FAQs - Transportation
You seem to be pushing the bus. Why can't I drive my daughter to camp each day? We have a legal limit to the number of cars that are permitted to drive to camp each morning and afternoon. To ensure we are complying with that limit, we register all carpools and encourage each car to carry multiple campers. A car with one camper in it is not "using our resources wisely".
How did you select the bus stops? None of them are convenient for me! GSCNC Day Camps are open to all Girl Scouts however each of them serves a particular area and draws its volunteer support primarily from those areas. Camp Crossroads serves girls in Associations 52, 54 and 55. Roughly, those borders include Centerville on the west, Lorton on the south, Bailey's Crossroads on the east and Fairfax City on the north. Our bus stops are designed to cover those areas.
The bus rides are so long. Can't you shorten them? Unfortunately, no. To shorten the trip we would have to either decrease our coverage area which would impact girls' ability to participate or increase the number of buses which would drastically increase the camp costs. Our goal is to keep the bus rides under one hour. (Northern Virginia traffic permitting, of course!)
The buses are frequently late or early. Can't you fix that? If only our magic were real! Our bus stop monitor has an important job. In the morning, they are there to ensure that the bus does not leave the stop early -- they have the power to hold the bus. The afternoon monitor arrives at least 10 minutes before the scheduled arrival time. A parent is not "late" if they arrive within a few minutes of the scheduled drop off time. The afternoon monitor's job is to note the time that the bus does arrive and report it to camp headquarters. If a bus is consistently arriving late or early, we talk to the bus company and figure out what's wrong. For example, a construction project could be causing a problem. We'll modify the bus schedule, update our web site and send out an email if that happens!
Can my daughter use one bus stop in the morning and another in the afternoon? Maybe. If both stops are on the same bus, yes. But if the stops are on two different buses it will be allowed only on a space available basis.
I've been about 15 minutes late picking up my daughter from the bus stop. The bus monitor told me that if I was late again she'd throw my daughter off the bus. Can the monitor do that? Well, no, but the camp directors can! Bus stop monitors must report tardy parents to the directors. We keep track and repeated abuses will result in loss of bus privileges.
I'm not sure if my daughter is going to ride the bus to camp. Can I make up my mind later? Sorry, we need you to decide in May. We must contract for the buses at the end of May, so we need to know how many girls will be riding the bus and which stop they will be using. If you don't reserve a spot now, there might not be room later!
We've changed our minds about riding the bus. Is this a problem? It depends. We have a legal limit to the number of cars permitted to drive to camp each day. If we've reached that limit, you cannot change from bus to car. Additionally, in late June we "freeze" all the registration, health and transportation information. We have about 20 different reports that we must prepare and submit to the Girl Scout Council. One report is our Transportation Emergency Plan where we identify every girl, her bus stop, parent's contact information, etc. We also prepare identification tags that the girls must wear to camp each day. The tags serve a number of important purposes but they are essential for getting girls home each day. About two weeks before camp we have laminated and sorted the tags. Changes at this point become incredibly painful for our volunteer staff and we must resubmit all the reports to the Girl Scout Council. At Council, they will have to redistribute all the reports to staff members. Please, we ask parents to pay attention to these details and "nail down" their plans by mid-June.
I'm picking my daughter up after camp. When should I pick her up? 4:00pm! Because the camp is buried in a residential neighborhood, it's important that we don't have cars arriving early because there is no place for them to go until after the buses leave at 3:50pm. The road at camp is narrow. We've had several "bus versus car" encounters. The bus always wins and it's usually very detrimental to the car's paint job. As long as you pick your daughter up by 4:15pm, you're on time.
I'm interested in carpooling with other campers. Will you match me up with someone in my area? We used to publish a list of people who self-identified themselves as "wiling to car pool", but over the years we stopped because interest decreased. Lately no one has asked to be placed on the list, so we discontinued it.