Carriage Way Bus Stop Unsafe for Kids, Say Parents

Residents of one neighborhood in the township’s western section told the Board of Education at its meeting Tuesday night that they want their children’s bus route diverted into their development for safety reasons, a move board members said they’ll continue to consider.

About half a dozen parents from Carriage Way, a relatively small community of fewer than 40 homes off West Bay Avenue on a one-road loop about a third of a mile long, stood up to speak at the board meeting. They said their kids’ current bus stop, which is in a designated safety zone alongside a 50 mph stretch of West Bay Avenue, is too near traffic and too dangerous for the youngest of the neighborhood children.

But district transportation coordinator Bill Cox said a traffic study by township police officers revealed parents are now complicating matters by parking in the safety zone meant for the bus while they wait to pick up or drop off their children. 

The wide safety area, which is just west of the development entrance and painted with white diagonal blazes to distinguish it from the shoulder, would provide enough protection if it were not blocked, he said.

“If it was a safety problem, I wouldn’t have the bus stop,” Cox said. “We would never endanger the children in the area.” 

But some parents said the buffer area isn’t enough to make the spot safe.

“We’ve had people run past the bus stop” while the bus is parked, said Carriage Way resident Dave Anderson.

Kirsten Chieco, who said she’ll have more than one child riding the bus to school next year, said many people ignore the speed limit on the busy road.

“To have a 5-year-old standing out on West Bay Avenue with cars going 60 – it’s not reasonable,” she said. “It’s just not safe.” Matters were worse following recent winter storms, she said.

“There were mounds of snow, so you have nowhere for the parents to park and nowhere for the kids to stand,” Chieco said. “It’s not too unreasonable to ask to have one stop come into our neighborhood.”

But Board President Lisa Becker worried that picking up kids at a stop inside the development could have the potential to disrupt the tight bus schedule by adding time to the route. The district’s transportation budget has already been shaved down to a fraction of what it once was, she pointed out.

“I’m just trying to assess if stopping there would throw off the entire run,” she said. 

Cox said there was potential to add time to the route. As it stands, he said, the bus continues in an unbroken line along the length of Bay Avenue to Old Halfway Road on Route 72.

Were the board to establish a stop in the neighborhood, “it would be the only development we have in town where we go in and pick up the students inside,” he said.

But another parent, Jody Watkins, said the board should consider making an exception. She said Carriage Way is the only West Bay Avenue development that is along a stretch of the road with a speed limit of 50 mph. 

The limit is lower at the entrance to every other neighborhood where buses stop, she said, “which makes a huge difference when the children are standing on the edge of the road.” Kindergarteners might be too young to take care of themselves around such a busy road, she said.

“I don’t want this to become an issue where we’re looking at this (in) hindsight,” Watkins said. 

Ultimately, members of the board’s transportation committee said they would examine the issue further, and look at the parents’ request for a new bus stop in light of the soon-to-be-released results of the police department’s traffic study.