French school board aims to cut bus travel time to under an hour

With some students of P.E.I.'s French Language School Board spending up to an hour and forty minutes on a school bus, some changes are coming.

The board is rezoning some schools, starting in September, both to shorten travel times and simplify routes.

"We're really trying to cut back on areas where our own buses are criss-crossing, which is one of the big reasons we started this in the first place," said Joel Bernard, the board's transportation supervisor.

"Our old zones were divided by the yellow line on many roads which meant that neighbours that were face-to-face were going to different schools." 

The change affecting the most students will be in southern Kings County.

Students from the Murray Harbour, Murray River and Gaspereaux areas will see their zone changed from École François-Buote in Charlottetown to École La-Belle-Cloche in Rollo Bay.

In Prince County the communities of Foxley River, Conway and MacNeills Mills, which currently have no French students, will be rezoned from École Pierre-Chiasson in DeBlois to École Évangéline in Abram-Village.

Ghislain Bernard, superintendent of the French Language School Board, said minimizing travel times for students across the province is challenging.

"When you only have six schools, the zones tend to be quite large, and busing is always a factor that's in the backs of everybody's mind," said Bernard.

"We were trying to make the use of our busing services as effective as possible." 

Students who are currently enrolled will be allowed to continue at the schools they are now attending, but the changes to the bus routes will come in September.

That means students who don't want to change schools will no longer have a school bus coming to their door. They will have to go and meet the bus, but the school board says none of those drives to a bus stop will be more than eight minutes.

Reconsidering zoning will happen more often with the province's population growing quickly, officials say. Even with students transferred away from École François-Buote, an expansion will go ahead at the school that will more than double its capacity, from 350 to 750.