The Editor:
It’s a weekday morning and, on Facebook, yet another person is complaining about how much traffic is generated by school pick-ups and drop offs in our fair district: SD43.
The sentiment that I hear when this comes up on my feed is that this is a permanent problem that was organic in the making and an inexorable trap. I feel that this is just not true.
'Gather round everybody, while I tell you a story about why our kids are surrounded by traffic jams every morning while they try to get to school. It is a sobering tale ... for sure, but one I feel that we can learn from as we navigate through our new traffic woes as the Tri-Cities expands its population.
This all started one fateful day in May 2014 when SD43 decided to STOP funding school buses.
They decided to move away from a "group" transport system for students because of budgetary reasons ... Giving parents the summer holidays to figure out solutions for themselves. SD43 even encouraged parents to "find alternative transportation" for their children by "driving them."
So, this is the story as to why we have the traffic mess weekdays between 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. and 2:30 to 4 p.m. which stretches all over the entire district.
This is a morality tale about the struggle to encourage public transportation vs. the actual costs.
When this bussing-decision was passed down, SD43 wasn't thinking about whether or not the roads could accommodate the additional traffic ... or even if there was transit available....
It simply came down to money and balancing the bottom line for the short term. But there were larger issues as stake.
Now, we have a situation where children who are attending their catchment schools can face distances of up to 5 km to get to school. Now, it is up to parents to devise complex schemes to get their kids to school safely before the 9 a.m. bell.
In the case of elementary schools, safety policies require that parents supervise their children before and after school. For many working parents this means public transit is impossible. So, parents must transport their children to school and wait with them on the street. Or, they have to face the impossible task of locating and paying for a safe Before and After school program that will safely transport their children to and from school.
As parents put their heads together to try to understand this mess, there is a general sentiment that always comes up: school buses.
Public School Transportation would solve a number of these problems, but setting up that system is expensive.
It is fair to say that money and budgets are important, but we cannot surrender to the lure of balancing a short-term budget, when there is larger ledger at stake.
And now, solving this problem will be far more expensive than anything that we would have paid 10 years ago.
So, this is the origin story of how SD43 generated the traffic woes that we see today.
As we revisit budget and transportation issues in our cities, let’s take a look at how and why we have ended up here.
- Tracey Schaeffer, Port Moody
