Calgary Schools Could Be Affected by Possible Transit Strike

The city of Calgary and the transit union, Local 583, are on the verge of a strike. Neither side is budging and the name calling has reached a high. Mud slinging has become ad slinging with the newspapers being pulled into the mess. Either way, this leaves some wide open questions about how bus students would get to school in such events.

Should this strike occur, about 10,000 students would not get to school, unless their parents could find alternate transportation. Sadly, this is not the first time a transit strike has occured in Calgary.

"The last time Calgary Transit went on strike, we worked with our regular carriers to do some double routes," said Barb Kuester, CBE spokeswoman. "We will be meeting with Southland and Cardinal this Wednesday to determine if it is even possible to do this again."

When transit strikes happen, it is understood that many thousands of workers and even employers will be more than just inconvenienced. Small businesses will suffer as much as the individual families affected.

But many of us don't stop to consider that some municipalities use the transit buses to move children from home to school and back again.

While I'm sure the kids in all of us would agree that an extra long summer vacation might be nice, we also know it just doesn't work that way.

What about graduating seniors working to meet the requirements for their diplomas? While they may have cars and the driver's licenses to transport themselves, many more don't.

What about all the other grades? Parents can't leave young children at home, presuming that the parent would still have a way to work. And let's face, the larger the city, the less having a car is the norm. Big city residents rely on transit -- for their employment and for their children's education.

One of the city's contingency plans include the possibility of doubling bus routes for the drivers that would not be affected by a strike.

While this plan would get the kids to class, schools would be forced to stagger start times, or deviant from current schedules to accomodate the bus schedules. For example, your school may be starting an hour later or earlier than usual.

Certainly such a plan has merit despite the disruption of the school schedule. It would work for those school systems that use more than one bus company to meet its transportation needs. But just the same, there are also downfalls.

How long would the drivers doubling routes be able to physically and mentally handle the extra load? And how much would it ultimately cost the city to pay for the overtime (directly or indirectly through larger fees) of those doubled-up drivers?

While contingency plans are good, perhaps it would just be cheaper, no matter what the municipality, to just work things out and avoid strikes--- hence the power of the union.