,000 students travel via bus every day in both Williamson County Schools and the Franklin Special School District. That equates to 61 percent of bus riders in the county. According to the studies presented Monday, one bus takes 36 cars off the road. It can save $6 million dollars and 2.3 billion gallons fuel.
Superintendent Mike Looney said he was working with students and parents to ride the bus. He thinks he could make it more appealing.
“We have to increase our efficiency and service to get more people to ride,” Looney said. “We have a fairly intense shortage of bus drivers. For students to ride, it could be one-way for an hour. We also now have an app for parents to track their children. The more info we provide our customers, the more apt they are to use that service.”
Williamson County is still short 20 bus drivers, creating longer times and double routes. Looney said he hoped a new pilot presented to the board could help alleviate the problem.
Emily West covers Franklin, schools, and high school football for Home Page Media Group. Contact her at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter via @emwest22.
