Bus, bike, or car?
There was a time when the morning trip to school meant walking to a corner, climbing aboard a yellow bus, and finding a seat beside a friend.
Increasingly, it means getting in the family sedan and joining the car line.
Daniel Island's recent ranking as South Carolina's most stressful school run in a survey by a national mental health organization brought fresh attention to the morning commute, but the bigger story may be how children are getting to school in the first place.
Nationwide, 53% of students were driven to school or drove themselves in 2022, according to a Washington Post analysis of the federal National Household Travel Survey. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated a longer decline in school bus use as driver shortages, reduced service, changing school locations, and parents' schedules helped usher in what the Post called the “era of the car-rider pickup line.”
Locally, Berkeley County School District's transportation system still serves more than 22,500 students, with many buses running separate elementary, middle, and high school routes each day. Families must request bus service each school year, and not every student qualifies. South Carolina is not required to provide transportation for students living within 1.5 miles of their school.
On compact Daniel Island, that helps create a different kind of school commute. In fact, most students here bike to and from school, and the island's sidewalks and trails make walking another option for families living nearby.
“My kids would rather bike than sit in the car with me anyway,” DI parent Mark Ellis joked. “The funny thing is, driving isn’t necessarily the easiest option here anyway. By the time I get in the car and wait through drop-off, they could’ve already biked to school.”
A couple of miles away, Philip Simmons' families face a much different trip.
Philip Simmons Elementary, Middle, and High schools share Seven Sticks Drive as their only thoroughfare, funneling three schools worth of traffic toward the same exit in a rapidly growing Clements Ferry corridor.
At a March community meeting, one parent described the three schools as “locked down a one-way road” and recounted instances of gridlock making it difficult for emergency vehicles to get through.
Charleston City Councilman Boyd Gregg acknowledged the concern, saying the layout “doesn't make a lot of sense” today. A planned connection of Ten PointDrive to Clements Ferry Road is expected to eventually provide another access point.
Point Hope Partners, which handles the day-to-day operations of the adjacent housing development, has said discussions about school traffic have been underway and that it suggested staggered arrival and dismissal times and adjustments to the traffic signal at Point Hope Parkway and Clements Ferry Road.
Philip Simmons Elementary also added a double car-rider line before the 2025-26 school year to help ease congestion.
“You’re not just dealing with your own school’s car line,” Philip Simmons' parent Terry Wright said. “You have three schools coming and going through the same road. Once traffic backs up, there’s really nowhere for anybody to go.”