She said students were being injured every day, describing one instance where a friend of hers was knocked forward by a sudden stop, hitting her head on a pole.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom that she started kind of bleeding from the back of her head quite severely,\u201d she said. \u201cEverybody was kind of freaking out.\u201d<\/p>\n
While she said the accident couldn\u2019t have been avoided, she believes it would have been less severe if the bus occupants hadn\u2019t all been standing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was someone who injured her knees as well and there\u2019s a couple of other people who fell over but they didn\u2019t need as much help.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut no matter how like big or small they are, they were kind of all caused by the issue of the overcrowding.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said despite raising the issue multiple times with Auckland Transport, no \u201creal solution\u201d has been offered.<\/p>\n
The student alleges the bus is usually reaching full capacity, resulting in frequent injuries among the high schoolers.<\/p>\n
She claimed the transport agency advised her that an alternative was to train into the city and change to a bus, despite some of the students being as young as 6. <\/p>\n
Auckland Transport told the Herald it acknowledged concerns about the current service but maintained the 064 only reaches full capacity \u201coccasionally\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn additional trip on this route would be expensive, especially for such a long journey that is available only to a limited customer base.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bus is currently operated on the largest single-decker bus available, with a double-decker bus only available once the 25km route is cleared of obstructions like power poles or trees on private properties.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe expectation is this will cost several hundred thousand dollars and require ongoing maintenance. This cost cannot be justified for the running of two trips a day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Auckland Transport said the bus operator has been referred to its \u201ccertificate of loading\u201d to ensure the number of passengers on board is legally compliant.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn addition, we have been in contact with the school that has raised the issue with us and asked them to proactively assist in the boardings of the bus in the afternoons.\u201d<\/p>\n
The student\u2019s mother said that one of the schools was considering a private bus after receiving numerous complaints about the issue.<\/p>\n
But the bus would cost $18 a day, compared with the current fare of $7, significantly increasing the daily cost for families.<\/p>\n
The student says the high schoolers have taken to sitting on the floor of the crammed bus.<\/p>\n
St Cuthbert\u2019s College head of senior school Tom Curtis said the school had raised the issue with Auckland Transport after receiving a student complaint weeks ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe take concerns raised by our students seriously, and we escalated this to Auckland Transport as a safety matter. We requested that either a larger bus was put onto the route, or a second bus.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, Auckland Transport responded in May saying that it was in effect not feasible.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the school would continue working with families as they scope out demand for a private bus.<\/p>\n
Diocesan School said the college had also \u201cconsistently\u201d raised concerns with the agency about overcrowding and capacity.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have worked constructively with Auckland Transport by sharing parent feedback, providing student demand information and advocating for increased capacity and other potential solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"She said students were being injured every day, describing one instance where a friend of hers was knocked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519537,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1443,23545,51,682,30482,118173,257713,30701,5981,26221,42,37441,10933,104,76,43,90,189504,9346,10056,1560,312,4062,6505,46606,3767,40,38,41,39,112],"class_list":["post-519536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-about","tag-accusing","tag-auckland","tag-being","tag-bus","tag-buses","tag-chronically","tag-complaints","tag-daily","tag-epsom","tag-headlines","tag-ignoring","tag-injured","tag-injuries","tag-issue","tag-news","tag-on","tag-overcrowded","tag-packed","tag-repeated","tag-report","tag-says","tag-school","tag-schoolgirl","tag-severely","tag-students","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-transport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}