Five-year wait for trail unfathomable TIME FOR ONE BUS SYSTEM

It isn’t often you will hear an Edmontonian give a shoutout to Calgary but in this instance, they truly deserve one.

On the heels of the devastating 2013 flood, the City of Calgary has just announced the newly opened West Eau Claire Park, which offers a promenade along the Bow River, connecting the Peace Bridge area to the downtown core.

It’s very nice, making Calgary, yet again, a destination that will attract people to their city.

In contrast, in Edmonton, the river valley trail east of the new Rossdale Bridge has been closed to any public use for not two years as planned, but five years, due to the inability to complete projects within the planned time frame.

In addition, during that same time the city lost the opportunity to access approximately $3.5 million in federal grants (total project cost $10.5 million) to build Edmonton’s riverfront promenade project referred to as Touch the Water due to being unable to meet the planned timelines for that initiative.

While Edmontonians have been deprived of an awesome riverfront promenade and that just isn’t right, it seems unfathomable that the major river valley trail continues to be closed after five years. Natalie Bunting, Edmonton

The good news is that Edmonton Public Schools will save $600,000 this year by sharing 25 yellow bus routes with Edmonton Catholic Schools. Instead of each district running half-empty buses to public and Catholic schools, often just metres apart, the public board is able to divert this money into the classroom from its transportation budget, set at $46.5 million last school year. Presumably, proportionate savings can be expected on the Catholic side, which set its transportation budget at $20.3 million last school year.

Let’s not forget that harmonizing the two transportation systems also promises to cut the amount of time children spend on school buses instead of at home or in the classroom.

The collaboration isn’t onerous; the buses do double runs and public and Catholic students are never on the bus at the same time. Four public schools moved their starting bells by five or fewer minutes to accommodate the changes.

Now the bad news. That $600,000 in savings is not $2.5 million or $2.7 million in savings. Those considerably larger amounts are what a 2014 feasibility study estimated that both school districts could save each year by creating a joint student transportation authority.

The collaboration between the sister boards foolishly remains limited to a handful of bus routes despite the promise of a win-win outcome from working together.

While public-school trustees are eager to merge busing systems, their counterparts remain wary. The Catholic board has said the potential savings are too meagre to justify the cost of creating a new, shared organization but recent strained relations between the two boards may also play a role.

Neither reason should be allowed to stand in the way of a full transportation partnership. To start, it’s disheartening to hear a school district scoff at potential savings of $2.5 million when many parents are scrimping to pay school fees and public trustees are beginning to plan for a possible return of provincial funding cuts in education. What’s more, the startup costs for a new transportation authority would be soon offset by the annual savings a more efficient system would bring. It’s disappointing that trustees on both sides can’t set aside their personal differences and work together to protect the public purse and champion their students, which is the job of school trustee.

Given the benefits of Edmonton’s two major school boards developing and operating a merged bus system and the nonsensical hurdles standing in the way, it’s time Education Minister David Eggen take a more active role in getting everyone on board.