Bus

The problem: An Ednor Gardens bus stop lacked a sign. The back story: Ralph Williams rides the No. 3 bus often to his Northeast Baltimore home, and he sometimes disembarks a few stops early to visit friends who live off Loch Raven Boulevard near The Alameda. That trip has gotten a little more complicated in the past month, however, because signs marking northbound stops on the east side of Loch Raven Boulevard at Greendale Road have gone missing. One might have been removed after a collision in that area, Williams said, because there was a cone where the pole with the sign on it used to stand.

European artists will help transform Baltimore bus, train and light rail stations to be more attractive, better designed and more user-friendly as part of a $200,000 grant from ArtPlace America, a consortium of banks and foundations that gives money to art projects with the potential for regenerating communities. The grant, announced this week, is part of a project that will bring artists from the United Kingdom, Austria, Spain, Ireland and Greece to Baltimore for a six-week residency sometime in the winter or spring of 2014.

Anne Arundel County officials said two people have been seriously injured following an early morning crash Wednesday that involved a school bus and car in Odenton. No students were on the bus when the accident occurred at 6:40 a.m. at Route 170, also known as Telegraph Road, near Crossroads Drive. The collision and ensuing investigation shut down Route 170 for nearly two hours. Police have released few details of the crash and have not identified the victims, but said one 25-year-old man sustained life-threatening injuries.

A Calvert County elementary school student was suspended last week for bringing a toy gun onto a school bus to show a friend, according to a lawyer representing his family. At a two-hour meeting Friday between officials, the boy, his parents and the attorney, the school system agreed to end the suspension early, and the student will be able to return to classes for the rest of the year. "You can tell by looking at him and listening to him that this kid doesn't have an ounce of malice in his heart," said Robin Ficker, the lawyer.

An Owings Mills contractor who has offered the Archdiocese of Baltimore $700,000 to offset transportation costs for children displaced by the closing of 12 elementary schools has taken to the airwaves, encouraging families to take advantage of his offer. He's been on the radio before. Danny Schuster, owner of a concrete company, is well known for his advertisements protesting recent Catholic school closings. He has taken a different tack this time, hoping to boost enrollment by helping students get to schools, including Holy Angels, an elementary the archdiocese is opening this fall on the campus of Seton Keough High School.

As the bus rumbled through the streets of East Baltimore, Dana Seibert proudly displayed his handcrafted creation of bright green and orange paper. It read: "My homemade Christmas card to a very special mom. " Seibert, a downtown resident who was taking the No. 35 bus on the way to see his mother, was one of many Baltimoreans whose Christmas activities were made possible by the Maryland Transit Administration — whose employees were working on a morning when many Marylanders were home opening presents under the tree.

An elementary- or middle-school-age student was shot in the face Thursday while waiting for the bus by what city school police believe was a bb-gun pellet, city school officials said. The incident happened at about 4:45 p.m. in the 2000 block of Fayette St., near Commodore John Rodgers Elementary/Middle School, where the victim is a student, officials said in a statement Friday. The student was struck above the eye, and did not suffer any major injuries, the statement said.

A bus from New York to Baltimore caught fire around noon Saturday and became "fully engulfed" in flames on the southbound side of the New Jersey Turnpike, police said. There were 11 passengers on board the bus and all were evacuated unharmed, said a spokesman for the Cranbury Station of the New Jersey State Police. The fire took place near Exit 8A, about three hours north of Baltimore on Interstate 95. "The fire started after a right rear tire blow out, the driver pulled over to assess the situation, then continued to the nearest service station before noticing smoke coming from the rear wheel well," Simon Fitzgerald, a passenger on the bus, said in an e-mail Saturday evening.

One man was killed and a man and a woman were wounded in a triple shooting while standing at a bus stop in Middle River late Monday night, according to Baltimore County Police. Officers responded to the 2100 block of Eastern Blvd., near the Hawthorne Plaza Shopping Center and not far from Martin State Airport, about 11:47 p.m. for a report of gunfire and found the three victims, police said. An initial investigation indicated the three victims were standing at a bus stop when one or more suspects "approached them and began shooting," police said.

A three-vehicle crash that included a city school bus sent five people to the hospital Monday afternoon, according to fire officials. The cause of the crash, which occurred about 4 p.m. in the 600 block of Patapsco Ave. in Southwest Baltimore, was unclear, Chief Kevin Cartwright, a spokesman for the Baltimore Fire Department, said Monday night. Cartwright did not know whether any children were injured, though he said the bus "didn't suffer the brunt of the damages. " Dispatches emailed to The Baltimore Sun from the Firefighters Union Local 734 said two people were extricated from vehicles and that a man and a woman, both 22, were taken to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center.

Bus drivers and aides employed by a Baltimore schools contractor say that unsafe conditions such as fires and mold spores are endangering lives and unfair wages are threatening their livelihoods. The grievances were aired Thursday at a rally of employees of Durham School Services, a national company that transports children in more than 350 school districts. Since 2002, the city has contracted with Durham, which earned an estimated $15.5 million over the last three school years. The company's buses transport about 928 students.

A dozen people were taken to area hospitals after a vehicle crashed into an MTA bus this morning in Essex, according to Maryland Transit Administration officials. A bus was stopped at Doolittle Road and Stemmers Run Road when a vehicle drove into the back of the bus, according to Terry Owens, MTA spokesman. The bus was stopped to let people off, Owens said. County fire department personnel responded to the scene around 10:30 a.m., according to Baltimore County public safety officials.

The city of Baltimore agreed Wednesday to pay $100,000 to a West Baltimore family whose special-needs student died after falling from a moving school bus in 2010. City Solicitor George Nilson said school officials knew that Jeremy C. Jennings Jr., the emotionally disturbed 6-year-old, needed to be restrained on the bus but failed to do so. "A young, vulnerable child was sent off to school and didn't return home through no fault of his own," said Nilson, a member of the city Board of Estimates.

Del. Jon Cardin's recent comment on bullying suggesting that "kids were hurting kids" while "parents and teachers hadn't a clue" was remarkable ("Journey in grief leads to new curbs on bullying," May 2). Where has Mr. Cardin been? As a mother of three since 1980, my children and I can attest to the escalation and prevalence of bullying over the past 30 years. Teacher training on bullying in all its forms, including cyber-bullying, is provided at the start of every school year. Anti-bullying assemblies are held annually.

Three men were injured when a truck crashed into a city bus stop on Wednesday morning, according to the Baltimore Fire Department. The collision occurred about 7 a.m. near the intersection of West North and Park avenues, along the northern edge of the city's Bolton Hill neighborhood, said Capt. Roman Clark, a department spokesman. The three pedestrians, one 34-year-old and two 60-year-olds, were transported to area hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries, Clark said. The crash is being investigated, Clark said.

Frank Bond Sr., a retired Maryland Transit Administration bus driver and neighborhood activist who believed in the value of education, died Monday of colon cancer at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson. "Frank was a wonderful man who treasured education even though he was not an educated man," said W. Byron Forbush II, who retired in 1998 after 38 years as headmaster of Friends School. "His three children went to Friends as well as two grandchildren," said Mr. Forbush. "He was so devoted and proud that his family was part of that institution.

The claim that the Charm City Circulator bus arrives every 10 minutes is not accurate. It's more like 15 minutes. Once this week, I waited a half-hour. But all in all, this new strategy to navigate downtown Baltimore seems to be working. I give the city credit for some innovative thinking. This week, I watched families load their children and baby strollers for transport to the harbor. Senior citizens seemed to be running their errands courtesy of the bus. I observed older teens saving a bit of money using the bus to get to summer jobs.

Stacey Chambers has always been on the move. As a child, her nickname was Go Go, because she rarely slowed down. So it comes as little surprise that Chambers, 31, would wind up running a fashion boutique out of a bus. Chambers runs Go Go's Retread Threads (the name borrowed from her childhood moniker) out of a bus from the early '90s she's named Elsa, parking at farmers' markets, at festivals and on neighborhood streets to sell vintage clothes. Chambers started the business in 2010 after she heard a National Public Radio story about how small businesses run out of traditional storefronts were struggling.

A tour bus company with headquarters in Maryland has been shut down by federal safety officials after an investigation determined its drivers and vehicles pose an imminent hazard to public safety. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Wednesday ordered Washington DC Party Shuttle, which also does business as Onboard DC Tours, to immediately cease all operations for "egregious" violations that demonstrated "blatant disregard for motor coach passenger safety. " The bus company has offices at National Harbor in Prince George's County and operates primarily as a tour bus service in the Washington metropolitan area, New York City and Las Vegas.