Safety concerns for students riding PRT buses to and from school
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — KDKA-TV is doing a deeper dive into the fight between Pittsburgh Public School students waiting for a Pittsburgh Regional Transit bus in Squirrel Hill.
That fight on Tuesday led to police using a taser to break it up. KDKA-TV wanted to know, does this lead to a push for more school buses to be used?
One of the biggest problems is the shortage of school bus drivers that every district is dealing with. Thousands of students rely on PRT buses, so why can't they have specialized routes for just students?
Well, it's not that simple.
After that fight earlier this week, Pittsburgh police made a call to the community to help make sure these issues go away.
"Going to and from school, we have to make sure the kids are safe, and they don't run into any kinds of issue," Pittsburgh Police Assistant Chief Linda Barone said.
Police said some of the problems are children waiting for extended periods of time to catch a PRT bus. According to groups like Allies for Children, using PRT is necessary to make sure children are in school.
"Especially in light of the school bus driver challenges we are facing across the county and across the state and nation," Allies for Children Executive Director Jamie Baxter said.
For some, it may be the only way they get to and from school. According to Pittsburgh Public Schools, 15,484 kids take school transportation and 4,370 take PRT buses.
"If they miss a yellow bus, that's their only chance to get to school, especially if their parents are at work. There's not that backup transportation," Baxter said.
Why can't Pittsburgh Regional Transit make a specialized route to pick up children outside the school and avoid any waits? That comes back to federal transit law. If the PRT makes a route like that, it would be considered a charter and violate the law. The PRT could risk losing funding, service, and the person who scheduled the charter could risk jail time.
"How can we incentivize a system to look at creative approaches to get kids to schools? The current system is letting lots of families and students down," Baxter said.
According to PPS, it would look to move a stop to a traditional school bus if there are concerns. At this point, no word on if any stop meets the need for change.
