By Kellah Lavoie

Roadwork, bridge slows school buses

Sep 4, 2011 | 2:51 PM

School buses are moving a little slower than normal around Prince Albert and area.

The Prince Albert Roman Catholic Separate School Division is noticing some delays due to restricted traffic on the bridge, said Lorel Trumier, director of education for the school division.

“I don’t think anyone in the city is immune to that if they are crossing the bridge,” she said, explaining since students are back in classes there is more traffic in the morning everywhere.

The bridge is also causing some minimal disruptions for the Saskatchewan Rivers School Division (SRSD), said Ryan Bruce, transportation supervisor.

On Wednesday, one school had a bus come in 15 minutes late, but since then there have been no issues, he said, explaining they have not made bus routes start any earlier.

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“(If) for whatever reason traffic increases, or things start going south, we will be able to react and start our routes a little bit earlier.”

A bigger issue for SRSD is road construction.

They have moved their My Pharmacy stop from 15th Street and Fourth Avenue to West to 15th Street and Sixth Avenue West due to the work on the street.

“If you have two buses in there at the same time it would be crazy,” he said.

The closure is only affecting the stop.

St. Mary School is working around it, even though it is only blocks from the school, said Mark Phaneuf, principal.

“Kids know it’s there,” he said, explaining it is nothing new. He said he is more concerned about the bridge than the construction in the city.

The biggest thing to slow down buses is the rural roads, said Bruce.

“We are driving a lot of extra kilometres in almost every rural area,” he said, explaining roads are closed in the rural municipalities of Paddockwood, Prince Albert, Buckland and Canwood.

“All of them have road closures… that are increasing our routes by a fair bit.”

The reason for the closures is the soggy spring that washed the roads away, he said, explaining it is causing routes to take an extra 10 minutes on average.

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