Family concerned after full ETS buses miss stops during morning school rush

A southwest Edmonton family hopes the city improves transit service to help students get to school after some were left waiting at stops last week.

Wendy Gillespie, who has lived in the Rutherford area for 10 years, said last Friday morning, one of her daughters, who attends Dr. Anne Anderson School, was waiting for an Edmonton Transit Service bus to take her to school when it did not stop.

"The bus just drove past me," Gillespie recalled her daughter saying. "They just left me. What do I do?"

Luckily Gillespie was working from home that day and was able to pick her up, along with some other children left stranded at the stop to bring them to school on time.

"There were a number of other kids that had kind of been left at the bus stops (along the route)," Gillespie said.

She followed up with ETS after the incident, who told her that the bus had been at full capacity and was not making any further stops.

Gillespie said that the city advised her that technically ETS switches to fall service, where two school special routes start, on Tuesday.

"There's apparently going to be a school special that comes around through us at about 8:45, but it arrives at 9, which means the kids can't get there on time."

On top of that, with the recent bus network redesign and the capacity of Dr. Anne Anderson School doubling this year from 700 to 1,400 students, she worries that won't be enough.

"We are at the end of the bus route," Gillespie added, "So the bus ended up passing 11 stops without being able to stop."

"Even on the way home, the buses can fill up so quickly."

Before the bus changes took effect in spring 2021, Gillespie said she would take the bus to work.

"It was so convenient," Gillespie said. "It was easy to get home, far easier than taking a car and now, with the changes, I don't think I'd be able to get to work if I had to — not as easily as before."

"We used to have service every five to seven minutes through peak time. Now we are getting 16 to 20 minutes," she added.

Coun. Jennifer Rice, representing Ward Ipiihkoohkanipiaohtsi, said this is not the first time she has heard area residents concerned about bus service.

"It's not only about not enough services," Rice told CTV News Edmonton. "It's also about how the routes go through the neighbourhoods."

"In some neighbourhoods, for example, in Chappelle, a driving distance would not take too much time, like five to 10 minutes, but when they take the bus, it would take 50 minutes to one hour."

Rice says she's been in touch with ETS and city administration about the issues and even brought forward a motion to council in June to examine bus service in newer neighbourhoods.

"I will continue working on this," she pledged. "We will continue to look at what better solution we could offer to students and make their parents happy."

A city spokesperson told CTV News Edmonton in a statement that ETS is exploring solutions.

"We are listening to our riders and adapting service on an ongoing basis," it read. "Specific to Anne Anderson High School, ETS received reports about full buses Friday morning and added additional buses that afternoon to assist."

Gillespie just hopes whatever changes are implemented happen before the first snowfall.

"All I want to make sure is that these kids can get to school," she said. "Six or seven weeks from now, it's going to be freezing cold, and if we only have the three buses, we are going to have really cold kids out not getting to school."