Buses and walk zones in Crozet

The official source

The school division posts the final word on this. When an answer here is still coming, check there first.

Albemarle County Public Schools ↗

How far will Albemarle County make my child walk?

Up to one mile for elementary students and up to one and a half miles for middle and high school students, measured from where your driveway meets the road to the school's property line — not door to door. Anything inside that distance is a walk zone and gets no bus; anything outside it does.

Distance is measured from where your driveway or property line meets the road to the school's property line — not door to door.

Bus stops are part of the calculation: ACPS says that when it decides whether to include a residence in a walk zone, it also considers the distance from that residence to existing bus stops.

Walking is not unsupervised by default: ACPS requires adult supervision for students in preschool and kindergarten, and recommends it for every other grade level.

Does Old Trail walk to school?

Part of it does. Brownsville Elementary's approved walk zone extends to the second roundabout in Old Trail. Students from the collector streets walk to Old Trail Drive, follow the sidewalks to the top, then take the asphalt walking path to Henley Middle and on to the front of Brownsville.

ACPS specifically instructs walkers not to cross the Henley or Brownsville parking lots, or use the crosswalks in them, during morning drop-off or afternoon pick-up.

Henley Middle uses the same asphalt path from the top of Old Trail Drive, ending at the basketball courts behind the school.

Which streets walk to Crozet Elementary?

Only the streets from Ballard Drive to St. George Avenue. That is the entire approved walk zone — much smaller than the one-mile maximum suggests. Walkers use the sidewalks and cross at the controlled crosswalk at the Field School, directly across from Crozet Elementary.

How do Old Trail students get across Route 250 to Western Albemarle High?

With a sheriff's deputy. ACPS's published route for Western Albemarle walkers states there will be a sheriff at the intersection of Old Trail Drive and Route 250, and students wait at the stoplight and cross only when the signal shows it is safe.

Henley Middle and Western Albemarle High share a single walk zone map — they sit on the same Rockfish Gap Turnpike campus area.

My street has no sidewalk yet. Do we get a bus?

Possibly, and only temporarily. ACPS provides transportation to an area while a walk zone is being improved — sidewalk completion, railings, crossing guards — and withdraws it once the work is done, notifying affected families. If improvements finish mid-year, the change waits until the following school year unless families are told in advance.

This matters in Crozet more than most places: Old Trail, Glenbrook at Foothill Crossing and Pleasant Green are all still building out, and a bus that exists when you tour a house may not exist two years later.

How do I find out whether my address is in a walk zone?

Call ACPS Transportation at 434-973-5716. There is no address lookup tool for walk zones — ACPS publishes a written route description for each school with a walk zone, and a downloadable map for most of them, and directs all questions to that number.

A gotcha worth knowing: transportation changes go through your school, not through Transportation. A family walking to Brownsville who moves up to Henley must actively request bus service. It is not automatic.

The honest version

A walk zone is a real amenity and a real constraint at the same time. Being inside Brownsville's zone means your child can walk to school on a maintained path, which is rare and genuinely good. It also means no bus on a February morning in the rain, and ACPS is explicit that it does not assess every route, supervise routes, or guarantee the safety of any particular one. It also recommends adult supervision for elementary walkers, particularly age 10 and below — which in practice means a parent on the path, not a child walking alone.