While some courtesy bus riders will have to find other ways of getting to school, young children living in the downtown area will still be able to ride the bus to South Broadview and Hillcrest Elementary schools.
After months of work, the school district’s transportation review was accepted by the school district at its Tuesday night regular meeting. The review focused on dealing with issues surrounding overcrowding and long ride times due to the use of school buses by so-called ‘courtesy riders.’
These are students who live within the school district’s 3.5 km walk limits but are still riding the bus to school or who are not attending their catchment area school, but are riding the bus to another school in the district.
“The issues that the district is currently faced with is there is increasing enrolment in the district which has resulted in more eligible riders on buses, thereby limiting the district’s capacity to provide services to courtesy riders. There are some days when buses are full to capacity and some students are unable to board the bus. The district is not allowed to run buses beyond capacity and can’t be in the position of leaving students on the side of the road,” said Nicole Bittante, secretary-treasurer.
She added the district does not qualify for provincial funding to purchase any additional buses at this time.
Related link: School district considers changes to bus service
A total of 12 school bus routes are being altered, which in some cases will dramatically reduce the amount of time spent by eligible bus riders, some of whom have had an extra 45 minutes added to their bus ride due to courtesy extensions.
A major concern following a public meeting held in April was the 120 children in grade K to 5 living in the downtown and having to walk to either South Broadview or Hillcrest Elementary. While this distance is within the 3.5 km walk limit, Mike McKay, the official trustee, noted the distance and terrain would be “challenging for little legs.”
Related link: More students eligible to ride the school bus
McKay also noted the allowances for courtesy riders was not being eliminated entirely but that the guarantee of bus service would no longer exist for those students.
“It’s not that we won’t allow courtesy riders,” comments McKay. “It’s just that the service will only be available if there is capacity on the bus.”
McKay ruled out the implementation for a fee for courtesy riders to ride the bus, as this would not change the issues with capacity on the current buses in a time of increasing enrolment.
“We are going to make these adjustments and give things time to settle out and see how it is working. Then we can see if we need to make changes in the future.”
Notices of the transportation changes are now going to be sent to affected families in the area.
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