Ongoing bus driver shortage still causing delays for city students

A month into the school year, more public and Catholic students in Hamilton are being delayed in getting to and from school than on their first day of classes, because of an ongoing bus driver shortage.

Figures provided by the public board show 1,460 students at both boards were delayed as of Monday — down 70 from the week before but still higher than the 1,414 on the first day of school on Sept. 5.

The median delay of 16 minutes — meaning half have shorter delays and half longer — is virtually unchanged. Wait times on 30 delayed routes across the city on Tuesday morning ranged from 10 minutes to a high of 35 minutes for one school, St. Kateri Tekakwitha on the east Mountain, according to the website of the two boards’ transportation consortium.

Public board chair Todd White said the goal remains to end all driver-shortage delays by the middle of this month, but acknowledged “we’re not seeing a lot of movement.”

He said one of the four contracted bus companies, Attridge Transportation Inc., has more than a dozen drivers in training, which should relieve the shortages once they are certified and on the road.

“It certainly has to move along quite quickly in the next two weeks if we’re going to meet that (mid-October) deadline,” White said.

“If that isn’t the case, we’re going to have to continue to look at contingency plans. But we don’t want to jump there yet until we see the data from the transportation company.”

White said solutions may include switching routes to other bus companies able to provide drivers.