STEO bus changes clarified

MORRISBURG — Changes to bus transportation for students relying on Student Transportation of Eastern Ontario may mean some students will have a greater walking distance, but not at the cost of safety.

STEO General Manager Janet Murray told The Leader that there will be allowances for a lack of sidewalks and other safety issues on roads. Murray was at South Dundas council May 27 to present an update on the changes.

“The hazard calculator looks at the walk route itself.,” Murray explained.

With areas like Iroquois having a roundabout with no sidewalks, and SDG Counties’ roads with highway speeds in some of the walking route areas, those hazards would be contemplated she said.

Given an example of students living on Stampville Road, where the route would require walking on County Road 16, over Highway 401, across the CN Rail crossing, on a road posted at 70 kilometres per hour, just to get to County Road 2, then west to school, Murray said it would not be a good walking path.

“STEO will do a hazard assessment. Typically we wouldn’t have children walking down that type of environment.”

The start of the 2026-27 school year will see a significant change for Upper Canada District School Board and Catholic District School Board of Eastern Ontario students using bus transportation. To fall in line with provincial transportation standards, the walking distance for students to schools increased. For Grades 1-8 students, that doubled to 1.6 kilometres. Grades 1-3 are hardest hit in that group as their walking distance doubled.

For Grades 9-12 students, their walking distance will increase to 3.2 km. Distances are measured via route calculators. For schools like Seaway District High School, much of the added route area falls outside of the settlement area for Iroquois.  Murray said local infrastructure, or safety concerns are being considered through its risk assessment process.

She explained that the company would identify hazards ahead of time, and families would not have to apply for an exception to those.

“The reason someone would could apply is if there is something we’re not aware of. We may go out and do something after the fact, but there are certain infrastructure details which are built right into the design.”

Without the risk management assessment, high school students living as far east as Saver Road, as far west as the Grant Quarry along County Road 2, and as far north as Stampville Road (County Road 41) would not qualify for bus transportation.

Murray continued that issues outside the Iroquois settlement boundary may already be identified.

“It may already be a hazard in the system anyways. It is just that the distance net will increase, so we’re talking Iroquois specific.”

Marc Gossett with STEO added, “Once you start getting out in the rural ends, we’re not going to make kids walk around an 80 kilometre highway.”

Gossett continued, “Where there’s a subdivision, every time we’re going to put collector stops.”

The changes to transportation comes after a funding formula change that was characterized by UCDSB trustees earlier in the year as penalizing efficiency and counterintuitive. Funding used to be allocated on a per-student basis by the province. Bus companies and consortia could find route efficiencies to place more students on a bus.

The Ministry of Education changed to a per bus route funding model, meaning that boards that maximized route planning now are penalized for being efficient. The UCDSB and CDSBEO also provided better than minimum standards for bus ride time and walking distances. Those were lowered to the inferior provincial standard.

Murray told council during her presentation that unlike past years when bus information was released to families in late August before the start of the next school year, this year that information will be released in early July.

Families will have the ability to request changes for safety issues that STEO officials may not already be aware of. That information and the request tools will be available on the company’s website at https://www.steo.ca/.