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Bus consortium needs to overhaul its policies: Angry mom

'Any system can be improved, always. Change is always a good thing.'
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Stephanie Pelletier is frustrated with the mounting bus-related issues. File photo.

I'm want to make everyone aware that the bus consortium has refused to add my son to already pre-existing pick-up location. 

He did not take the bus last year, and I am due to have a baby any day. They are forcing me to find him alternate transportation for the first two weeks of school. 

I know that there was advertisement, but I was not aware until today. They sent a letter in the mail in June. Feels like ages ago when you work full time, have two kids and are expecting another any day. 

They are not willing to add him to an already pre-existing bus stop. I don't think they should be allowed to refuse transportation. It's not fair to us already busy parents that deal with enough on a daily basis.

We are only human and make mistakes.

I'm a hard-working dedicated mother and was not even a day late. Crying while I write this, because I am stretched thin, and they just pushed me past my breaking point.

This is the second time they refused to help me with bus-related issues.

Three years ago, I had just had my second child by C-section, and my first was too young to go to the bus stop alone. I had to pack up my my new born two weeks after surgery and walk him to the bus stop every morning, and again at pick-up time, all because they refused to make a stop on the street they drove on, driving right past my house anyways. 

"If they make an exception for me, they are expected to make one for everyone," is what they said to me twice now. 

For example, they would expect a single mother in a wheelchair to take her child to a bus stop they chose two streets down all winter because "they can't make exceptions."

Make one extra stop at her door step so she can send him out every day stress free. Your driving right by anyways. 

This makes absolutely no sense to me, and it's heartless. Straight out of surgery, I could hardly stand up, let alone dress two kids and haul them down the street.

They are making me do this again. This time I have to pack up three kids and drive 10 minutes there and back, twice daily, because they refuse to type his name into the system? That is just completely wrong and cruel in my opinion.

I hope that other parents come forward with situations like this. 

They should hire extra help to check and double/triple check that everything is right before school starts instead of refusing children transportation. 

They are stuck in the mentality that this is the way it is, and has been, so that's the only way it'll work. 

News flash: Any system can be improved, always. Change is always a good thing. This is 100 per cent not the best way of running their business. But they can get away with it because we have no other choice.

Taking full advantage of that fact. 

It causes them a lot of stress having to deal with upset mothers and fathers, and, in turn, it isn't fair to the poor workers at the bus consortium either.

Stephanie Pelletier
Onaping