Thousands of urban public school students in the Bay Area may not get a ride to school, due to a regulation proposed by the Federal Transit Administration, according to area transit and school officials.

In a notice published last month, the agency indicated it planned to tighten regulations aimed at helping private "yellow school bus" companies compete in providing home-to-school transportation.

Federal rules long have prohibited federally supported public transit agencies from providing school bus service, but certain types of service is exempted from that rule.

In the East Bay, about 30,000 schoolchildren use AC Transit buses to get to and from school, paying $15 a month for discounted youth passes. While many of those trips are on regular routes used for nonschool commuters, some of them with route numbers between 600 and 699 are specially scheduled and routed to serve specific schools. Local officials fear that the change sought by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) would ban those special routes.




But he did say that the change was similar to a recent regulation prohibiting public transit agencies from competing with charter bus services.

That regulation, he said, provided for a Web site on which private transportation companies could register. That made it easier for public transit agencies to determine if their services could be privately contracted. If no companies stepped forward, then the public agencies did not conflict with the federal rules.









Treadwell said the proposal sounded so outlandish that she didn't believe it would happen. "I can't imagine they would really do it," she said.

Transit officials also expressed doubts that the Federal Transit Administration would get very far with the regulation change, citing national and state transportation groups that were already rallying opposition to it.


And Josh Shaw, executive director of the California Transit Association, said his group's members are concerned that the proposed rule would "further reduce public transit's ability to serve communities" at a time when transit funding is being cut in state budget deliberations.

"Many, many California school districts have essentially given up," he said, "They don't fund home-to-school transportation."

If they did, Michael's Transportation in Vallejo would be happy to step in and fill the gap, said the company's marketing manager, Allen Douglas.

"It would be a great opportunity for private carriers, without question," he said. "We can provide probably better service than the (public) transit service and probably a safer service, too."