Advocates make arguments against bus idling
-
- May
- 6
On World Asthma Day today, several legislators, experts and elementary school students urged the state Board of Regents to ban school-bus idling on school grounds. The board, which makes state education policy, is considering a policy that would prohibit idling while buses are are school grounds, except in emergencies.
New York has the highest asthma rate in the nation, and one of the major contributing factors to poor air quality is the exhaust from school buses, said Assemblyman Peter Rivera, D-Bronx. More than 55,000 school buses transport some 2.2 million children to school daily.
Maya Martinez, a 4th grader in the Albany suburb of Bethlehem, said a ban would protect everyone’s lungs, conserve energy and benefit the environment. She said it feels like she’s in a fire when she breathes in bus fumes.
“It’s not good for any of us. It’s not even good for the bus drivers,” she said.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, May 6th, 2008 at 7:34 pm by Cara Matthews.
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Jay Gallagher has covered Albany for Gannett News Service since 1984 and has been Albany Bureau chief since 1989. He`s a native of the Boston area and likes to point out that in this millennium, the score is Red Sox 1 championship, the Yankees 0. 
Cara Matthews has been a statehouse correspondent in the Albany Bureau since August 2005. Prior to that, she covered Putnam County government and politics at The Journal News for nearly five years. Before that, she worked at newspapers in Connecticut and covered the state Legislature for one of them. 
