First graders 100 metres short of school bus ride
They are five-, six- and sevenyear-olds — little people who have lost their school bus service and face a 1.5-kilometre walk to class, starting after Labour Day.
There are two reasons for the change. One, the distance from their homes in Nepean’s Craig Henry subdivision to St. John XXIII Elementary School on Knoxdale Road turns out to be about 100 metres shy of the 1.6-kilometre required minimum for Grade 1-8 students to get bus transportation. Two, their route, which includes an uncontrolled intersection at Craig Henry Drive and Bertona Street, where 300 vehicles go by hourly at the time they will be walking to school, is not considered hazardous.
The Ottawa School Transportation Authority (OSTA), which oversees busing for the Englishlanguage Catholic and public school boards, began a city-wide review of “walk zones” in 2011 in an effort to come up with a more equitable busing service for the 200 elementary schools its serves. The study has resulted in 1,900 students losing bus service for the upcoming school year, but 500 students getting it as new hazards were identified in their walk zones.
The reduced number and other transportation-related changes have produced $4 million in savings for the two boards.
So, come Sept. 8, Kaylana Woito, 5, Terri-Jean Luchuck, 6, and Brody Jung and Marissa Turcotte, both 7, will cross Craig Henry at Bertona, walk down to Knoxdale and then turn right to follow Knoxdale to St. John.
An easy 1.5 kilometres for a little kid? Try it when it’s pouring rain or -30 out or the long sidewalk on Bertona hasn’t been plowed.
That might explain why OSTA — which issued notice of the change in June following numerous public consultations that the Craig Henry parents say they knew nothing about — feels younger children should be accompanied by someone to school.
“It is important to note that OSTA does not expect any students under the age of 11 to walk to school by themselves,” wrote OSTA general manager Vicky Kyriaco in an email to Amanda Jung, Brody’s mom, adding: “Some parents connect to send their children off to school together, or have older siblings walk them to school. Some parents pay older students to walk their children.”
Swell. OSTA takes away the bus and then basically tells parents it would be irresponsible to let their kids walk to school alone.
“This is the city of Ottawa,” says Tanya Brunette, Marissa’s mother.
“With the amount of taxes we pay in Ottawa, we should be able to rely on school buses … When they’re 11, I get that, but a sevenyear-old?”
Neighbour Jung agrees: “(Brody’s) seven. This is just crazy.”
Though the parents are working to find people to accompany their children to school — possibly their after-school caregivers or an older student — they worry about the hassles whenever their child’s walker is sick. Another pain is the cost of hiring help. One parent says she’s looking at paying an adult $100 a week.
Jung and Brunette learned of the change in June, but Julie Woito says she found out only Tuesday, while checking OSTA’s website for bus stops and times, that her five-year-old Kaylana would have to walk. Neighbour Jeannine Crate also checked the website recently to discover that daughter Terri-Jean had lost her bus spot.
The parents feel the intersection of Craig Henry and Bertona — part of OSTA’s preferred route for these children — is reason enough to bus them. The say the volume of vehicles, the drivers who exceed the 40-km/h limit and the lack of stop signs, crosswalk and crossing guard make it a danger zone. But despite its own 300-vehicle-an-hour figure for that intersection, the busing authority says it is not deemed a hazard.
It was considered hazardous for years by the Catholic school board before OSTA took over transportation in 2007. Following its review of walk zones, however, the authority determined there weren’t any problems with Craig Henry Drive. The public board didn’t think it was hazardous, either. Though many children well before Brody, Marissa and Terri-Jean were being bused to St. John XXIII (formerly Pope John XXIII), Kyriaco says their neighbourhood counterparts at Knoxdale Public School and the adjoining Greenbank Middle School on Greenbank Road were walking.
The walk-zone review found similar situations across the city, says Kyriaco, which OSTA also addressed.
“People think the walks zones are new concepts” Kyriaco said in an interview. “They’re not … and it’s how we manage our budget.
“We’ve got 200 schools and every single walk-zone map has a whole bunch of parents who live within 100 or 200 metres of the (1.6-metre minimum) distance. If you start giving in to one or two, or a whole bunch, then you might as well reduce the walk distance and incur the costs, and that money comes out of the schools.”
Adds the OSTA general manager: “I used to live on Craig Henry, I walked to St. John … It’s a long way to go, I get it.”
Kyriaco says the median on Craig Henry makes the route safer. “(Pedestrians) do not have to cross two lanes right away. They cross one, look both sides and cross again.” All kids do that? The parents are hoping their children will qualify for any empty seats on the bus to St. John after classes start.
But if there are any seats left — it’s hard to predict as fewer buses are being used due to efficiencies — they won’t be available until Oct. 1.