Article: Sunbus has no answers after school bus run is stopped

[ozbob]

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Sunbus has no answers after school bus run is stopped

Sunbus has no answers after school bus run is stopped
Paul Milton Butler 9th Feb 2013 9:14 AM

PARENTS with school-aged children are outraged dedicated Sunbus school services have been scrapped across the Rockhampton district.

Many parents did not know the school bus, run by Sunbus, had been stopped until the first day school started back last month.

A number of parents have phoned, emailed and sent letters to the editor about the cancelled service because they said they were getting no "straight answers" from the company.

The outrage is such that one of the upset mums, Jenny Reynolds, who has two children, has started a Facebook page calling on all parents to "call Sunbus daily and on the hour if need be until we get our school bus re-instated".

Many parents also said they were extremely concerned their children would have to "change buses and this is a real danger".

"Sunbus told me my children will now have to catch a town bus (public) from Nobbs Street to Thozet Road, then cross busy Thozet Road and walk down Rockonia Road to the nearest bus shelter to catch another bus to get to school," an angry Ms Reynolds said.

"This is a genuine safety issue. Children's vision is simply not as developed as adults, and not to mention the very real possibility of being approached by undesirables.

"It is the worst thing to happen to our children in having the dedicated school bus scrapped."

The Department of Transport and Main Roads together with Sunbus and the Transit Australia Group said they introduced the new Rockhampton bus network on Monday, January 21 to improve reliability and make services safer and easier to use.

But when The Bulletin approached Sunbus's marketing and communications manager Andrew Laing, he kept referring us to a media release which outlined the reasons why.

But the release does not answer the specific question: "Why was the dedicated school bus scrapped?"

Mr Laing agreed up until January 21 there was a dedicated school bus that only school children were allowed to ride on.

But when repeatedly asked why it was stopped - was it stopped because government funding was pulled, or Sunbus itself could no longer afford to run school buses or it was just a cost-cutting exercise, Mr Laing kept saying the reasons were all explained in the press release.

This is not the case - nowhere does it specifically address the issue as to why the service has been stopped.

The Bulletin will keep asking the question until we get a straight answer.

[longboi]

School-aged children seem to manage with catching urban routes in Brisbane. . .

Approached by undesirables? The go-to cop out for any parent now.