Saskatoon Transit disruptions have been affecting numerous local high school students who are now having to find alternatives for getting to and from school.
“We’re all scrambling to do our best to get our kids to school, the kids are under the age of sixteen, they’re not allowed to drive,” Chandra-Lynn Sachs said in an interview. Her son is in Grade 9 at Bethlehem High School, which had four after-school routes canceled on Thursday.
“We pay for a service, we pay for a bus pass, we can’t utilize that bus pass, because their services aren’t being provided,” Sachs said.
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Numerous city routes are being impacted due to the refusal of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 615 members to work overtime amid a contract dispute with the city.
A list of canceled routes has been released in the early afternoon during recent days, which some Saskatoon Public School principals have been passing on to students.
“I know one of our principals said he’s sending daily emails to parents to let them know.”
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However Sachs said an early afternoon notice, only hours before students are dismissed, doesn’t leave enough time for parents and students to adjust.
“If your child doesn’t have a cell phone or a means of communicating electronically, how do you let you child know that they can’t take the bus home,” Sachs said.
Saskatoon Transit director Jim McDonald said disruptions are happening because he doesn’t have enough spare board operators to fill gaps left by drivers who are refusing overtime. He said spare board staff are used to provide extra service where needed and take over routes for drivers who are missing work.
“If that spare board operator was covering the St. Joseph’s school run, well I’ve got to find somebody else and if that was my last spare board operator, I don’t have anybody left for that run.”
McDonald said he planned to contact both Saskatoon school divisions to discuss better solutions to get students to and from school in a timely fashion. City officials also noted that students are able to catch other nearby buses or wait for later ones.
McDonald said the first action officials are taking is cancelling extra routes and thinning out frequency in well-served areas, to avoid impacting routes to parts of the city that may only have one bus route.
“What we’re trying to provide is the best service for everybody out there,” he said.
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