The New Westminster school board is adding its voice to the call to save public transit.
Trustees voted at their operations committee meeting May 12 to write to the provincial and federal governments to advocate for TransLink to receive enhanced funding in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trustee Dee Beattie, who brought the motion to the table, noted some emergency relief funding has now been offered by the province. But she said the crisis isn’t over for TransLink and that stable funding still needs to be there in the future.
Beattie said the transit system has a significant impact in the New Westminster school district.
“We have students in Queensborough that already have limited service to get to the high school. I’m concerned that any changes in services can really impact our vulnerable students and our students that have challenges getting to school already,” she said. “I think that this is a really important initiative. We need to make sure our transit is there and ready in September.”
Trustee Anita Ansari agreed it’s an important concern for the school district.
“We are a unique district in that our geography really puts a bridge between us and some of our students that is not walkable,” she pointed out. “TransLink is a vital part of the way we bring students into our high school, and I think to show TransLink and the provincial and federal governments our support is really necessary, because we don’t have a high school in Queensborough. There is no other option we can provide those students within our district without having this system work as well as it used to before we were hit by the pandemic.”
Parent Andrew Kroll, who works for TransLink, spoke up in support of the resolution. He told trustees he has a daughter at New Westminster Secondary School and another at Glenbrook Middle School, and they both rely on the bus to get to school.
“If TransLink doesn’t get the funding, we don’t know what kind of state it will be in in the coming months,” he said. “We don’t yet know what the funding from the province looks like or for how long it will be.”
Kroll told trustees that TransLink had been able to avert 1,500 layoffs thanks to the province’s emergency funding announcement, but he said stability is still needed.
“If the transit system shuts down, it’s not something that can just start up overnight,” he said.
Ansari agreed transit is critical for helping to get New West students to the centralized locations where the high school and middle schools sit.
“I really hope that we can save transit to being as good as it was, after the state of crisis has passed us,” she said.
