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Where I live we don't even have sidewalks in large amounts of the city, let alone crossings, and heavy snow for three~ months of the year.

With high enough population density and near-by schools these ideas could work, but the US is very spotty and way way too car-centric for this to be a turn-key solution.

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Agreed. US cities generally have way less population densities than European cities. Basically, the New York City metro and perhaps Chicago (mostly within the El, but perhaps more broadly if we include the commuter rail lines) are the main cities I can think of where public transit makes good economic sense. Most other cities are heavily subsidized and still underused. Hence school buses rather thank kids taking transit to school.

My wife grew up in Canada. She walked in the snow. 1.5 km. My kids charter school has no bus. There best friends are home schooled. And we are thinking of switching to that.

Obviously not viable everywhere. But there are alternatives

Your alternative relies on a parent being able to not work, that isn't an alternative for many households (least of all single-parent ones).

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