School district rolls out new bus stops
Posted on Wednesday, August 27, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/tnebc/News/4912/
In coming weeks, the Pea Ridge School District will be changing to bus-stop service for the routes in town, transportation director Cameron McNabb announced.
We will not be springing stops on routes all at once, McNabb wrote in the announcement. Be assured that we will not change your students stop location without sending ample notice home. It will take time to establish a system for each route, so many students may not see changes for awhile.
Accomplishing a bus stop system will consist of four steps.
The first step is to study each route to find the best locations for stops.
We will pick one route and send home letters with each rider on that route stating that plans are in place to begin bus stops.... Shortly after the first notice, we will be sending letters home with each student stating where their individual stop is located, date the stop is to begin, what time they will need to be there in the mornings, and what time they will be picked up. Once a route has been implemented, district officials will then move to the next route to start the process over again.
When deciding where to establish a bus stop, McNabb said, there are certain criteria that will be used. Traffic Will students have to cross a street and what is the traffic like ? District officials will try to avoid having students cross arterial roads such as Curtis Ave., Arkansas Highway 94, Arkansas Highway 265 and Slack Street. Number of students The district will try to gather as many students as possible without becoming overwhelming.
3. Stop location Is there a safe place to gather ?
4. Line of sight The district will try to have line of sight to homes serviced by the stop as much as possible; in many instances this will be impossible, McNabb said, but we will make our best effort.
The goal is to increase the consistency of stop times, ease the communication to parents of when and where students need to be, reduce the riding time of students and reduce the fuel used by constant stopping and starting, NcNabb said.
He noted that the state does not require public schools to provide transportation; however, the Pea Ridge School Board has the policy of providing transportation for every student who wants a ride and follows the rules.
The school district started the school year with 16 bus routes. Officials are now looking to add one and possibly two more to the district to help alleviate any growth we are experiencing, McNabb said.
As you know fuel prices have hit the community rather hard and the Transportation Department at Pea Ridge is no exception. We are looking this year at ways to help reduce our costs while improving our efficiency and maintaining the safety and reliability of our fleet.
With 16 routes the districts average fuel use is about 130 gallons a day; at $ 4 per gallon that is approximately $ 93, 000 dollars a year in fuel alone. Adding two routes will bring the total to approximately $ 105, 000 per year.
In an effort to avoid any detrimental effects to the school experience of educational trips and extracurricular activities we will be looking at ways to save fuel in our base operations first, McNabb said. We will be addressing a number of issues that will help to reduce the amount of fuel we use.
The first step involves reducing costs by reducing the amount of time the buses sit still with the engine running. To accomplish this reduction two things must take place: First, the transportation department implemented a noidling policy, eliminating the time buses are running while on campus; second, workers installed heated mirrors and are pursuing electric window defrosters to reduce warm-up time in the winter.
I welcome any questions or comments you have, McNabb said. He can be reached at the bus shop at 451-1819.