John Boyle
Tue, 31 Aug 2004 17:28:27 -0700
These stories just keep getting better, first we have students complaining about $1 a day parking ruining their future, then we have the horror of kids walking to school on a beside a road with sidewalks 15mph flashers and wide shoulders. Now we have parents complaining about the loss of cul-de-sac bus service.
Bus stops draw parents' fire
By JOHN ANASTASI
The Intelligencer
Members of the North Penn's support services committee took a beating Monday night as angry parents from several neighborhoods spent about 3 hours bombarding them with questions and accusations surrounding district busing policies.
Residents of Hatfield's Wimbledon and Towamencin's Pebble Ridge Farms developments protested the relocation of bus stops inside their neighborhood cul de sacs to busier intersections.
"We came to you and we begged you to do something," said Sheila Lengyel of Forrest Hills Drive in the Wimbledon development. "It'll be on you (if a child is hurt). If something happens, we'll be back and you'll be sorry."
Lengyel was referring to the new bus stop at Moyer Road and Wimbledon Lane where 47 kindergarten and elementary school students will wait this year rather than at two stops along Wimbledon Lane.
Marianne Cleary, North Penn's coordinator of transportation, said her drivers have been complaining about stops located in cul de sacs because they feel it is difficult to maneuver around obstacles like portable basketball hoops, recycling cans, debris and plowed snow.
"It's a tremendous challenge to drivers to go into cul de sacs," Cleary said. "The Pennsylvania School Bus Drivers' manual recommends not backing up a vehicle. It is the single most dangerous thing a bus driver can do."
North Penn has had a policy against having school bus drivers navigate cul de sacs for years, but exceptions were made over the years and the district is taking steps to eliminate them.
Frances McKenzie of the Wimbledon development said asking the children to wait along Moyer Road would be very dangerous.
"It's a great undue - and hazardous - risk," she said. "In no instance did I observe my bus driver backing up."
Citing the board policy, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation's certification of the stop as safe and the desire to avoid setting a precedent that would bring parents in other district cul de sacs in for relief, the committee refused to recommend a change to the full school board.
Bill Allen, who chairs the committee, proposed that the children wait for the bus on Wimbledon Court instead of Moyer Road. When the bus arrives and stops traffic, the students could then walk to Moyer Road and board the bus safely, he reasoned.
John Anastasi can be reached at (215) 957-8166 or [EMAIL PROTECTED]
August 31, 2004 5:09 AM