The ACT government has pushed back the launch of its new bus network, following delays to the light rail project and concerns on the part of families and principals "left in the dark" on looming changes to school buses.
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On Friday, ACT Transport Minister Meegan Fitzharris will announce a revised start date for the network of April 27, in time for the second school term, but four months behind the original plan of January.
Canberrans will also enjoy a month of free travel when the network, which was redesigned from the ground up, goes live.
In recent weeks, as the school year rocketed to a close, parents and principals raised concerns they were still without a timetable to assess the full impact of planned cuts to dedicated school bus services.
On Thursday, Ms Fitzharris said the timetable would not be released until early March, but the delayed start would give schools more time to prepare and help the roll-out of light rail, which was now planned for early 2019 after being pushed back from December.
"Given the complexity of this kind of major infrastructure project, and the need for third party accreditations that are beyond the government’s and the Canberra Metro's control, we have decided to start the new bus network in term two to minimise disruption to commuters as much as possible," Ms Fitzharris said.
All services would still get kids to school on time, she said, as the network became a "genuine alternative for Canberrans who currently drive".
But a number of Canberra principals said they were bracing for increased traffic at their schools next year, not less traffic, amid reports more parents would opt to put their child in the car rather than on a public bus.
While the school bus changes have since been scaled back from more radical cuts proposed in June, about half of schools will still lose all their dedicated buses.
On Thursday, opposition transport spokeswoman Candice Burch told the ACT Assembly some schools were even considering changing their start and end times to accomodate for the expected influx of cars at the school gate.
At Brindabella Christian College, principal Christine Lucas said the idea was still being negotiated but bringing the school day forward would allow parents to get to work on time.
"That's something we're looking at but it's been left very late for us to do proper consultation on that," Ms Lucas said.
Radford College principal Fiona Godfrey said her students were worse off under the new network, with a number of packed buses at the school axed.
"For the safety of our students, we have no choice but to investigate running our own bus and charging parents for it, even though they already pay rates and in return would hope for core government services," she said.
Last month, Ms Fitzharris said she was hoping the new network would be up and running by first term next year, as the government weighed up whether light rail and the bus network would go live together, or if there would be a staged rollout.
Ms Burch said the uncertainty hovering over the new network seemed to come down to light rail delays.
Non-government schools, which have been hit especially hard due to their large catchment size, have slammed the recent revision to school bus cuts in the network as disappointing, saying that while some schools had been granted a reprieve, others were still missing out.
Transport Canberra has said all schools losing a bus will still be served by a public connection, as more general services run past schools, and only buses with low patronage were cut.
But principals have questioned the MyWay data used to draw such conclusions, saying head-counts conducted by Transport Canberra at a number of non-government schools after the original network was unveiled revealed sharp discrepancies in their estimated patronage and the actual number of students boarding buses.
