All YK school bus routes return Thursday (even the cancelled ones)

The company responsible for Yellowknife’s school bus routes says all of them will start on Thursday this week, including routes cancelled over the past academic year because of staff shortages.

Transdev’s Yellowknife general manager, Nancy Marchiori, told Cabin Radio last year’s bus passes will be valid “for the next couple of weeks, until we can clear up the backlog of applications.”

Marchiori said that means “new riders, kindergarten and Grade 1 will not be able to use the school bus service until we have up-to-date passes with current contact information and consent forms.”

“We are working as quickly as possible to complete all registrations in the next few weeks,” Marchiori wrote.

You can apply online for school bus passes but the company says there are no drop-in appointments available while staff work through the application backlog.

“We expect that the startup will cause a bit of confusion,” YK1 school district superintendent Jameel Aziz told parents in a letter on Tuesday.

“We thank you for being patient with us and the system while we work to get things sorted over the next few weeks.”

Schools restart on Thursday this week, with most staff recalled on Monday following the city’s three-week evacuation.

The ability to reopen all bus routes marks a significant shift in the past two months.

In July, school districts told Yellowknife parents only eight bus drivers were expected to be available for the city’s 13 school bus routes.

In January this year, First Transit – which was subsequently taken over by Transdev – shut down three school bus routes in Yellowknife for want of drivers.

After merging one of those routes with an existing route, First Transit announced another route was shutting down the following month, again citing staff shortages.

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