The Irvine Unified School District Board of Education unanimously approved its 2024-25 Transportation Plan on March 11, with no plans to add new bus routes.
The annually updated plan allocated $7,366,071 to state-mandated special education transportation and $2,539,060 to general education transportation and was prepared in coordination with the City of Irvine’s Suggested Routes to School program, which provides safety information for students.
“This is a topic that affects the entire city,” IUSD board member Cyril Yu said. “As long as we’re at the table, we’re having these conversations, and we’re going to ensure that our students have these safe routes.”
The board discussed furthering communication with the City of Irvine and Orange County Transportation Authority to support bicycle safety programs and increased bus service. Bus services to Northwood have been long sought after as current regulations do not allow for bus services within a 3 mile radius of high schools, encompassing nearly all of Northwood’s attendance area.
“Home-to-school transportation can be a challenge for our students, especially students who live on the edges of our attendance boundary,” principal Leslie Roach said. “Not all parents are available to drop off in the morning. We would love to reduce these sorts of barriers for our students.”
The challenges are especially true for lower income families who live in the edges of the community and for parents contending with school traffic clogging neighborhood streets or multiple children at different schools.
“[Bus services] would be really helpful to parents who have to do multiple pick-ups at different schools,” parent Frances Kung said. “Since our traffic starts back in our neighborhood, we always tend to leave half an hour before school time.”
The district is unable to expand bus services, according to IUSD Assistant Superintendent of Business Services John Fogarty, without cuts to existing educational programs. State funding for school transportation, which has been limited since 1981, can only cover about 48% of the district’s total transportation costs, or 65% of just state-mandated special education transportation.
“When there was adequate funding for busing and busing was just a normal mode of transportation for students throughout California, that was a very different culture than it is now,” IUSD Assistant Director of Operations and Transportation Jennifer Payton said. “I’d say the cost is rising more than the support is rising.”
The city’s Irvine CONNECT bus service has eased some of the transportation friction since its introduction in April 2024. Students in Northwood’s Honors Interdisciplinary Climate Exploration class have advocated for the Irvine City Council to extend the service, arguing that a bus route to Northwood is crucial for reducing school congestion and carbon emissions.
“When you have school buses, you have more people relying on one form of transportation rather than every single individual bringing their own car,” ICE senior Riya Gupta said. “It would be amazing if this could be equitably extended to Northwood as well.”
The board will update the plan again in March 2026. For feedback, Payton plans to conduct a community survey in October.
“School transportation might seem like an issue that is far removed, and there’s nothing you can really do about it as a student,” Gupta said. “But you are a huge stakeholder in this issue. If you feel really passionate about this issue, go out and say something about it because what you do will definitely bring change.”
