Schoolbus squeeze
Parents claim their kids are sitting on knees and being left behind after school
North Shore parents claim students are sitting on knees, standing in doorways and being left behind by overcrowded buses. But Auckland Transport (AT) added another bus on the school service after an incident two weeks ago and believed that had largely solved the problem.
Overcrowding was reported on Devonport-Hauraki routes.
Westlake Boys’ and Girls’ High Schools and Carmel and Rosmini Colleges share a bus service which gets busy after school most days.
Yesterday afternoon, hundreds of Rosmini College students rushed to buses outside the school gate.
The buses came in two waves, with the first leaving almost empty by 3.18pm and the second convoy attracting lots of students desperate to get home.
A crowd of students travelling to Verrans Corner in Birkdale said the buses were always very crowded.
“You have to get there early so you can get a seat,” one said. “Otherwise you have to stand up with your heavy bag.”
“Some people have to stand by the doors,” another said.
The students said there were normally three people to a seat.
“It’s worse in summer when everyone is hot, sweaty and stinky,” one student said.
“It’s way too packed. Some people get crushed by the doors, and if the bus stops too fast everyone falls over like ten pin bowling,” another added.
A Rosmini staff member in charge at the bus stop said parents often complained about the overcrowding.
“But there is not a lot I can do. I can only ring the bus company and ask for a second bus but if they say no then that is their call,” he said.
He said the school let students on to the bus in “form order” to make sure they were safe.
“The main reason being that it is safer to let the bigger kids on first, then the younger kids,” he said.
And if students were left behind, he took them to the school office and let them call their parents.
North Shore parent Libby Haskell said her daughter, a Year 10 Westlake student, had been left behind several times due to overcrowding.
The Starship hospital paediatric emergency nurse feared it would take a serious injury for there to be some action from AT.
The council-owned organisation had underestimated how many students used the service, she said.
“From my experience, this is a bit of an ongoing issue. It has been worse this year than last year.
“Kids are standing against the footwell and allegedly sitting on laps.”
Every time there was crowding Haskell reported it through the AT feedback form, but has had no reply since her first report on February 13.
Vanessa Campbell said on a North Shore community page that a student had been injured on a school bus leaving from Carmel College.
She alleged more than 29 students were standing aboard the bus.
“When they got to Westlake . . . a girl’s foot was caught in the door as she was right up against it,” she said.
Carmel College principal Christine Allen said the school received reports of crowding on the Devonport bus route “at least once or twice a week”.
She confirmed the school had had an email about a student whose leg was trapped in the closing door of a full bus. “There were three students in the office complaining the other day that they had been left behind.
“They said, ‘we’ve been left on the side of the road, the bus wouldn’t stop for us’. They were genuine about it.”
Allen said the route began at Westlake Boys’ then went to Carmel.
“Depending on how many Westlake boys gets on depends on how many of our girls can get on,” Allen said. “Obviously if it’s overcrowded with our girls, there will be no one to get on after that.”
She said several students had been left on the side of the road for three days at the start of the school year. They had been put on another bus which resolved the issue.
Allen said all Carmel could do was report issues to AT.
AT monitored buses daily and acted quickly when there was a problem, its media relations manager Mark Hannan said.
“When we noticed overcrowding the week before last, we asked the operator NZ Bus to help.
“From Friday 22 Feb, they have put on an extra large bus. ”
Last week the numbers averaged 70 or 80 per cent of the 87 spaces. The company would continue to monitor the numbers making sure those using it were within the legal limit, Hannan said.