Transit dispute leads to cancellation of school routes

Several special buses routes have been cut due to the transit dispute.

“The intent of this is to make all the other transit routes more predictable with no disruptions,” said City of Saskatoon transit director Jim McDonald.

Now kids will take a regular route to one of the malls and then get a shuttle to their high school.

“Obviously we’re concerned with this change,” said Saskatoon Catholic School spokesperson Derrick Kunz.

“We would have appreciated more notice.”

Saskatoon Public School’s spokesperson Veronica Baker said the cut is what it is.

“We’ve communicated the changes to our principals, but we don’t really have an opinion on the matter,” she said.

McDonald said these changes will make transit better for everybody.

“It frees up resources, so we can focus on not affecting core routes,” he said.

High School Special service that remain include:

• The bus travelling from East College Park to St. Joseph will remain in service.
• Lakeview/Lakeridge to Holy Cross and Walter Murray will remain in service.
• The bus travelling from Confederation / Dundonald / Westview to Mount Royal, ED Feehan and Bedford Road will remain in service.
• The bus travelling from Downtown to Bishop Murray will remain in service.
• The bus travelling from Exhibition to Holy Cross / Walter Murray / Aden Bowman will remain in service.

Even with these changes, McDonald couldn’t guarantee service to High Schools will not be cut further.

“If the ATU were to take further job action, we would have to shift things around,” he said.