School Bus Service: What Parents Need to Know

We want to help you understand how our bus system works and why we can’t approve every stop request.

About Our Bus Service: Every school day, our buses travel across the Comox Valley, from Oyster Bay to Fanny Bay, and out to Hornby and Denman Islands. While schools aren’t required to provide busing, we’re proud to offer this free service to our families. We’re always looking for ways to make it better.

Quick Facts:

• Our 33 bus routes with more than 700 bus stops help ~2600 registered riders get to and from school safely each day.
• Our buses cover an impressive 3,800 km daily. That’s about the distance from here to Toronto!
• Most students spend less than 50 minutes on the bus. Some of our most distant riders might travel up to 129 minutes.
• One in every four SD71 students takes the bus to school.

Why We Can’t Stop Everywhere: Think of each bus route as a carefully planned chain. Adding just one extra stop affects everyone on board. Since our buses usually do multiple runs for different schools, a single new stop can make dozens of students late for class and increase fuel costs.

Walking Distance Rules:

• Elementary students (K-7): If you live within 1.6 km of school, you’ll need to consider active travel commuting ideas, like walking or wheeling to school.
• High school students (8-12): Walking distance is 4.0 km.

How We Plan Routes: Our goal is to keep bus rides under an hour. Some students who live far from school might have longer rides. We choose central pickup spots that work for groups of students to help everyone get to school on time. For safety reasons, younger children have bus stops closer to their homes. Most stops are on main roads where buses can safely pull over. Operating bus routes with minimum three-quarters full passenger loads provides effective and efficient bus service across our large geographic region.

Two Types of Bus Riders:

• Regular Riders: Students who live in their school catchment area beyond the walk limits.
• Courtesy Riders: Students who live closer to their catchment school, attend a school out of their catchment or request ridership for childcare reasons. New stops will not be added for courtesy riders; they are responsible for getting safely to the closest available stop. Check our Rider Infographic for more details.