After a somewhat bumpy start to the school year, a local bus group is pleased more kids are on buses.
Craig Murphy is with Student Transportation Services, and says they’ve been working at reducing the number of routes lacking buses from about a dozen, to what he expects to be two next week. “Looked at other routes that were servicing the same school, that was close by in the same area, and looked for opportunities where we still had room on buses where we could create stops nearby.”
Murphy adds before adjusting routes, they had to make sure further inconvenienes weren’t created.
He wants to also credit parents.
“We’ve asked parents to volunteer to take their children off the bus list. If they don’t need the bus for whatever reason, we’ve asked them to volunteer, which has been fairly successful,” says Murphy.
As for the drivers themselves, he can’t praise them enough.
While they prepare for drivers who may phone in sick should a COVID-19 self assessment prevent them from work that day, or a previous appointment take up their time, driver seats are getting filled. “We have an amazing group of bus drivers here in Thunder Bay. The majority of them have stepped up and returned to work during the pandemic, putting themselves on the front line.”
The driver consortium spokesperson adds normally a bus can take about 70 kids, but on the advise of the Thunder Bay District Health Unit, that was kept a 50 or less.
