Gabriola Elementary bus route one of most under-utilized in district

Rachelle Stein-Wotten

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Gabriola Sounder

No major changes are proposed for school bus routes for Nanaimo Ladysmith Public Schools though several routes are under the 50 per cent utilization rate that marks them for review by staff.

The annual route review shows that the Gabriola Elementary and Qwam Qwum Stuwixwulh School routes are the only two where all trips are running under-utilized. Neither route is recommended to change though reducing the bus size could be considered, staff said at the Feb. 14 business committee meeting.

For the current school year, 89 students are registered to ride the Gabriola Elementary route bus with an average of 25 students riding each day, 29 per cent capacity of the bus.

Letters sent to the school district by Gabriola Elementary families have requested additional stops to the Ferne/Tait and Easthom/Harrison neighbourhoods on the island citing long walking distances for young children, difficulty coordinating drop-offs at bus stops and lack of availability to accompany young children on the public community bus.

The additional stop requests are not being contemplated at this time, however. “It’s a very long bus route so extending it would not be beneficial to the kids who are on it,” Tracy Mowat, NLPS transportation manager, said. Adding stops to the requested areas would add 7-10 minutes each and would increase the route length to over an hour, the school district says.

On the secondary school side, Route 2, Gabriola ferry terminal – NDSS, runs at 34 per cent capacity in the morning and 36 per cent capacity in the afternoon while route 4, Gabriola Ferry – NDSS – Gabriola Ferry, runs at 57 per cent and 64 per cent in the morning and afternoon, respectively.

“I was really shocked how under-utilized buses are,” Trustee Naomi Bailey said, noting a desire to encourage more reduction in carbon emissions. “Somehow I think we have to try to promote going back to using the school bus to its full capacity.”

The school district operates 20 school bus routes that do 64 trips daily with 27 buses. For the 2023-24 school year, 2,085 riders are registered and an average of 929 students are riding daily. NLPS policy defines walk limits as 4 km for students in kindergarten to grade 3 and 4.8 km for students in grade 4-12. Courtesy riders, who may be in areas with hazardous walking conditions (the Gabriola Elementary route has 35 courtesy registrations), and accessible riders increase the registered riders to 2,126. Bus registration numbers are down by 29 students from 2022-23 while the average number of actual riders is up 71.