88 Special Buses

The 88 Special Bus (also known ironically as the Short Bus) shuttles students from the Interstate Portal at the Department of Integrated Services to St. Augustine's School for the Talented in Percy Warner Park. A second bus, also labeled the 88 Special, ferries students from Nashville International Airport to the school. At the end of the school term, the 88 Special takes the students back to the Interstate Portal or the airport respectively. The two 88 Special buses serve only this purpose; they are not part of Metro Nashville Transit's normal fleet. The two 88 Special buses are housed at the Tower in an underground garage when not in use.
The ride on the 88 Special is always a merry occasion. At the beginning of the school year, students are happy to see their friends, and some are even eager to begin studies. At the end of the school year and at the beginning of vacations, students are overjoyed to be leaving school. Either way, there is always something of a party atmosphere aboard the 88 Special, often augmented by the students' music and snacks.
The 88 Special has also been fitted with a number of magical enhancements for safety and comfort. One of these enhancements is extra-dimensional: the buses are larger inside than out and can transport about 100 students and their luggage at a time. There are also several enchantments to make driving the 88 Special Buses easier and to bypass traffic snarls. Students have added to these enchantments over the years; one of the more recent additions was a dance floor, which unfortunately had to be removed for safety reasons.
In the late 1980s, a Vanderbilt University student from the greater New York City area saw the St. Augustine students boarding the bus at the Nashville International Airport and asked where they were going. When the students replied that they were going to St. Augustine's School for the Talented, the New Yorker said, "Talented? Oh, I get it. You take the short bus." The St. Augustine students, amused by this description of the 88 Special (which is not only larger on the inside, but longer), adopted the moniker "Short Bus" ironically. Only a few years later, when St. Augustine's admitted some students from Brooklyn, they revealed that that, in New York public school parlance, the "short bus" referred to the smaller bus for special needs students and that the New Yorker was subtly trying to insult them. The name Short Bus stuck, however, and remains in use to this day, even by some of the teachers.

Nickname

The Short Bus

Owning Organization

Department of Integrated Services