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Cities across the country have adopted school choice policies that allow students to select and attend schools outside their neighborhoods, providing low-income students more opportunities to attend high-quality schools. For these schools to be feasible choices, however, families must be able to get their children there. For families without reliable transportation, getting their children to school can introduce new challenges and make these schools unrealistic options.

The following reports explore the complexities of transportation policy in the school choice rich cities of Denver, Detroit, New Orleans, New York City, and Washington, DC. Key findings are as follows:

•   All five cities provide transportation, but availability varies by school. Although each city offers yellow bus or public transit to students’ neighborhood schools, transportation to non-neighborhood and charter schools varies.
•   Most students do not live further than a 20-minute drive to their schools, but travel patterns vary across age and demographic groups. Older students travel farther to school than younger students, and black students travel farther than white and Hispanic students.   
• Access to a car can significantly increase the number of schools available to a family. In nearly every grade, students have access to 10 or more schools within a 15-minute drive but typically have access to fewer than 10 schools when traveling for the same amount of time on public
•   Students from low-income families typically do not travel farther to school than their comparatively advantaged peers.
•   Charter school students do not always travel farther than their peers in traditional public schools.