Hub school officials promise better busing
Boston school officials are promising more ontime arrivals for buses, fewer bus routes, and no increase in the average commute time for Hub students as they implement a new busing plan partially inspired by an MIT algorithm.
“As far as the student experience is concerned, they will see very little difference from last year to this year, aside from the fact that we are very confident that we will improve our on-time performance,” Boston Public Schools Chief of Operations John Hanlon said. “We have every confidence the routes will perform very, very well.”
BPS developed the new bus route plan with the help of a hackathon earlier this year during which academics and private companies used BPS data to come up with their own plans in the hopes of winning a $15,000 prize from private donors.
Hanlon said the district is happy with the algorithm developed by the MIT team and blended those plans with existing routes.
“If anything, we have been, I think, very cautious and very smart in how we have taken those routes the MIT team has built and worked them into our system,” he said, noting the total number of bus routes has been reduced from 650 to 600.
Bus drivers have been out in the city doing “dry runs” ahead of Thursday’s first day of school. About half of the runs had been completed by yesterday morning, Hanlon said, and the rest would be completed before Wednesday.
The change has meant fewer bus drivers but Hanlon said BPS worked with the union to offer additional retirement plans and didn’t need to lay anyone off.
Although Hanlon admitted it’s difficult to know exactly how many students will be on new bus routes this year, he said 98 percent of students will use the same bus stop as long as they’re living at the same address and going to the same school.
The average commute time of 23 minutes would also remain unchanged, Hanlon said, and the number of students per bus increased “slightly.”
School officials say the plan will save the district between $3 million and $5 million and BPS Superintendent Dr. Tommy Chang said the new routes will remove nearly a million miles worth of bus trips this year and result in a 20,000-pound reduction in daily carbon emissions.
SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah nurse said she was scared to death when a police officer handcuffed and dragged her screaming from a hospital after she refused to allow blood to be drawn from an unconscious patient.
After Alex Wubbels and her attorneys released dramatic video of the arrest, prosecutors called for a criminal investigation and Salt Lake City police put Detective Jeff Payne on paid leave yesterday.
“This cop bullied me. He bullied me to the utmost extreme,” Wubbels said in an interview with The Associated Press. “And nobody stood in his way.”
The Salt Lake City police chief and mayor also apologized and changed department policies in line with the guidance Wubbels was following in the July 26 incident.
Wubbels, a former alpine skier who competed in the 1998 and 2002 Winter Olympics, said she adhered to her training and hospital protocols to protect the rights of a patient who could not speak for himself.
“You can’t just take blood if you don’t have a legitimate concern for something to be tested,” Wubbels said. “It is the most personal property I think that we can have besides our skin and bones and organs.”
Police Chief Mike Brown said he was “alarmed by what I saw in the video with our officer.”
Police body-camera video shows Wubbels, who works in the burn unit, calmly explaining that she could not take blood from a patient who had been injured in a deadly car accident, citing a recent change in law. A 2016 U.S. Supreme Court ruling said a blood sample cannot be taken without patient consent or a warrant.
Wubbels told Payne that a patient had to allow a blood sample to determine intoxication or be under arrest. Otherwise, she said police needed a warrant. Police did not have one, but Payne insisted. The dispute ended with Payne saying, “We’re done, you’re under arrest” and pulling her outside while she screamed and said, “I’ve done nothing wrong!”
He had called his supervisor and discussed the time-sensitive blood draw for over an hour with hospital staff, police spokeswoman Christina Judd said.
“It’s not an excuse,” she said. “It definitely doesn’t forgive what happened.”
Payne wrote in a police report that he grabbed Wubbels and took her outside to avoid causing a “scene” in the emergency room. He said his boss, a lieutenant whose actions also were being reviewed, told him to arrest Wubbels if she kept interfering.
The detective left Wubbels in a hot police car for 20 minutes before realizing that blood had already been drawn as part of treatment, said her lawyer, Karra Porter. Wubbels was not charged.
Wubbels and her attorneys on Thursday released the video they obtained through a public records request to call for change. She has not sued, but that could change, said attorney Jake Macfarlane.