ACTION will send more buses through the parliamentary triangle, but cut the number of school services, in its new 2014 network.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Minister for Territory Services Shane Rattenbury said the new network, which will begin on September 1, would offer an alternative for those faced with paid parking.
The ACT government has used travel information from MyWay tickets to cut services it says are poorly used and added more direct and frequent route services under a new system dubbed "Network 14".
"The increase provides a boon as paid parking comes in for people who work in the triangle, and that will be more than 1000 services a day which includes Commonwealth Avenue," Mr Rattenbury said.
The network changes also include a new Gungahlin to Belconnen direct service, a Gungahlin to city direct service and increased services to Brindabella and Majura business parks and between Weston Creek and the city.
Services from Woden and Gungahlin, which used to terminate in Civic, will now finish at the parliamentary triangle.
But some schools and parents will lose out in the move which has cut the 300 dedicated school services down to 240.
For 17 of these dedicated school service cuts, parents have been told their children should join the route service to a bus station and then join another school run to get more bums on seats.
Esther Cleaver's children, aged 6, 7, 8 and 12, will have to catch the route bus from Dickson, changing buses in Civic to the school bus for the rest of the journey.
"I can't see myself feeling okay about them navigating the Civic bus interchange on their own. I don't let them wander around anywhere all by themselves, and I certainly don't think that Civic is the place to begin doing so," Ms Cleaver said.
Single parent Felicity Grant, whose eight-year-old daughter uses the same school bus service to the inner north, said allowing her child to walk through the Civic interchange alone was "unimaginable".
"This is not a solution, far less than an option that any responsible parent would begin to entertain," Ms Grant said.
She said she would instead opt to pick her daughter up from school, which would impede on her work life and finances.
At least 100 students and parents at Orana Steiner School in Weston have signed a petition against the changes which will affect students living in Belconnen and the inner north.
Mr Rattenbury said he was aware of the petition and met with TAMS to discuss the matter on Monday.
Each school was individually informed of how the changes will affect their students on August 4 and eight new school services were also created in the process.
ACTION is also planning to deploy transit officers to staff bus interchanges and look out for students, which will be reviewed after a month.
The launch of the new network comes about the same time as an online live tracking system called NXTBUS, which allows commuters to track buses online. Mr Rattenbury said the service still had "glitches" that he was looking into.