Saskatoon mother advocates for better public transit amid high school struggles

A Saskatoon mother is advocating for better transit services in the city after seeing her child and other kids struggle to get to school.

Amanda Spenst is a resident in Stonebridge and spoke to the transportation committee Tuesday, saying many parents are concerned about their kids in high school using city buses to get to school.

She said she spoke for the students who use the buses in Stonebridge but was hoping for a ripple effect across the city.

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“For the past couple of years, I’ve been hearing parents of older students talk about problems their children have been having using transit to get to school,” Spenst said.

She said as her child started attending high school she wanted to pinpoint where those issues were and to advocate for change.

Spenst said she put together a survey back in August asking parents about their experiences with having their child use public transit.

“Approximately 45 per cent said they currently use transit, but 97 per cent said they would if it was reliable.”

She said many parents had told her that they had lost trust in the public transit system and used much less convenient means of getting their child to and from school.

“There was even one parent who told me she’s been going to work late for the past three years because she’s had to drive her kids rather than using the bus.”

She said these issues compound during the winter with the extreme weather conditions.

Spenst said that 2021 census data showed there were about 800 high school-aged students in the Stonebridge area, and that’s a number that will only increase.

“Unreliable transit can force students to be late or miss classes, resulting in lunch hour detentions, class disruptions and missed instruction time.”

She said this also has a negative impact on traffic in the city, noting some parents are forced to drive their kids to school due to an unreliable transit system.

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Spenst said the city states that ridership for buses sees a decline starting in October, adding that she feels this is because of people having poor experiences with those buses.

She gave a list of recommendations she’d like to see from the city to help improve those experiences:

• a return to dedicated high school express routes
• city engagement with residents to gain more feedback
• increasing frequency on routes that access high schools
• speak with principals to adjust times
• increasing bus fleet size to make sure the public transit system has the capacity needed

Coun. Mairin Loewen wanted Spenst to submit her remarks to the city, saying some of the data she’s collected could be helpful to the city.

Mayor Charlie Clark said Spenst’s argument was thoughtful and wondered if she had reached out to the provincial or federal governments to advocate as well, saying the city has been looking at ways to accelerate funding to expand bus capacity.

“It was my understanding that this would be the venue to talk about that because it is a city service, but I’m definitely willing to do what it takes to help to get this fixed,” Spenst said.

City administration said it is having talks with schools regarding adjusting schedules and getting enrollment numbers.

It was noted that the city is limited by the number of buses that it currently has.