Windsor school boards seek deferral on demise of city bus program

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Windsor’s two largest school boards are imploring city council to put off a proposed budget change that would eliminate a bus program used by hundreds of teens.

On Monday, the directors of education for both the Greater Essex County District School Board and the Windsor Essex Catholic District School Board spoke out against the suggested demise of the school bus “extra” program, which sees city buses pick up paying students along designated routes to and from four Windsor high schools.

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Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens’s proposed 2025 budget seeks to relocate those transit resources to five regular bus routes, a move he and city staff previously told the Star would benefit all riders, students included.

But the school board reps, who found out about the proposed change through media reports, say eliminating high school extras would make it much harder for some students to get to school.

“Our hope is that they would seriously consider a deferral so that we could be involved in the planning, to be able to come to a solution collectively,” said Vicki Houston, director of education for GECDSB. “We haven’t discussed yet what next steps will be, but in the best interest of our students and the families that we serve, we will continue to advocate for this.”

The secondary extras serve four schools: Holy Names Catholic High School, Vincent Massey Secondary School, Riverside Secondary School, and St. Joseph’s Catholic High School.

Six buses shuttle paying students along six different routes to and from Massey each day. The same goes for Holy Names. Riverside and St. Joseph’s each have two buses travelling two routes.

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Not all students who rely on extra buses — some of which travel winding routes through residential neighbourhoods — live near regular transit routes. If extras are eliminated, Houston said, some students who currently have a direct will have to transfer to two or three city buses to get to and from school. That means getting off one bus and waiting for another, adding time to their journey.

Holy Names students may have to compete with adult St. Clair College students for spots on regular city buses, Byrne said. There’s concern that packed buses might pass high school students by.

“If you didn’t have the extras at Holy Names, you would have perhaps 200 students going on that regular bus, waiting for the next pickup,” Byrne said.

City council heard public delegations on the budget on Jan. 13 and received a joint written submission from both directors of education on the school bus extra matter. Council is scheduled to debate the mayor’s budget next Monday (Jan. 27).

Council can pass amendments to the mayor’s budget with a majority vote. The mayor will have the power to veto those amendments, and any mayoral veto can be overturned with an 8-3 vote.

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The budget proposes a 2.99 per cent increase to Windsor property taxes.

Dilkens’s proposed 2025 budget aims to end the school extra program, freeing up nine buses — a $12.6 million value — and adding nearly 15,000 service hours to the regular transit system. The move would increase bus frequency on five routes: the Dougall 6, the South Windsor 7, the Walkerville 8, the Parent 14, and Route 115 (formerly the Dominion 5). Some of those routes would see extended evening and weekend service and new service on Sundays.

Within Windsor, the transit system currently has about 330,000 annual service hours.

“Let’s not forget, the school boards have a transportation responsibility for students who live a certain distance away from school, and a lot of communities don’t even provide this service. These are high school kids we’re talking about,” Mayor Dilkens told the Star last week.

“This is fair game, to have a conversation and say, ‘Why are we doing this? Do we need to do it? Is there a better way to make system improvements?’”

The extras program has been in place for around 20 years and was first implemented to alleviate pressure from main routes, acting Transit Windsor CEO Stephan Habrun told the Star.

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A public budget document described the school extras as a “concierge-level service for a small number of secondary school students.” The directors of education rebuked the description because the buses do not pick students up at their homes.

“Students do pay for their bus pass,” Byrne said. “We know that they (at the city) are under budget pressures. We would like to be part of that solution.”

Houston said the boards are hearing from parents who want the school bus extras to remain out of concern for student safety.

“Some will have to get up substantially earlier in the morning, when it’s dark outside, walking even further to a bus stop, then taking a bus downtown, potentially, and being in the dark still, and then getting to school,” Houston said.

“Parents are also concerned about late arrival to school. Some students have jobs after school, so they need to get on that bus to be able to get to their work.”

Some extras, but not all, overlap with regular bus routes. According to the city’s website, students are encouraged to stand at regular bus stops if the extra travels along a regular route. But for extras that take other routes, students stand at unmarked street corners and flag down the bus.

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