Hamilton’s public school buses are set to start “planned” cancellations of routes starting Monday, according to the Hamilton-Wentworth Student Transportation Services (HWSTS)
The service that provides transportation for some 24,000 students says the cancellations are in answer to efforts by both Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board (HWCDSB) and Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board to “mitigate” a shortage of school bus drivers, which led to the cancellation of more than 15 bus routes last week.
The “rotating” cancellations will address 17 routes that were eliminated, routes that experienced 60-minute delays and high school runs that suffered 30-minute waits.
“We understand that this will cause considerable inconvenience and disruption to families at different points in the route rotations. As much as we regret having to cancel any of our routes, this measure is necessary to assure a higher level of service, albeit on a rotating basis,” said HWCDSB chair Patrick Daly.
A spokesperson for HWDSB says the cancellation schedule for the routes involved will be finalized shortly and shared with families at the end of the week.
“HWSTS continues to investigate other options to address the ongoing bus driver shortage, including driver incentives and driver recruitment programs,” said HWDSB spokesperson Shawn McKillop.
Families can get updates on school bus cancellations and delays from the Hamilton-Wentworth Student Transportation website.
The executive director of School Bus Ontario, Nancy Daigneault, says the current driver shortage is not unique to Hamilton but is province-wide.
“The main reason is because of COVID-19 and drivers who are very, very concerned about catching it,” Daigneault told Global News.
Daigneault says the problem has been exacerbated by the pandemic, which shut down recruiting for a number of months and led to virtually no training for new drivers.
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