Members of the community have been concerned with buses traveling on University Drive when the new school is built at the Athabasca Regional Multiplex.
The concern is a steep hill with several sharp corners.
“There must have been talk of buses going west of town and coming in from the west side,” said Athabasca County councillor Larry Speers last Tuesday at the impromptu Aspen View Public School Division board meeting.
Aspen View superintendent Mark Francis said they would only send buses via Highway 663 if it made sense.
“We currently have eight buses coming in from the west that it would make sense to use 663,” he said.
“At this time, our preliminary thoughts are that it would add a lot of additional kilometers onto routes.”
Francis asked First Student – the contractor that provides some student transportation for the division – for their opinion on safety of the multiplex hill.
“We currently do send buses up that hill and we would need that road to be a priority in terms of sanding and snow removal,” Francis said.
“However, at this time, First Student has a safety inspector and that road is perfectly safe and acceptable for buses.”
Town of Athabasca councillor Tanu Tyszka-Evans asked if a formal report had been conducted and if the town could receive a copy.
“No. It wasn’t a report. We asked for the opinion of First Student,” Francis said.
Another concern is the amount of kids who currently walk to school that would require bussing.
“Seventy to 80 per cent of students come from the county and the rest are in town,” said Aspen View board chair Dennis MacNeil.
Students who currently live within 2.4 kilometres of the school they attend are not funded for busing by the Alberta government, but Aspen View buses them anyway.
“We would have to bus more students up to the Multiplex. However, we would not be adding any buses to the fleet,” Francis said.
“We currently bus a significant amount of students within the Town of Athabasca that do not qualify for bussing.”
Francis explained that buses stop all over town because Whispering Hills Primary School, Landing Trail Intermediate School and Edwin Parr Composite School are all on different hills throughout town.
“In most cases we do and the reason for that is that we have a bus stopping there anyway and the bus is empty,” he said.
“If you have only 20 or 30 students on a bus, if you pick up in Hees Estates, EPC is less than 2.4 kilometres away.
“If another student goes to Landing Trail, we would be saying to students that they could not get on the bus, even though there are 20 empty seats and it is going to stop at EPC anyway.”
Francis stated the school division would not have to add additional buses to accommodate more students.
Town of Athabasca councillor Steve Shafer asked if there would be a cost savings in terms of bussing to the school division when relocating the school.
“We anticipate there will be changes. There wouldn’t be savings to Aspen View because we are funded on how many kilometres the bus travels,” Francis said.
“If we travel our buses 100 less kilometres, we get 100 kilometres less funding.”
