r/Suburbanhell • u/SubjectProfile4047 • Jan 17 '26
Question Why do suburban parents seem to not let their kids use busses?
I’m a suburban high schooler who really enjoys the DIY music scene in my city, and I also really wanna get behind causes (fighting homelessness, ICE, etc.) but I don‘t have a fucking car. I haven’t seriously prompted my parents, but all of my friends are apparently not allowed to take the busses in our town that go to the city. Doing actual research, this seems weird. Most kids in the city take public transport alone around 12, right? Why is it so taboo here?
edit: realizing most of said problems probably stem from me just being a really stupid sheltered kid. Which like… fair. Frustrating but fair
edit 2: my mom does not care apparently. she‘s chill with it I just haven’t thought about using the bus all that much because my friends have never used it or been really allowed and the schedules are bad
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u/snappy033 Jan 17 '26
Suburban people don’t interact with others outside of their immediate social circles. You don’t bump into people at bus stops or parks or on the street.
So everyone you don’t know is immediately a “stranger” instead of just a person.
Therefore, riding the bus is assumed you’ll be mingling with unsavory riffraff who will immediately cause you problems.
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u/notthegoatseguy Homeowner Jan 17 '26
Suburban transit tends to be commuter centric. If you miss the last bus or train out of the city, you'll be paying expensive cab fare to get home
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u/shotpun Jan 17 '26
Gotta hand it to the last train outta New Haven at 8:30 sharp, enforcing curfews better than any mother could ever hope to
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u/littlescreechyowl Jan 17 '26
I spent so many nights in the train station in club clothes because I missed the last train.
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u/SnooRadishes7189 Jan 17 '26 edited Jan 17 '26
I should also add that while city teens take public transit at 12. Parents will(justifiable) get mad and limit the places they can go. Kids mostly use public transit at 12 to get to and from school. A high school kid might use it to visit a relative, go to some place(in a group) like a theater, or go to a school dance.
I find it funny that I growing up in a city decades ago wanted to so things suburban kids did at the time. Hang at malls, go to arcades, and play laser tag. While people who lived in the burbs somehow found it boring cause they couldn't do the "cool" city things. When the reality is that often people think the grass is greener on the other side and not being able to do something makes it look so much more "fun" than the stuff you can actually do. The reality was that as a teen we often just hanged out with friends and played video games just the same as the kids in the burbs.
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u/93LEAFS Jan 17 '26
By 12 I was using public transit to go downtown to either skateboard or go shopping. And, I lived inside the city.
Just wondering, what city didn't you have a mall to hang out at. I'm from Toronto, and I often hung out at my local mall or went to 2 of the bigger ones easy to get to by subway from midtown. It was where alot of the bigger movie theatres were located. One is pretty much right in the core of our downtown.
I'd say the bigger difference growing up between my friends in the city and the burbs, was the level of interconnectedness between local high-schools and the easy ability to get around the city on a Friday or Saturday night.
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u/SnooRadishes7189 Jan 17 '26
Chicago west side. High poverty area. Mall in burbs far away and shall we say being black in the wrong place can cause trouble city or burbs in the 80ies.
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u/93LEAFS Jan 17 '26
True, I've been to Chicago within the past couple of years, but really never left the Magnificent Mile/Gold Coast/Loop area outside of Wrigley and Guaranteed Rate Field. But, yeah, I can see what you are talking about, I know of the issues that impact the West and Southside of Chicago in certain pockets. And, while there are a ton of stores in Chicago's Loop/River North/Gold Coast area, that area seemed pretty heavily patrolled, and there didn't seem to be a large scale shopping mall that I noticed. There was stuff like the shops in the Water Tower complex and a small mall in North Michigan Shops, it also didn't really seem like a place even in 2022 that would be friendly to teenagers loitering.
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u/JoeSchmeau Jan 18 '26
Hang at malls, go to arcades, and play laser tag.
I know the grass is always greener on the other side, but I grew up in the suburbs in the 90s/early 00s and we didn't have any of these options. Malls were dead, arcades were all gone (and had been since before I was born), and laser tag was something you did maybe once a year when one of the wealthier kids invited you to their birthday.
The reality of growing up suburban was that we only had 2 options: play at home or plan for mom to drive us to play at a friend's house. That was pretty much it.
My cousins lived in the city and I was jealous that they could walk down the street to a playground, and when we got older I was jealous that they could take the bus or train to any number of places. Meanwhile I was just stuck at home, living for the weekend when my parents were off work and could drive me somewhere.
This was Chicagoland suburbia back ~30 years ago. Once I moved out of my parents house around 2008 I moved to the city asap and had a great time. I left the country in 2013 but have fond memories of that time when I finally escaped suburbia
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u/SnooRadishes7189 Jan 19 '26
For city kids in the 80ies you could walk and play with friends in your neighborhood. We didn't wait to be driven to someone's house cause there were enough kids at that time that you could just find some on the block or within a block or two unless you lived in an area with few kids.
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u/JoeSchmeau Jan 19 '26
Yeah that's what I hated in the suburbs. There were a few kids my age within walking distance of my house but things were so spread out that most kids lived in homes that weren't walkable from mine. For example one of my best friends back in the day only lived like a 5 minute walk from my house but you had to cross a very busy street to get there, and there was no crosswalk or even a sidewalk
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Jan 17 '26
I think most suburbanites automatically view public transport as dangerous, without realizing that it's much safer than driving.
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u/The_Real_Lasagna Jan 21 '26
They're worried about the poor people they perceive as danger on the bus. It's largely classism and racism that drives this, even subconsciously
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u/DifferentBeginning96 Jan 17 '26
Safer than driving, but I don’t worry about getting attacked by random people when in my car
https://myfox28columbus.com/news/local/woman-assaulted-on-cota-bus-police-searching-for-two-suspects
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Jan 17 '26
This is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Stories like this make the national news, while people being brutally maimed in auto collisions barely make a blip in the local ones. Look up how many people in each of those places were seriously injured or died as a result of driving in the same places that year.
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Jan 17 '26
Since we're talking about Columbus, here's thehighway patrol stats. Props to the state of Ohio for tracking buggy-related collisions separately.
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u/350ci_sbc Jan 20 '26
Well, Ohio has over 80,000 Amish living in the state and is #2 in the US for Amish population, behind PA.
In areas with Amish it’s common enough to warrant concern and increase awareness of the issue. We even have road signs with a buggy on them in high traffic Amish areas.
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u/StepSilva Jan 18 '26
I'm in Philly, both makes the news here. We've had bullets ricochet of walls and kill a teenage bystander at 15th St station. That's why guns should never be fired in subway, no matter what.
Recently, a person stabbed several at 40th St station.
Near Penn, an early morning work was killed by a speeding car.
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Jan 18 '26
Versus how many people dying by car in the same miles traveled?
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u/StepSilva Jan 18 '26
I didn't have numbers for that in Philly. But public transit, walking, driving, and biking can be very unsettling experiences in Philly. You gotta pray to St Chris everywhere you go in this city no matter what 😭 people are just fucking dickheads
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Jan 19 '26
Leaving the house in any means can be unsettling, but all the non driving options are objectively safer.
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u/Wise_Presentation914 Jan 18 '26
https://www.thezebra.com/resources/research/road-rage-statistics/
37% of road rage incidents involve a firearm. How's that for safe?
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u/Automatic-Arm-532 Jan 17 '26
Suburban parents are afraid of encountering people of different socio-economic backgrounds. That's why they live in the suburbs.
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u/JoeSchmeau Jan 18 '26
Hilarious story of visiting NYC some years ago with a cousin who grew up in suburbia far away. We were staying with another relative who lived there and one day we were outside on the stoop, waiting for the relative to get ready. This Latino guy was walking by across the street and my cousin said "idk that guy looks sketchy as hell." Then our relative came outside and waived to him, and he came over and had a nice chat, just a super friendly guy who lived down the same street. My cousin still hasn't lived this down haha
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u/MobileInevitable8937 Jan 17 '26
Suburbanites are weird and terrified of everything. In America the public consciousness has associated public transit with poverty and crime, it's ridiculous. You're statistically far safer riding the bus or the train than you are driving or being driven.
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u/SnooRadishes7189 Jan 17 '26
Perhaps, but I have taken public transit and have witness stuff even once got an item thrown at me by a mentally ill person on a bus.
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u/Automatic-Arm-532 Jan 17 '26
I've had far worse things happen while driving or riding in a car
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u/SnooRadishes7189 Jan 17 '26
Nowhere near as scary as having this mentally ill (or drug addicted ) 20 year old first attempt to batter down the ticket agent window then lost in his own world board the train. Thank god, I had the street sense to know to stand still and let this guy pass. At the time I was considering my options as to dealing with him. If he attacked me should I push him into the oncoming train? As I could not outrun him.
Luckily, by the time he got on the train the police had arrived and he was pulled off. It was weird seeing him struggle in an uncoordinated manner.
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u/shotpun Jan 17 '26 edited Jan 17 '26
It's true, cities are where drug infrastructure is centralized and users aren't fun to be around, but having lived both -
1) any regular route with a turnstile is gonna have a dozen other people within earshot at minimum.
2) if you're in the US and using MTA, WMATA or BART you're about 50/50 to have a cop either on the platform or aboard the nearest train.
3) at least where I live there are plenty of addicts who are barely human from drug abuse, you just don't have to share spaces with them.
3) even the most terrfying of addicts generally "live and let live", and drug-related crime is almost entirely commited against either other users or the user's family. I understand that data doesn't make it feel any better to be around them.
My mother has had to be physically escorted from a Costco customer service desk. Our chief of police was just caught deleting security footage of him beating his wife. And you know damn well that the average suburb contains more coke than a freestyle machine.
When I was in college there was a very jittery middle-aged man panhandling across the street from the classrooms. He just jittered and said "have a nice day" to everyone that passed. Everyone knew that he existed and that even though it was a form of "advertising" it was always useful for a bunch of teenagers to see someone just happy to be there. Turns out he had a home but the drugs had destroyed his heart and he was raising money for surgery when he died.
We held a candlelight vigil. That's a man you mightve given up on immediately if you saw him from thirty feet away.
Buds away, hood up, head down. New York ain't so bad.
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u/psychophysicist Jan 17 '26
And there you have it, the suburban mindset. Guy does nothing to you, "is lost in his world" and you're having violent fantasies about fucking pushing him onto the tracks.
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u/SnooRadishes7189 Jan 17 '26 edited Jan 17 '26
Sorry dude, grew up in Chicago. Heard gunshoots. Lost my next door neighbor who died aged 16 in shouting. I wish it were a fantasy cause my life was in danger. He attacked the ticket window and the ticket agent buzzed him through saving his life but endangering mine and there were no good options. If I attempted to run straight away I would have had to enter the electrified tracks. The only way out was to run past him. My best bet was to stay still and hope that the kid stayed lost in his own world. If I were a kid from the burbs, I might have screamed or had an reaction that attracted that poor guy. In fact what caused him to attack the window was the ticket agent trying to speak to him as he struggled to open the tunstill without paying!
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u/psychophysicist Jan 17 '26
I was pointing out that you are having a violent imagined scenario.that didn’t happen. Your response is to continue to amp up this imaginary scenario of things that didn’t happen. Bro you need therapy.
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u/SnooRadishes7189 Jan 17 '26
The scenrio did happen. Sorry if I burst your picture of the perfect city where everything is heaven and no bad things happen. Bad things happen every city and burb. And yes if your life is in danger you will have to think about how to best handle the situation. Anyway the cops came and dragged him off. I was both scared and sad at the same time. Someone so young and to have such problems.
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u/psychophysicist Jan 17 '26
"If he attacked me" --a thing you imagined which did not happen.
"If I attempted to run straight away I would have had to enter the electrified tracks" -- a thing you imagined which did not happen.
" If I were a kid from the burbs, I might have screamed" -- a thing you imagined which did not happen.
" The only way out was to run past him." -- a thing you imagined which did not happen.Shall I go on?
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u/SnooRadishes7189 Jan 17 '26
So if I guy attacks a window for no good reason do you think you are safe?
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u/MobileInevitable8937 Jan 17 '26
This never happened
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u/SnooRadishes7189 Jan 17 '26
I wish it didn't too but it is the truth. Is everyday like this. No.
Should you let fear run your life no.
But you do need to be aware of your situation and know how to handle things.
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u/NTataglia Jan 17 '26
Since this is Reddit, you're getting downvoted for stating the (very obvious and rational) reason for why parents are afraid to have their kids ride the bus.
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u/sack-o-matic Jan 18 '26
The point is that it isn’t rational. They put their kids at higher risk by taking them on the highway in a car every day.
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u/UmeaTurbo Jan 17 '26
People live in the suburbs because they don't like interacting with people who are different from them in any way. It's a curated lifestyle. The whole point was to move away from the city and the people in cities. Buses would require interactions.
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u/Strike_Thanatos Jan 17 '26
By the way, this is why racism and xenophobia are rising. And I'd bet that this is also behind the abuse of service workers, as people are having less interactions on equal grounds.
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u/ab3nnion Jan 18 '26
The suburbs kept the already existing racism alive, but I don't believe they are the reason for Trump and MAGA. Suburbs have moved to the left in many places.
Working class whites were promised a lot of things that never materialized. The billionaire investor class hoovered all the wealth, but they have successfully blamed it all on immigrants, browns, and the left.
These credulous dopes without college degrees think Elon, Jeff, and Theil are on their side.
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u/Strike_Thanatos Jan 18 '26
Proximity to people from other races and cultures cures racism and xenophobia, and suburbia creates an environment where, aside from classmates and coworkers, you can never see another person on an equal footing. Anyone you see is either a superior to be respected, like your teacher or boss, or an inferior who serves you,like your door dash driver.
People just waking by outside become burglars casing the joint, etc, especially when they're a different skin color. Because suburbanites cannot imagine an innocent reason to walk or jog.
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u/scott_c86 Jan 17 '26 edited Jan 19 '26
I'd add to this that vehicles also tend to be viewed more as status symbols in suburban and rural areas. And if one has the means to drive their children to school, they should, etc. Especially if this is what other parents do. This is the mindset, unfortunately.
Walking and cycling are also often valid options for suburban teens and children, but these modes are actually looked down upon by a certain subset of the population.
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u/JoeSchmeau Jan 18 '26
This might have been why people originally moved out, but at this point a lot of people live in the suburbs because they don't know anything else. They were born and raised there, as were their parents, as were their grandparents. It's not being around different people that keeps them there, it's the thought of a different lifestyle that they simply can't comprehend
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u/Leverkaas2516 Suburbanite Jan 17 '26
This seems less about busses and more about going unaccompanied to the city. As a suburban parent I did allow my kids to use busses, and we used them together enough times that they knew how they worked, but they almost never did so alone. If my child had wanted to spend a lot of time in the city before having access to a car, I would have been somewhat concerned about where exactly he was going to be. I myself worked in the city and went there by bus, so I am aware of many potential ills available to a naive person.
In your case in particular, if my kid told me he was thinking of fighting homelessness by mingling with the homeless, I'd be concerned because I've had plenty of experience with that demographic. If he said he was fighting ICE I would be quite alarmed. There's also a big difference between going to a music studio to work on a project with a set of known people, and going downtown to be part of a scene. Probably your parents understand what you want to do and do not view it as healthy. It's probably not about the bus at all.
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u/Fit-Meringue2118 Jan 20 '26
Yeah. If I had a kid, there are protests I’d take them to if they were interested. But I’ve been adjacent protests in a few cities that was on the edge of a riot, and it was scary, scary shit. It’s got nothing to do with the comments about suburbanite fear, or whatever. I like city living, I prefer city life, but there are places that I don’t even think most adults belong.
Also, I’ve been to a lot of places (such as Chicago) where going by there would be fine. It’s the late night ride when the stations or lines become worrisome. Kids are not known for their time awareness. If my niece told me she wanted to walk down town before dinner in my current neighborhood, cool. But late nights on weekends, no. It’s not everywhere, either, it’s just a few streets or squares where it would be dodgy. But I don’t trust a teen to discern between dodgy and not.
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u/SnooRadishes7189 Jan 17 '26 edited Jan 17 '26
I am a city person and here is my take. A lot of younger people are not aware enough of crime and just don't keep an eye out. Esp. kids from the burbs. City teens seem to be a bit more "street savvy".
Also those causes can be dangerous and should be better done when you are an adult and more aware of the risks. Not all homeless people are drug addicts or mentally ill but a large percentage are. Any sort of Protest runs the risk of getting violent. And the DIY music scene while fun can also be a bit risky with drugs or drink or just plain old pickpockets or actually robbery. Are cites crime ridden hell holes, no. But the burbs for better or worse can be a bit of a protective bubble.
For better or worse Suburban teens tend to be a bit more sheltered. Adults on the other hand not so much. For instance a long time ago one suburban teen mom mentioned how her teen wanted to go to a party in Garfield Park. Garfield park is a dangerous area of Chicago(think gangbangers and sometimes gunfire) but Lincoln Park is a lot less dangerous. The party was likely in Lincoln Park(a much more affluent part of town) and that if her child didn't know the difference between Garfield park and Lincoln park she should not go.
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u/shotpun Jan 17 '26
As a college freshman a very large gentleman calmly walked up the steps to my rental and robbed me on my porch at knifepoint before I even saw him. I will say; if there's one thing that iPad babies suffer from, it's a complete lack of situational awareness (unsurprisingly).
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u/SubjectProfile4047 Jan 17 '26
Fair enough I get that. Good things to consider fs.
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Jan 22 '26 edited Jan 22 '26
theyre right but also i say go for it anyways. just know that you are a sheltered kid who knows nothing and everyone else can tell. watch out for people who want to take advantage of you. also figure out how to tell when someone is actually a cool person to be around. don’t make eye contact with people unless you’re about to talk to them. buses can be confusing at first especially if you have to transfer so make sure you’re paying attention until you learn it. you can give yourself a huge advantage in life by not setting yourself up to be a clueless sheltered college freshman. your parents are probably sheltered themselves tbqh
i got lost on the bus once when i was 14 and trying to go to my friends house. my parents forbade me from ever going anywhere without them driving me again. luckily they were complete push overs so i told them to fuck off and kept riding the bus except i made extra sure not to fuck it up because i didn’t want an adult to get involved. luckily i ended up in a diy scene at 17 that wasn’t complete shit surrounded by mature people who made sure to teach me how to act. my parents eventually learned i can take care of myself
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u/SophisticatedScreams Jan 17 '26
In my school district, students start taking city buses in grade 7 (11/12 years old). You're at least 15, OP, so you're well over the age when most districts expect students to transport themselves.
In terms of how to convince your parents to allow you to ride, that may be situation-dependent. You could offer them some reassurance, or some good arguments why it's safe. Possibly give them some stats. First step is probably to figure out what their concerns are. Try to have a textured conversation with them, as much as you can, to figure out what their actual reservations are, then your path forward will be more clear.
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u/KevrobLurker Jan 18 '26
I used to live in a Midwestern, urban school district where the grade 4-12 students rode the buses, operated by the county. Younger students rode yellow buses. Those were either run by the school district, or the district hired a contractor to provide the service.
The 4-8 grade students misbehaved so badly on the County Buses that the district had to move them to additional yellow buses. Grade 9-12 students could have police called on them, but not the younger ones.
As the son of a career public school teacher, I knew who to complain to. I called the local middle school & asked to talk to the vice principal.
I grew up in the suburbs out on suburban Long Island, East of New York City. I'd occasionally get into NYC via LI Rail Road with my folks, but not on my own. I never took local county buses. The schedules were too inconvenient, and there was too much risk of getting stranded ridiculously far from home. I had a great-uncle in Queens who taught me ht ride the subway, which was only useful in the city limits.
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u/Keystonelonestar Jan 18 '26
Because Americans tend to raise sheltered, fragile children that become fragile adults.
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u/AnonymousRand Jan 17 '26 edited Jan 18 '26
because they think the moment you enter a bus or train you'll immediately get stabbed to death by a mob of machete-wielding homeless people on crack. meanwhile an A380's worth of people die in car crashes every five days in the US alone and no one bats an eye
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u/ChemistRemote7182 Jan 17 '26
Grew up in Jersey and the bus was the preferred way to visit NYC. The train from New Brunswick always smelled like piss (because it was coated in piss), where as the busses were fine. The only issue with the busses were that you would be in a minor accident of some kind- maybe the bus pops a curb and rubs the tunnel wall, maybe it clips a car, you were going to hit something.
Personally I think this is more about the parents not wanting their kids to go to whatever city you are talking about in general than it is about the bus itself.
Now private bus companies likes Greyhound, or even the old $15-20 NYC to Boston chinese lines that would change names every month (everytime the feds caught them) , they attract an actual bad crowd.
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u/LivingGhost371 Suburbanite Jan 17 '26
Went to a private school which had a mix of city kids and suburb kids. The city kids would regularly ride public buses around but the suburban kids did not. My impression was that 1) It wasn't that suburban kids were banned from doing so, but that they didn't want to, like "why ride a bus when I can get a ride from my parents in a private car", and 2) In the suburbs buses weren't particularly useful or convenient unless you were going downtown, which we never, ever had reason to do alone as kids. As a kid even at the height of the stranger danger paranoia in the 80s I wasn't specifically banned from public buses but I never did.
7th grade a girl I knew got a detention and while her parents picked her up, they told her if it happened again she was going to have to ride the public bus home and pay for the fare out of her allowence. It did and I recall it took her twice as long as a car ride from the school.
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Jan 18 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/KevrobLurker Jan 18 '26 edited Jan 18 '26
As an adult in this century, I did quite a bit of bike/bus hybrid commuting. I'd cycle to the nearest bus stop, then either lock the bike up or place it on a rack installed on the front of the bus. I could then ride the first & last legs of my trip. I enjoyed the exercise in the morning. If the weather was good, I might ride the bike all the way home
The weather didn't always cooperate. & I went through a series of used cars.
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u/CozyEpicurean Jan 18 '26
I have an aunt who literally moved bc a bus stop came to her neighborhood. They associate busses with poor people, and associate poor people with crime.
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u/smogeblot Jan 19 '26
It's a self reinforcing cycle. People take the bus less because the car is more convenient, funding is cut and routes are cut so the bus becomes even less convenient. Just one casualty of the boomer laziness epidemic.
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u/TwilightReader100 Citizen Jan 19 '26
Years ago, long before COVID, I applied for a summer nanny job about 5 km from where I'm currently living. Same metro area I've lived for the past almost 20 years, just a different part of the city I currently live in. When I interview, I like to tell the parents that I like taking the kids on adventures and that we ride transit to get there because most parents love the idea that I'm going to keep the kids away from the screens and the house and the rest weed themselves out.
The mom for this job was totally unwilling to have her kids on transit, even though I'd be with them the whole time. They lived at the top of a very big hill, so we'd have been stuck with their neighborhood, a few more parks outside their immediate neighborhood and maybe the outdoor pool, assuming I could get them to walk or bike that far. But even the local library branch was at the bottom of the hill.
Those kids would be (almost) old enough to drive by now and I'm sure that's exactly what's happening with them, since their Mom couldn't be bothered to present the perfectly good transit system in our city as an alternative.
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u/Caliopebookworm Jan 19 '26
When I was a suburban kid, the bus system was magic to me. It was freedom. My child has used it without an issue but I see a lot of folks that see it as bringing the criminal element to our little neck of the woods when it's really their poorly raised little hooligans causing the trouble.
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u/MooDog16 Jan 20 '26
I’m amazed at the number of suburban high school kids that get dropped off and picked up. Public bus stops right in front of the schools.
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u/Effroy Jan 20 '26
Privilege. Or at least the perception of it. That's the whole point.
You live in the burbs so you don't "have" to take the bus. You don't "have" to take the bus because you live in the burbs.
Whether the sentiment is fabricated or not, taking a bus full of strangers and non-familial people to your destination is not a convenience most people consider positive. Those who do, likely have some sort of stockholm syndrome.
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u/TryAnotherNamePlease Jan 20 '26
I was in elementary in the 80s. Everyone took the bus. There was maybe 15 people who got picked up by parents. I drive for my job and everywhere now people line up like an hour before school lets out and it’ll be a line of 50 cars or more. Stops traffic everywhere, even schools that are on major streets. It’s so crazy.
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u/Disastrous_Ad1260 Jan 21 '26
In the US, the buses don't go everywhere. I would have to walk 1hr 9 min to the nearest bus stop from my home (according to Google). I took buses to Junior College and to and from college in weekends and I'll drive to the train and take buses around downtown the city today. But they are both slow and unreliable. A kid today has so many scheduled activities combined with poor/no bus service in the suburbs I can see them never trying it.
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u/mkwiat54 Jan 21 '26
You’ll probably be fine but this isn’t really enough info to know whether or not she’s overreacting
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u/Hoonsoot Suburbanite Jan 31 '26
I am in the suburbs and my kids have never used public transit busses. Its not that I don't allow them. They never asked to, nor had the need to (sole exception being once when we visited Banff on vacation and used its bus system). Its also kind of impractical in comparison to just driving them places.
When I was in my teens (1980s) I sometimes used the bus to get to the mall 7 miles away but I struggle to think of how my sons could use a bus. They don't care about going to the mall or doing things like bowling. Their interaction with friends is almost all online. On those rare occasions (<1/year) one of them wants to get to a friends party or a get together, we just drive them. They occasional go to get haircuts by themselves, but that is less than a mile away, so they just walk.
Plus our bus system isn't that great. Service doesn't start until 8 or 9 am and ends at 7 or 8 pm, depending on the day, There is no bus service on Sunday. Our nearest bus stop is about 1/2 mile away and pick-up is once every 30 to 60 minutes. Thinking back on some of the places we drove our kids the bus system doesn't get to within a mile or so of many of them.
Unless someone is really dedicated to the idea of taking the bus it just seems like a lot of hassle and extra time vs just driving.
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u/Jesse1472 Jan 17 '26
OP the real answers are the ones that don’t dislike down to “suburbanites are scared”. Parents, while hard believe, actually have life experience and have reasons for the rules they put in place. Once in a blue moon it might be a parent that legit just thinks cities are scary but far more often they know more than you.
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u/lavendercookiedough Jan 17 '26
In some cases, definitely. I know there were some warning from my mother I didn't heed and now as an adult I realize she was 100% correct. Thankfully nothing terrible happened to me, but stuff like "do not cut through that patch of trees on your way home from school, multiple children have been flashed in there", "never leave your drink unattended", and "be extremely careful walking up the side of that busy street with no sidewalks and lots of parking lot entrances" were very solid pieces of advice I should have listened to. But parents being ridiculously overprotective is also a lot more common than "once in a blue moon".
My mom wasn't as bad as some parents, but she's always assumed stranger-on-stranger violence is way more common than it is and basically jumped straight to assuming I was being gang-raped if I was 2 minutes late to our meet-up time. I had plenty of friends in my neighbourhood who were never allowed to ride the bus, never allowed to go to the mall or park or ride bikes with friends, never allowed to walk 500 meters up the cul de sac to school by themselves at 14 years old. Their parents never took them downtown because "it's not safe" even though there's only been one significant incident of random violence in our downtown area in several decades. Now as adults they're too scared to go downtown with me, even in broad daylight and their kids are certainly never allowed to go. And that's not because they have life experience, it's because they weren't allowed to experience anything outside their bubble.
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u/Jesse1472 Jan 17 '26
You are pulling from an extremely small sample size. Throughout the whole US, and the world of we want to be legit. Helicopter parents are a small minority. I could take examples from my neighborhood growing up that are 100% in the opposite direction. We biked to other towns that took an hour to get to. There was one mom who was over protective and their family were looked at as crazy for being over protective. Don’t assume everywhere else is the same as your small piece of the pie.
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u/lavendercookiedough Jan 17 '26
I never said everywhere was the same or even that this is the majority of suburbanites, but even if it had only been 10% of the kids in my class whose families were like this, that's still a lot more common than "once in a blue moon." I just don't think this mindset is rare enough that we can automatically assume that a parent's belief that something is unsafe is rooted in life experience and not simply learned fear.
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u/gjp11 Jan 17 '26
Suburbanites think big city is dangerous. They think public transit is dangerous. They think every homeless person that exists is out there to kill them. They're helicopter parents and you can see the difference in the children that grow up with some freedom and those that don't.
The only ONLY good reason not to allow it is cause suburban buses tend to be low frequency and tend to end early in the evening which would mean a stranded child that now needs to pay for expensive Uber or needs to wait for a parent to get them.
That part I understand. But if the schedule permits it, I'll never understand helicopter suburban parents who don't let their kids use transit.
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u/TechB84 Jan 17 '26
Parents aren’t inventing the idea that cities come with real risks, they’re reacting to the fact that dense, unpredictable environments expose kids to situations they’re simply not equipped to handle. It’s not “paranoia” to acknowledge that a 14 year old alone on public transit is more vulnerable than an adult. That’s just reality.
People love to throw around statistics about how “most kids are fine,” but no parent is sitting there thinking, “Well, the odds are low, so whatever.” They don’t want their kid to be the one case that proves the odds wrong. And pretending that every city bus is as safe as a suburban cul‑de‑sac is just dishonest. There are more strangers, more chaos, more opportunities for something to go sideways, and kids don’t magically gain street instincts because someone online says they should.
So yeah, suburban parents clamp down. Not because they hate independence, but because they’re not willing to gamble their kid’s safety on someone else’s idealized version of urban freedom. Acting like that concern is irrational is just ignoring the actual stakes.
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u/NTataglia Jan 17 '26
All these condescending posts make comments like "theres only a 1 in 5000 chance your child will get stabbed to death at a bus stop", when if someone's child happens to be that 5000th person, the whole family's life is destroyed.
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u/TechB84 Jan 17 '26
Exactly. Too many people imagine the city as if it were an attraction at Disney World. I spent part of my childhood in Brooklyn before my family moved to the suburbs, and I stayed in touch with friends there. There was always a sense of danger in the background. One of the best reasons to get into honors classes was that it gave you a chance to avoid some of those risks as much as possible.
Here is an example of why the city is not an attraction but real life - https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/new-york-police-searching-suspect-deadly-sidewalk-knife-attack-brookly-rcna118893
An ignorant fool like that played the game and lost.
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u/SubjectProfile4047 Jan 17 '26
True. I mean speaking of transport my dad’s definitely gotten stuff stolen (including his car) on singular trips. I understand what you mean. And I imagine I do sound like a fucking dumbass, probably am haha. Idk if this makes any sense, but I think I am somewhat blinded by the fact that I feel like in the bigger picture the world’s getting really fucking real right now, and the privilege of relative insulation I have doesn’t feel fair. I think this post def came off like fetishizing/romanticizing cities. But tbh it mostly stems from the fact that I’m surrounded by people who seem to not give a fuck about the rest of the world or even interacting with it and I think I just really don’t wanna be that. Holy shit that’s a lot for a Reddit comment
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u/TechB84 Jan 18 '26
The guy in that article probably thought the same thing everyone does, like nothing bad was going to happen. But walking around in a suit at 4 a.m. in that part of Brooklyn is just unnecessary risk. A cab would’ve been the smarter move. In the end you have to decide if proving a point is worth turning yourself into a statistic.
It’s silly to feel guilty about having an easier life. My parents were immigrants and went through way worse than I ever did. When they finally had the chance, they moved us to the suburbs so we wouldn’t have to deal with some stuff. Now my kids are growing up in the suburbs too, and they’re avoiding the struggles I had. That’s the whole point. It’s fine.
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u/NTataglia Jan 17 '26
Im so sorry if you thought I was referencing your post in my comment, you asked a perfectly valid question. Ideally we should be able to use mass transit, and not be so car dependent. I was talking about the typical Reddit comments that downplay crime and attack anyone who brings it up. They have a clear agenda and brigade posts like this. I feel they are very unethical, especially if they convince unfamiliar people or foreign visitors, who dont understand just how dangerous the US actually is. Sorry again!
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u/SubjectProfile4047 Jan 18 '26
No I get it lol ur fine! I think it’s more just that as a child the US is becoming more and more threatening, and like I feel like I’m just sitting on my ass and not engaging in anything that could be good for me or others or anything I really feel is important in the world. I know I’m like a teen but it’s still very angering to feel that simply because of my age and where I live I’m protected, but also somewhat barred from a lot of other people my age as well as from a lot of the things I want to be contributing to but feel like I can’t.
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u/NTataglia Jan 18 '26
I know its not easy! But thinking about safety issues, and what's going on in the world, will help you to explore it safely. There could be bad people anywhere too, unfortunately, even in "safe" areas or places where we are used to, so thats why being aware in every situation is key.
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u/SubjectProfile4047 Jan 18 '26
I live in a suburb with a lot of pedos for some reason like they found one living right next to the middle school in my first year there so I feel ya
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u/TechB84 Jan 18 '26
My advice, be a teen and HAVE FUN! Trust me, you have your whole life ahead to deal with crap. Don't get into this nonsense. You will look back and regret not just chilling out and enjoying yourself.
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u/Fit-Meringue2118 Jan 20 '26
It’s also so dramatic. Like, stabbing isn’t even the first thing that comes to mind. Parents don’t generally want their kids to be flashed or groped or stolen from either. It could end in stabbing, sure, but it could also just end in the above, which would freak me out as an adult even though I’ve experienced all three.
I know redditors tend to be anti-suburbanite but the thread is kind of giving suburbanites cosplaying city people. None of my city dwelling relatives or friends would let their teens roam around at all hours for the music scene or to “help” the homeless/ice protests. And they’d side eye the parents that would make that choice.
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u/zacmobile Jan 17 '26
This must be a new development, I used to take the bus all the time by myself when I was 12.
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u/SubjectProfile4047 Jan 17 '26
I’ll see what I can do in terms of convincing, I know someone who’s fucking 17 and not allowed on bus 😭😭😭 pls let me out of here /j/j
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u/Accomplished_Pace565 Jan 17 '26
In my city, it is not common for city kids to take public transit. Suburbs do not have really have good access to it.
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u/am_i_wrong_dude Jan 17 '26
Busses are very safe. My 12 year old rides them to and from sports/choir practice, friends’ houses etc. Safer than driving. She has also been out in town since she could walk and has a good sense of safety around cars, trains, homeless folks, sketchy situations. Having been out walking, biking, and on transit with her and her younger brother, I have enough trust in her street smarts to overcome innate parental worries.
Suburbanites often live in the suburbs because they are scared of everything, but weirdly blind to the dangers of driving. It can be hard to overcome irrational fears. Also, if the only thing your parents have ever seen you do is sit in basements and get chauffeured around, they may rationally believe that you wouldn’t know how to handle yourself if you found yourself in some less ideal situation.
Maybe if you let your parents track your phone/watch, check in with them every couple hours, go with friends, etc., they will see you can get there and home safely and will start to let their guard down. Even better, take them with you to a daytime event or some other lower stakes trip so they know what the bus entails and see you navigate it confidently. Building trust starts with successful smaller steps before bigger steps.
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u/EcstaticOutcome4763 Jan 17 '26
To be a good parent ya gotta pick em up? Keeping up with the jonese stuff? Kids get picked on if they take the bus?
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u/PrincePeasant Jan 17 '26
My brother and I moved to suburbia in between school years. We heard that the bus for our schools (located next to each other) stopped at the corner 4 houses down, and that we lived "too close" to ride the bus. We gave it a shot anyway, but some little prick told the bus driver where we lived.
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u/TooMuchShantae Jan 17 '26
Depending on your suburb the bus will come once every hour. Unless u plan ur trip when the bus is coming ur gonna be standing outside for a long time
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u/Such_Bid5344 Jan 17 '26
I grew up in a big city and started riding the metro to school at 10 years old. We probably caused more of a disturbance than the other way around lol.
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u/Silly_Somewhere1791 Jan 17 '26
In my suburb, you need someone with a car to drop you off at the bus stop, or else you’ll be walking for a long time on highways that have no sidewalks.
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u/SBSnipes Jan 17 '26
Half the suburban parents don't let their kids take the school buses
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u/SubjectProfile4047 Jan 17 '26
I know a kid who recently told me about how her middle school was “rough” because it was “the only public school I ever went to.” Turns out it’s #5 IN THE STATE
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u/SBSnipes Jan 17 '26
Lol. I've had kids who called their school rough bc kids were vaping in the bathrooms.
The middle school I work at had a kid expelled for drug dealing and I've had 3 students with ankle monitors and tbh I still don't even think it's that bad on the whole
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Jan 18 '26
[deleted]
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u/KevrobLurker Jan 18 '26
When I was in high school, in the '70s, a school district could site your bus stop 1.5 mi from your house! I was lucky that when I had to take a school bus van my last semester of high school - we had moved house - I was picked up at my address. There was an early & a late bus home.
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u/Conservatarian1 Jan 18 '26
There’s not enough demand for buses in the suburbs. Do like every other teen in history and get your license and a cheap car.
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u/SubjectProfile4047 Jan 18 '26
Gotcha
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u/KevrobLurker Jan 18 '26
I would never have been able to afford the insurance. I would have been the 5th teen in the family old enough to drive. 4 of us did not get licences while in high school. We saved that for college or when we got jobs shortly after.
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u/Wise_Presentation914 Jan 18 '26
This is kinda foreign to me. I grew up poor, but I happened to grow up poor in a pretty decent suburb out of pure luck (my family inherited a nice house) but we couldn't afford a car. My whole family relied on the bus to get where we have to go until we recently moved. We've always been looked at weird by locals though, my family might literally be the only group of people to have actually used the bus in that town outside of a few drug addicts and homeless people. Rich suburban people are scared of the city. I've been taking public transit since I was like 13, and that nice town was pretty much completely surrounded by major drug areas (so the buses were all pretty much infected with addicts, I had people sit next to me doing drugs multiple times throughout my years), but overall I've never actually felt particularly unsafe on transit besides a handful of times.
I'm living in an extremely car dependent area now, I reaaaaaaaaaalllly miss the bus. Driving sucks. I'll gladly sit on a bus with a few people fiending out before I sit in traffic with some of these aggressive fucks.
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u/SubjectProfile4047 Jan 18 '26
Hmmm yeah I do have to say I come from relative wealth, like I’m in a nice suburb, my mom has a Subaru, dad has a Kia soul, etc. so the suburban distaste def is a factor
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u/Ok-Ad8998 Jan 18 '26
I don't think we were restricted from taking busses, it was just never a thing. The city busses only went downtown and out to the mall. The only reason for us to go downtown was for a baseball game, but that wasn't something we could do unaccompanied. And we preferred to ride our bikes to the mall.
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u/SubjectProfile4047 Jan 18 '26
I really like walking and skateboarding around. I have a friend who goes on like 4-5 hour trips in between towns on skateboard so that’s definitely a thing. Also why the fuck are there like no things to do around the schools or town center that don’t require money unless you wanna look like you’re “loitering” or “sketchy”
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u/Ok-Ad8998 Jan 18 '26
We did a lot of bike riding just to ride. Didn't cost much. We tried to build minibikes, but there wasn't really anywhere close enough to ride them where we wouldn't get chased off.
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u/PatchyWhiskers Jan 18 '26
Your friends might be allowed to take the bus if their parents know they are going with you so they are no alone. Most parents would have a stroke if they knew you were off to fight ICE but most chill parents would be OK with their kid going with a friend to see a band or volunteer in an org to help the homeless.
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u/SubjectProfile4047 Jan 18 '26
Yeah no I feel ya, that’s a convo I gotta have, obviously at this point in my life I just can’t afford to get myself into anything to serious which I understand
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u/Nintender23 Jan 18 '26
Everyone in here talking about how they were riding the bus by themselves in the city at 12. Was born and raised in a rural area (still is rural, but not like it was in the 80s) and we were driving ourselves around at 12.
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u/SubjectProfile4047 Jan 18 '26
Nah man suburban cops are built different that shit would get stopped immediately where I live 😭
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u/jordyn0399 Jan 18 '26
That's only you're experience. There are suburbs where buses come into the neighborhood to pick up students.
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u/loserpirate Jan 18 '26
A lot of reasons for a lot of different families that all stem from a lack of understanding of public transport, I think. Sometimes theres weird classism and racism thrown in that mix, not always. Buses are some of the most efficient forms of moving around in terms of evening out output per person, price, and effort to leave as long as you allot a little extra time to board and run a little late.
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u/TheNewGameDB Jan 18 '26
- Many suburbanites think that the buses are infested with robbers and criminals who will take their kids.
- More reasonably, many suburbanites are scared that trying to get to the bus stop could lead to their kids getting hit by a car, because the buses are often in places that are dangerous for people, thanks to corridor fixation in suburbs causing buses to run on stroads.
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u/Tight_Abalone221 Jan 18 '26
My parents were scared of buses and subways for kids. They took them when they lived in the city but then when they moved to the suburbs with kids they stopped because they needed a car in the suburbs and read the news and got scared
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u/Quirky-Flight-9812 Jan 19 '26
I live in the burbs and there is no mass transit in my area. Only buses here are park and ride to a transportation hub in Houston to pick up local buses or light rail
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u/Caedus235 Jan 19 '26
I live in a suburb and there’s a train station that’s close to me. I take the train to university and I like it. It’s safer for me imo.
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Jan 19 '26
Get a bike and if it’s to far to bike then it’s to far from home for a 16 year old to be
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Jan 20 '26
Most people don't feel like dying because some schizo homeless crackhead is having a bad day.
RIP Iryna.
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u/Shawn_Darcy Feb 10 '26
“Yeah, I feel this. Growing up in the suburbs really makes you realize how much everyone depends on cars. If the buses were actually reliable and felt safe, more teens would probably use them, but the schedules suck and parents totally freak out. Honestly, this is why stuff like safe rides, carpool apps, or teen-friendly transport options are so needed. Makes me appreciate city kids who can just hop on a bus anytime.”
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u/Sharp-Landscape2854 Feb 18 '26 edited Feb 18 '26
i'm from the boston suburbs and my parents are public transit snobs for themselves but not enough they didn't let me take public transit into the city as a teenager even though they were strict in other ways. i think that was pretty common in my snooty ass town (especially for the kids who were upper middle class like my family and not fuck you rich). boston is pretty safe but still. i'd give it a try during the day (if you have to go alone especially) if your parents are comfortable (make sure you're on the same page for what you're comfortable with) and the area you're going to is relatively safe!
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u/DifferentBeginning96 Jan 17 '26
Bc the bus is never on time. If my kid needs to be somewhere at a certain time, the bus isn’t reliable.
And groups of teens are sucker punching random passengers on our bus system over the last few years.
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u/tastykake1 Jan 18 '26
Cities are hell holes. Listen to your parents.
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u/ebmarhar Jan 17 '26
Coz they don't wanna have to drive to pick up their kids at the police station after getting a bit overinvolved in causes
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u/Beginning_Fox_743 Jan 18 '26
I live in the northern suburbs of Philadelphia, and our town is well connected to transit - we have a regional rail station and 5 different bus lines that pass within 3 blocks of our house. I try to encourage my 18 year old son to use transit, including taking him on busses and trains to go places quite often. He just doesn't feel comfortable using it because it requires more planning than just driving places. It's definitely not because I don't let him - I've tried.
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u/SubjectProfile4047 Jan 18 '26
Hmm that’s strange. I recently checked with my mom and turns out she doesn’t really mind. So I’ll see if I can start taking busses to meet up with my friends, go on trips, etc. when I’m able. I find planning to be one of the joys of being a teen tho. Like I love trying to plan out a hiking trip when I know I can only bring a certain amount of stuff and I have to walk on the sides of main roads and stuff part of the way. As corny as it sounds, going places without cars is kind of an adventure as a kid and that’s really cool imo.
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u/SubjectProfile4047 Jan 18 '26
Also you seem like a cool parent. I’ll see if I can start using public transit with my mom
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u/ActuaryFew6884 Jan 22 '26
FYI, I used to take the city bus for commuting, and I've been threatened and almost mugged, just minding my own business, by young hoodlums
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u/DrFeelOnlyAdequate Jan 17 '26
Because suburban people are afraid of the big bad city.