TL;DR: There's a school bus stop which another bus could cover and it would be able to get there before the bus that currently covers it does.

If you're in Tyee Middle School or the Bellevue School District, you know about the bus route system they have for elementary and middle school. There are two routes I will be focusing on today: Routes 22 and 21 of the 2023-2024 school year. 

In the morning, bus 22 picks up 2 stops near Eastgate, then 5 stops near Forest Drive. Bus 21 picks up five stops from the west to the east, the final one before school being Somerset Elementary School. 

In the afternoon, things get unfair.

For the most part, the order is opposite, except that two stops on Highland Drive (147th PL SE, 46TH PL SE) are removed from bus 21's route and appended to bus 22's route. Key word: appended. As in, those are the last stops of route 22. The arrival time for this final stop on bus 22 is 16:03. School dismisses at 15:20. Are you kidding me? 43 minutes? I could walk from school to the bus stop (1.8mi uphill) and get there before the bus. 

You know what else? You could get off at the second afternoon stop (the one after Somerset Elementary) of bus 21 (arrival time 15:43) and walk 0.2 miles to said on bus 22 in 4 minutes. That's an arrival time of 15:47. Faster by 16 minutes.

What makes it worse is that in the afternoon, route 21 passes by the stops without stopping, until route 22 stops there nearly 25 minutes later. They're not even large stops, only less than 15 people.

Now, who am I in this situation? I am just a student who has been assigned bus 22, but rides bus 21 every day, walking the 0.2 miles, rain or shine, getting to the stop before bus 22 every day. I reach my house before bus 22 even gets to the stop. 

There we go. I'm done. Please sign this petition to the Bellevue School District.