Otago Regional Council policy states that the "ORC will progressively withdraw from providing contracted school bus services" and that "some pupils may have a short walk from the bus stop to their school". Parents and school leaders campaigning for a change to Otago Peninsula bus services have been careful to avoid asking for a "special school bus", instead calling for pupils to be better-served as "commuters". One councillor acknowledged use of the term "commuter" was "quite clever".
It is decent of the campaigners to not try to rock the ORC’s policy boat too much, but this writer feels no constraint to work to rigid regional council rules. In a previous article when the much-liked and well-used commercial school buses were withdrawn, I observed that decisions were being made in isolation, ignoring wider community benefits, and that a region-wide, high-quality, specialist school bus service should be considered. (ODT, 9.10.2017)
So what could such a service look like? The obvious gold standard for school transport is set by the United States, where specially designed yellow school buses legally stop all the traffic and children are cocooned in a strict safety regimen all the way to the school gate. Closer to home, the school bus service in Gisborne provides a model of how things could be done in Dunedin.
Like the ORC, Gisborne District Council runs a daily commuter bus service, mainly for adult workers. Unlike the ORC, it runs a separate bus network on school days for pupils. Their aim: "to help lower truancy numbers and reduce congestion on our roads at school times".
The service is funded two-thirds/one-third by the NZTA and Gisborne ratepayers. Children pay a dollar per trip. In the first trial year travel was free, funded by a $40,000 Ministry of Social Development social sector grant, aiming to get pupils to school so they could learn and not cause social issues by being at home. Farebox recovery is about 40% of total cost, and some schools and social agencies fund free travel for at-risk pupils.
There are nine dedicated school buses, painted in a distinctive "waka kura" ("school transport") brand.
Imagine if our regional council decided "to help lower truancy numbers and reduce congestion on our roads at school times". Dunedin may lack some of the social and economic issues of Gisborne, but what seems more obviously lacking here is the will of our transport authority to provide a good service to the community. The ORC clings to its anti-school-bus policy as if it were the law of the land, but Gisborne shows us what is possible, and it is clear that central government funding is available to those who ask. Gisborne District Council did not make statements like "we are not in the business of safety" or "other outlying communities will want their buses changed too".
In Dunedin, a one-size-fits-all radial bus network aimed at getting people to and from the city centre is not going to serve suburban schools adequately. Bayfield, King’s, Queen’s, Kaikorai Valley and Logan Park secondary schools and Dunedin North and Tahuna intermediates all rely on suburb-to-suburb travel.
When Tahuna Intermediate families performed their bus-and-foot hikoi last term they did not only demonstrate the poor connection to school, they also showed that the present bus would be too small for daily use of school pupils and adult commuters.
The great thing about school buses is that their passenger flows are so predictable. We know well in advance what days pupils need to travel. If the peninsula bus served South Dunedin schools adequately, as requested, it would be overfull. Then the ORC would need to provide two peninsula buses at the same time. Perhaps one would serve the normal route and the other would deviate closer to the schools.
Hang on, did we not just invent a special school bus running on school days?
- Peter Dowden is a co-president of Bus Users Support Group Otepoti-Dunedin.
