Hoodline | Michael Mileto gets up at 5:30 every morning and is out the door to catch his school bus by 6:20 a.m. outside his Brighton Beach home. What should be a trip to his Manhattan classroom has instead turned into a grinding, multi-hour slog that now routinely makes him late for his first class of the day.

The eighth grader, who has a speech language disability, attends a private school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side at the city’s expense, with New York City’s Department of Education responsible for getting him there and back. As سپیکٹرم نیوز NY1 reports, his morning bus ride to school now takes two-and-a-half to three hours this school year, and he routinely arrives after the 8:15 a.m. first bell. Last school year, by contrast, he was picked up around 6:45 a.m. and reliably got to school on time at 8:15 a.m.

Randi Levine, policy director at Advocates for Children, said her organization continues to hear from families still without any bus service at all, as well as families reporting more crowded buses and later arrivals. She told NY1 that some routes intended to run separately have instead been combined, which can explain longer rides like Michael’s.