Concerned parents speak up against Cariboo-Chilcotin School District’s bus route changes

The Cariboo Chilcotin School District is seeing changes to its bus routes, and some parents are not happy.

The decision was made on the final week of school to reduce the number of bus stops, with the idea of aligning with provincial practices.

On the district’s website, it suggests that in the 2024/2025 annual budget, the projected transportation costs increased to 9.4% of their total operating expenses. This added budget pressures to the district.

A district parent Julia Carter says the safety risks that this will have on students like her six-year-old son are too great.

“The area that we live in, there’s no sidewalk, no street light, there’s no shoulder to walk on,” she said. “I don’t even like walking down these roads myself, there’s so many blind corners, hills, there are bears, cougars…It’s not safe at all for kids to be walking.”

She says in the wintertime time the roads are worse.

“It will be a good three days until the roads get ploughed, it’s going to be so slippery for these kids to walk,” she said.

A petition to reinstate the bus routes has been started by concerned parents.’

According to the petition, the school district believes it’s okay for children to make the dangerous walk to school regardless of the weather.

“They believe that it’s acceptable for our kids to walk home through any snowstorm that blows through, even on the days where drivers are advised to stay home,” it says.

The petition also states that the district believes families can choose to move and settle elsewhere.

“They are discontinuing a service that attracted families to the area to begin with and are now deflecting the responsibility onto everyone else,” the petition reads.

“Many families depend on bus service being provided in order to maintain a two-income household and they are now having to decide between being able to pay their bills or getting their kids to school.”

The concerned mother says she does not know how the district plans to put the changes into practice because the busses still have to drive down the same road that they’re cutting the stops from.

“They’re telling drivers ‘No you can’t stop here anymore’ and so it’s either the bus is driving right past them (students), or they don’t see their bus because the route has just been changed,” she said.

Carter says parents are worried their kids will have to walk down a section of the highway that has a posted speed limit of 90km/hour.

The petition to re-instate the bus routes has received 590 signatures out of 1,000 as of Tuesday evening.

1130 NewsRadio has reached out to the District for comment.