MARATHON — School buses in this lakeshore town will make fewer stops this year, and that has parents worried for their children’s safety.
“I just don’t see this going well,” Pat Tanasichuck, who has a son in Grade 4 at Holy Saviour School, said Wednesday.
Tanasichuck said his family was never notified of changes in schedule and pickup locations, so he had to drive his son to school.
He picked the boy up from Holy Saviour in the afternoon and heard other parents express their frustration, he said.
“I really don’t understand what the reason was for the change. I’ve always lived by the saying if it’s not broke don’t fix it, right?”
Many parents are upset with the East of Thunder Bay Transportation Consortium’s decision to reduce school bus services in Marathon, said Ashley Riendeau, who has children attending Holy Saviour.
The consortium cancelled stops on side streets and crescents and is now requiring children to catch buses at stops farther from their homes, she said.
In her case, Riendeau’s children must walk down La Verendrye Crescent to its intersection with Hemlo Drive to catch their bus.
“Hemlo is the town’s busiest street,” she said. “Not only will this decision hold up traffic in the morning on this street due to multiple stops, it is an unsafe street to have small children gathering at.”
The East of Thunder Bay Transportation Consortium, which coordinates school bus services in Marathon and other communities on the north shore, posted a statement on its Facebook page at 4 p.m.
The statement advised parents to monitor the BusPlanner app, “as routes are still being finalized with the addition of new students and required adjustments based on student accommodation needs.”
It further stated that the consortium “will be monitoring the most recent changes and adjust schedules as needed.”
“This is a safety issue,” said Charla Stover, the mother of a junior kindergarten student in the Val-des-Bois French Catholic school.
She said her daughter must catch a bus on busy Stevens Street, where drivers “just rip down it.”
Amanda Wells, a Margaret Twomey Public School parent, added that Marathon is “in bear country.”
Bears are often seen in town, she said, “so that’s part of the issue.”
Tanasichuck said winter weather will produce more safety challenges.
“We’re going to have all these kids walking on unplowed sidewalks in the winter months, right? They’re going to be crossing intersections that they never had to cross before,” he said.
“And I guarantee you there’s going to be more traffic in the morning hours, because some parents are going to choose to drive their child to school rather than, you know, walk them to the bus stop now, because it’s more of a trek for them.”
The consortium’s transportation coordinator, Brandon Boldt, said he has heard parents’ concerns.
“Right now, we’re taking all the information that’s coming to us,” Boldt told Newswatch. “Then we’ll try to work with that.”
