Sask Rivers wants City to have second look at decision to increase price for student bus passes
Saskatchewan Rivers Public School Division said the decision to have high school students take city buses to school is working out, but there are concerns about Prince Albert city council’s decision to increase the price of student passes.
According to a report presented at the division’s June 17 board meeting, students purchased 2,219 bus passes in 2023-2024. That’s an increase from the 1,809 reported for 2022-2023.
Education Director Neil Finch said the move to transport students on city buses has been working out as planned, with few complaints since early in the transition.
The City and Sask. Rivers School Division signed an agreement to subsidize the cost of student bus passes. Normally they would be $55/month, with the city putting up half the cost, so the division can sell them to students at a reduced rate of $20/month. However, that’s going to change after council voted to increase the price.
"(It’s) a little bit unfortunate that the city is pulling back on their subsidy for students transportation in the future,” Finch said.
Finch added that he hoped the city would be open to discussion about continuing the subsidy.
"The school division and the city will look at the agreement together,” he explained.
In a joint announcement in March 2022, the school division and the city said students from Carlton Comprehensive Public High School, Wesmor Public High School, Prince Albert Collegiate Institute (PACI), and Victor Thunderchild School would begin using city transit.
However, at their Executive Committee meeting on April 29, Council voted to terminate the letter of understanding (LOU) with the Prince Albert Catholic School Division and Saskatchewan Rivers School Division that saw the City sell discounted bus passes to the divisions, which they in turn sold to students at a second discounted rate.
“It is of note that the second cheapest bus pass in the province is Saskatoon at $59, so we are quite low,” City of Prince Albert Transit Manager Evan Hastings said at the April 29 meeting.
The new system will see school divisions charged $12 more for their discounted bus passes, although Hastings said the divisions can continue to sell them at $20 to students if they choose.
The changes were then approved at Council’s regular meeting on May 13. The agreement will be terminated on June 30 and all new fare structures will come into effect on Sept. 1.
The report featured data up to June 15, 2024. The number of students transported has increased slightly from the previous report in 2023. In 2024 there were 3,330 students transported compared to 3,196 in 2023.
The report shows 729.5 routes cancelled from January 2023 to January 2024. That’s an increase from the 369 cancellations the year before.
Weather was the biggest cause of cancellations with 459.5 days. There were also 13 days cancelled because a substitute driver was not available. There were also three days cancelled due to mechanical issues.
Each division in Saskatchewan receives this report from the Ministry of Education four times a year to see how the division's buses, drivers and mechanics are doing. The report is done semi-annually in the division.
The oral report was given by Chief Financial Officer Jerry Pidborochynski.
The average age of the bus fleet has decreased from eight years in 2022 to seven years in 2023 because of some new buses coming into service. There are currently 105 transportation routes with 25 contracted out.
The average urban one-way bus ride is 15 minutes while the average rural bus ride one way is 27 minutes. The longest urban one-way bus ride is 75 minutes and the longest rural one-way bus ride is 95 minutes.
There were two reported complaints of a serious nature which were dealt with internally.
-With files from Jason Kerr/Daily Herald
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
Michael Oleksyn, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Prince Albert Daily Herald
