WBUR News9%
City councilor calls for independent review of Boston school bus safety 38%
By Willoughby Mariano36%
7/17/2026, 6:02:26 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 14 faulty reasoning types, including Availability Heuristic, Appeal to Authority, and Pessimism Bias, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 44.2% saturation with 145 hits. Analysis detected 639 faulty-reasoning hits from 328 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 44.1% and a BS Rank of 38% (13,595 of 21,886 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 62.10% of the article peer group.
A Boston city councilor called Friday for the state to launch an independent review of the school district’s transportation safety.
City Councilor Erin Murphy cited the death of Lens Joseph, a kindergartener who was run over by his school bus in April 2025, in her letter to the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.
Murphy said she is concerned about the safety record of the school's transportation contractor Transdev and that Boston Public Schools has not disclosed the full extent of its transportation problems.
A recent WBUR and ProPublica investigation found that in Boston, none of the more than 70 serious crashes in the district were recorded under Transdev's federal safety record over the past 10 years.
Federal regulators use the safety record to decide which bus companies should receive closer scrutiny.
Separately, last year a city-commissioned investigation found problems with driver record keeping and safety training by Transdev.
“BPS either lacked critical safety information, failed to examine it adequately, or has not been fully forthcoming with elected officials and the public about the scope of the problem,” Murphy said in her letter.
In addition to the review, Murphy called for a corrective action plan to be completed before the start of school.
Murphy requested to discuss the concerns with the board, which will hold its next meeting in September.
Boston Public Schools did not respond to requests for comment.
Jean Charles, the driver who allegedly struck and killed Lens, has pleaded not guilty to felony involuntary manslaughter and other charges.
City officials said he was involved in two minor crashes in the weeks before the fatal crash and did not have proper credentials to operate the bus.
Transdev, which transports about 19,000 students daily for Boston Public Schools, has also been subject to years of complaints about poor on-time performance.
This year, the district fined it more than $400,000 for missed and late school buses.
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88%flagged-word coverageErin Murphy
136 attributed words100% of attributed speech84% writer coverage
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