Asbury Park Press

Rabbi Yisroel Schenkolewski is calling on the parents of Lakewood’s private school students to drive their children to school on Tuesday and Wednesday this week in an irresponsible plan to call attention to the township’s decision to eliminate courtesy busing for older students in the coming school year.

If those parents heed that call, Lakewood’s already clogged streets will be saddled with thousands of additional cars, putting those very children at risk.

Schenkolewski is orchestrating this bit of street theater to protest next year’s elimination of courtesy busing for students in fourth through 12th grades. It is nothing short of reprehensible that children will be used to try to score political points over an issue that should be addressed and solved among adults.

Rather than promoting an inevitable and dangerous gridlock in town, Schenkolewski and the Iggud Hamosdos — a consortium of private schools in Lakewood — should begin working on a solution to the problem. Long after the two days of traffic snarls, the problems of courtesy busing and its exorbitant cost will remain. The private schools in Lakewood should not expect Trenton to cut a $4 million check to solve the problem for the upcoming school year.

Transportation costs are a growing cost item in the public school budget, and promise to escalate further unless something is done to slow growth in Lakewood, develop more efficient transportation routes and schedules, and eliminate as much unnecessary busing as possible.

Whatever attempts are made to rein in the costs of courtesy busing for the coming school year, everyone needs to keep an eye on the future, because the problem is only going to get worse. According to projections, Lakewood’s population could double to 220,000 by 2030, and more than half of Lakewood’s residents follow Orthodox Judaism.

We have offered a number of possible solutions to the problems posed by the community’s expanding transportation needs in the past. We repeat them here:

• Lakewood must revise its zoning laws, which currently allow schools to be built anywhere in the township. The goal, rather, should be, insofar as possible, the construction of true neighborhood schools, which could dramatically reduce the need for courtesy and mandatory busing.

• Police, and the Township Committee, must take a fresh look at where potentially dangerous streets and intersections can be made safer by construction of sidewalks and the addition of school crossing guards.

• Perhaps most importantly, there must be a recognition by the township Planning Board and the Township Committee that Lakewood’s dramatic growth must be slowed. It has put unmanageable stress on the schools, roads and municipal services, and created major safety and health issues that will grow worse if left unchecked. The master plan must be revised in accordance with sound planning principles and common sense.

In the meantime, the Orthodox community must acknowledge that the ever-increasing demands its growing private school population is putting on the school district budget is unsustainable. It must work to reach some reasonable accommodation that does not merely involve dipping more deeply into taxpayers’ pockets to pay for more busing.

The traditional practice has been that both private and public school students who live within 2.5 miles of their schools can ride a public school bus from their homes to their classes. Of the approximately 10,450 students who use the service, more than 8,100 attend private schools. That traditional practice cannot continue.

In the meantime, while solutions are being explored, schoolchildren should not be used as political pawns.