Pembina Hills welcomes regulation change allowing buses to travel at posted speed limit

BARRHEAD – A regulation change that the Pembina Hills School Division has been pushing the provincial government to make for several years — allowing school buses to travel at the posted speed limit on highways instead of restricting them to 90 kilometres per hour— has finally been adopted as of Sept. 1. 

As stated in a newsletter forwarded to various school board chairs by the Alberta School Boards Association (ASBA), the Use of Highway and Rules of the Road Regulation has now been updated to allow school buses to travel at posted highway speeds. 

The Town and Country This Week then confirmed that the change had occurred by contacting a spokesperson for Alberta Transportation. 

Notably, Alberta was the only Canadian jurisdiction that required school buses to travel no faster than 90 kilometres per hour. (It’s unclear when that requirement was actually adopted, though it was likely in the late 1970s.) 

The news was lauded by Pembina Hills board chair Judy Lefebvre, who had lobbied the province to update the regulation along with other former members of the school board. 

“The Pembina Hills board of trustees is pleased to hear that the school bus speed regulation has been changed. Although the present board was not involved in the advocacy of having the regulation changed, we do extend our thanks to the previous board which had facilitated the process,” she said in an e-mail.

PHSD advocacy 

The history of Pembina Hills’ advocacy on this issue goes back several years, beginning with the board developing a policy position for the ASBA membership to vote upon during their 2019 fall general meeting. 

That policy position — which, if adopted by the ASBA membership, would become one of the issues that the association would lobby the province on — called for the Use of Highway and Rules of the Road Regulation to be changed so that school buses could travel at the posted speed limit, with the caveat that road conditions may require buses to travel slower. 

Pembina Hills argued there was no reason for the 90 km/h speed limit from a mechanical or safety perspective. 

In fact, many bus drivers would complain that the 90 km/h speed limit posed a safety risk, as it put them at odds with other motorists and often resulted in drivers taking unnecessary risks to pass buses. 

Also, the school board argued that allowing buses to drive faster would also cut down on ride times for students. 

That policy position was ultimately adopted by 90 per cent of member school boards within the ASBA. 

A year later, the province created the Student Transportation Task Force with the aim of providing the government with recommendations to improve the system, such as how to prevent flybys and improve funding. 

Among those making presentations to the task force were former Pembina Hills board chair Jennifer Tuininga and former deputy chair Wendy Scinski. 

Whenever possible, both Tuininga and Scinksi also brought the issue up in presentations to Athabasca-Barrhead-Westlock MLA Glenn van Dijken, current Education Minister Adriana LaGrange and former Transportation Minister Ric McIver. 

Eventually, the Student Transportation Task Force came out with a raft of 21 recommendations for the province, and one of them was for Alberta Education to work with Alberta Transportation “to explore changing the 90 kilometre-per-hour maximum speed limit for school buses.” 

In turn, the province agreed to review the recommendation and ultimately make a decision by September 2022.

Kevin Berger, TownandCountryToday.com