If you walked from Airport Way to Manteca High, you will cover a distance just under 2.5 miles.

Manteca Unified, though, doesn’t bus high school students that aren’t special needs or qualify as homeless unless they reside over 2.5 miles from their assigned home campus.

As for elementary students, there is no school bus service within 1.25 miles of an assigned home campus.

It is one reason why Manteca Transit is slowly growing as a to-and-from school transportation option for students.

More than 200 students take the red,  white, and blue city buses that run on fixed routes.

The routes have been tweaked to accommodate those needing to go to and from East Union, Manteca, and Sierra high schools.

And the cost for high school students — as well as sixth through eighth grade students — is zero.

That’s thanks to a state funding grant that is based on an effort to reduce greenhouse gases that are avoided when parents aren’t driving their children to and from school that reside within the no school bus zones.

The distance for busing was once shorter.

But reduced state funding after the budget crisis that followed the 2008 mortgage\meltdown forced many districts to pare back — or completely eliminate — to and from school transportation to make sure they could adequately fund classroom expenses ranging from teachers, books and supplies to utility costs and upkeep.

The elimination of vehicle trips is the state’s main goal but a collateral impact is improving the safety of traveling to school.

Those 200 students aren’t dealing with traffic nor does inclement weather — rain, wind, extreme afternoon heat or fog — pose an issue.

The free Manteca Transit rides for sixth through 12th graders is available six days a week — buses do not run on Sundays. As such they can be used to travel to stores, fast food places to meet with friends, the movies, sports venues, and such.

Students are required to show their ID to the driver upon boarding. For more information, log on to www.MantecaTransit.com or call 209.456.8888.

MUSD still transports

1,900 students daily

Manteca Unified still buses 1,900 students daily that reside more than 1.25 miles from their elementary school and 2.5 miles from their assigned high school.

That is roughly 8 out of every 100 of the district’s 25,000 students.

The busing numbers do not include transportation for extracurricular activities such as sports.

There are 59 school bus routes within the 113 square-mile district that includes Manteca, Lathrop, French Camop, the Weston Ranch portion of Stockton, as well as the surrounding rural areas.

The district has 70 buses. That includes larger buses that carry more than 16 passengers and smaller buses that can carry up to 16 students.

MUSD also has 23 passenger vans that are designed to carry no more than seven passengers and the driver.

The district, just like other schools throughout the country, has a driver shortage.

They have 46 contracted drivers with 11 other positions they have been unable to fill due to the bus driver shortage.

There are 24 noncontracted substitute van drivers and three noncontracted subsite.

For information about a potential job as a school bus driver, go to the MUSD website.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com