DEBERT, N.S. — Kevin Lumsden dreads the thought of his 13-year-old daughter walking off into the morning darkness to reach her bus stop, almost a kilometre away.
That’s what he’s faced with now that the Chignecto Central Regional Centre for Education (CCRCE) has changed his daughter’s pickup location.
Lumsden lives on Plains Road in Debert, about 900 metres from where the school bus makes its closest regular stop. The road is a popular route for many drivers travelling to work in Debert and Lumsden said traffic often moves much faster than the 70-km/h posted speed.
“When she’s going to be walking it’s going to be prime time for that traffic because they’re heading to work,” he said.
Monday was the first day for the change to take effect. Lumsden said he and his wife didn’t want to take the chance of having their daughter walking in the dark along what they consider to be a dangerous stretch of road with narrow shoulders.
“This road is not safe,” he said, Monday morning. “My wife had to take time off work to take her.”
The school bus had been picking his daughter up at Fred Crowe Road, just 100 metres from his driveway. That privilege was lost, Lumsden said, after he contacted bus authorities at the CCRCE in mid-December to have the situation reviewed in an effort to have her dropped off at the same location during the afternoon bus ride home.
Lumsden said a safety officer from the centre reviewed the situation but instead of helping, the review resulted in the morning bus run being changed to adhere strictly to the centre’s pick-up distance policy.
“In accordance with CCRCE Transportation Policy #OS-T-01, bus service may be provided for middle and secondary school students that reside more than 1.6 km off the main bus route,” a centre official said in a written response to Lumsden. “Your address is 750 metres off the main bus route…”
From Lumden’s driveway to where the bus currently stops is actually closer to 900 metres. And given that distance, combined with the safety concerns involved, Lumsden doesn’t understand why the centre won’t, from a courtesy perspective, continue picking his daughter up at the previous location on Fred Crowe Road.
“We just didn’t think they would be that cruel,” he said.
Regarding his concern about the narrow road shoulder, Lumsden said that was dismissed by the official on the basis that the shoulder from his address on Plains Road to the Belmont Road where the regular bus stop is, “has a width and condition consistent with many roads in Colchester County.”
Centre spokeswoman Jennifer Rodgers maintains student safety regarding busing is held as a top priority.
But given its transportation services transports
approximately 17,500 students daily on approximately 200 buses over 700 individual routes, bus schedules or routes “are not changed to accommodate students being bused as a courtesy.”
“Courtesy busing is only extended where there is additional space available on the existing bus run, the additional service is not cost prohibitive, and the frequency and location of bus stops, including those for courtesy busing, must meet the requirements within the Regulations of the Motor Vehicle Act.”
Lumsden, however, believes his daughter’s safety should be given greater consideration.
“I’m arguing that they could from a courtesy standpoint and, of course, that they are ignoring conditions. There’s no factors in our system for safety,” he said. “It’s not an issue that they physically can’t… It’s just that they are ignoring the safety and the courtesy.”
