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Stuck on a school bus for over an hour? NYC students see 35% increase in extreme delays.
By
Joe Hong
Published May 29, 2025
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Deb Cohn-Orbach/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
By
Joe Hong
Published May 29, 2025
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Rima Izquierdo's kids are struggling with math and she says their school bus is to blame.
Each day it arrives at around 8:10 a.m., just five minutes before the start of their school day, and then crawls through city traffic for more than an hour, she said. The children miss most of their first period math class.
“They’re both borderline failing math,” she said. “It’s a direct result of the instructional time that they’re missing.”
As the city approaches the end of the school year, Gothamist crunched the data on nine months of school bus delays. The results are mixed.
While the city's public school buses are on pace to have fewer overall delays compared to the previous school year, the extreme delays that Izquierdo says her kids experience — those exceeding an hour — are at their highest point since the city started collecting the data in 2015.
And most of those long delays are affecting buses transporting students with disabilities. Parents and advocates say the failure to get those children to school on time violates their rights to an education.
“Students with disabilities have a right to fully participate in school and be present in all classes,” said Randi Levine, the policy director for Advocates for Children. “So it is a legal problem if students are arriving late every day and missing class.”
Here’s how the numbers break down:
New York City’s public school buses serve more than 150,000 students across more than 9,000 bus routes, according to the city’s Department of Education. Departmental data shows those buses have experienced 65,811 delays so far, and there’s just less than a month left to go. That’s 17% fewer overall delays than last year. But nearly a third of them — 19,996 bus rides in total — exceeded one hour. That’s 39% higher than last year.
Students with disabilities were more likely to experience longer bus rides. In the 2024-25 school year, special education buses made up 74% of the overall delays. That’s consistent with the fact that three-quarters of all school buses in the city serve children with disabilities, according to the Department of Education. But that doesn’t account for another stark number in the data: 94% of the delays that went over an hour affected those very same special education buses.
Heavy traffic is the most commonly cited reason for the delays, the data shows. Jenna Lyle, a spokesperson for the city’s Department of Education, said the agency has tried to reduce the number of late buses.
‘When we are alerted of any instances of serious delay or inaccessibility, we immediately investigate and ameliorate these cases,” she said in a written statement.
Lyle said the delays don’t constitute a widespread violation of special education law because they're caused by traffic, accidents and road closures, which are outside the control of bus companies.
On top of missing instruction time, Izquierdo, a member of Parents to Improve School Transportation, said her kids experience physical and mental distress during their long bus rides. Her oldest son, a 12th grade student with a disability, often starts hitting himself due to the frustration and discomfort of being in the confined space.
“He gets really upset, and then he starts to get aggressive or self-injurious,” she said. “He has scars from biting his hand and punching his chin.”
Levine said parents frequently report that their students arrive at school agitated and in no condition to learn.
“We hear about children who arrive in the morning frazzled and anxious,” she said. “Sometimes they’ve soiled themselves on the bus.”
City Councilmember Rita Joseph, who chairs the education committee, said she is aware of the persistent crisis and the array of challenges facing students with disabilities who rely on school buses. In response to Gothamist’s findings, she said she’ll request a briefing from the Department of Education to better understand the trend in delays.
“We need to see what the full picture is,” she said. “That’s definitely a conversation I’m going to have with New York City Public Schools.”
Joseph has joined parents and advocates who have said the problem stems from a bus driver shortage perpetuated by an outdated contract between the city and the school bus companies. The 45-year-old contract is regularly being renewed after the city interpreted a 2011 state Court of Appeals decision to mean that it could not enter into new contracts without eliminating employee protections, which include job security for drivers whose companies go out of business and seniority preference for new bus routes.
“If these contracts get extended we can’t add any new companies, so we can’t address the shortage,” Izquierdo said. “That’s crazy.”
Meanwhile, lawmakers in Albany authored legislation earlier this year that would enable the city’s Department of Education to accept bids without eliminating employee protections. On Tuesday, the state Senate’s education committee voted in favor of the bill.
The current contracts expire at the end of the school year, and parents like Izquierdo say negotiations could stall school bus services during the summer and in the fall.
“I’m deeply concerned," she said. “If the contracts expire on June 30 and we’re on emergency contracts starting July 1, that doesn’t guarantee the type of continuity that we need for our most vulnerable students.”
Tagged
education
transit
Joe Hong
Joe Hong is the investigative data reporter for WNYC and Gothamist. He previously covered K-12 education for several newsrooms across California. His reporting has led to local reforms in juvenile justice system as well as a state law requiring universal screening for dyslexia. Got a tip? Email [email protected]
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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