Buses. Traffic. Safety. They’re not separate problems — they’re the same problem seen from different angles. Until we fix all three together, every student, every resident, and every commuter in Saugus pays the price.

🚸 The Issue: Put Kids First: Restore Safe Busing in Saugus

• Policy: K–6 over 2 miles = bus | 7–12 = no bus
• Centralized campuses: With all schools in-town, ~90% of students live within 2 miles and are ineligible.
• On a bus today: Fewer than 1 in 10 students.
• Cars added: ~1,400–1,700+ twice daily (700–850 families × 2 trips).
• Emergency access: Delayed at choke points.

👉 Bottom line: Not a “getting to school” problem — a town safety problem.

⚠️ The Reality
Saugus’ 2-mile rule may look like a cost saver. In practice, it creates unsafe walks, thousands of extra car trips, and blocked emergency access.

All three schools are clustered in the center of town. That means most families live under 2 miles and get no bus — even though the walk is unsafe. Fewer than 1 in 10 kids ride a bus today. The rest are pushed into cars, producing gridlock that impacts the entire town.

And this isn’t new. For 7 years, traffic studies have warned us:

• 2017–2022: Repeatedly flagged Route 1 and school-area ramps (Main, Essex, Route 99, Lynn Fells) as overloaded and crash-prone.
• 2024 counts: 26,000 cars/day at Main Street & Route 1 alone.
• 2025 peer review: Confirmed rear-end crash patterns, 18% higher traffic during the school year, and buses forced into high-speed lanes.

Instead of fixing it, Saugus has added to it — by denying buses and forcing 1,400–1,700 more car trips every day into the very danger zones engineers already flagged.

🎯 Mission vs. Reality: If 1 in 10 students get a bus seat, while thousands of daily car trips replace buses, safety isn’t first — traffic is.

📜 Law vs. Local Choice: Massachusetts only requires busing for K–6 students over 2 miles away. That’s the bare minimum, not the standard of safety.  Saugus chose to stop at the minimum — even though every traffic report for 7+ years has said these roads are unsafe.

Children aren’t first in practice. The rest of the town pays the price: gridlock, blocked fire/police/EMS, and wasted hours every day.

🛑 Time for Leadership
We are calling on Town Manager Scott Crabtree, the Saugus Select Board, the Saugus School Committee, Superintendent Michael Hashem, and State Representative Donald Wong to take immediate action and restore safe, no-cost busing for all students.

Local leaders must address the town’s traffic and safety crisis, not ignore it. And our state representative must help ensure that Saugus families aren’t left behind by unsafe, outdated policies.

• Saugus School Committee – Policy makers. You can set a higher standard than the state’s “bare minimum.”
• Superintendent Michael Hashem – The district’s leader. Recommend safety, not shortcuts.
• Town Manager Scott Crabtree – Chief executive of the town. Fund safety before more studies collect dust.
• Saugus Select Board – Budget authority. You have the power to prioritize children’s lives over traffic.
• Rep. Donald Wong – Represents Saugus at the State House. Help protect families by addressing unsafe gaps in state law.

👉 Leadership means protecting children inside the classroom and on the road to get there — not pushing them into unsafe traffic every single day.

✅ What We’re Asking Saugus School & Town Leaders To Do
This is not just a school issue — it’s a townwide safety issue that impacts every driver, every neighborhood, and every emergency vehicle.

• Restore bus service for ALL so Saugus students have a safe, reliable way to get to school.
• Declare unsafe routes non-walkable (no sidewalks, highway-adjacent, dangerous crossings) instead of forcing kids into traffic.
• Cut unnecessary car trips: Ending the no-busing policy would remove 1,400–1,700 cars per day from the most congested and crash-prone parts of Route 1.
• Protect emergency access: Gridlock at choke points delays fire, police, and EMS response times for the entire town.

Any “savings” vanish when traffic jams, safety risks, and emergency delays are factored in.  There is state and federal funding — but it takes leadership willing to go after it. “Our hands are tied” is not an answer, nor is ignoring the previous 7 years of traffic studies.

👉 This is about protecting students and protecting the town. Safe, fair busing relieves gridlock and keeps everyone safer.

✍️ Please Sign and Share! This isn’t just about school transportation.
This is about 7 years of warnings ignored, safety risks unaddressed, and choices that put kids in harm’s way.

It’s time to act. Bring back safe, fair busing for every Saugus student — and ease the gridlock that threatens all of us.