At the moment, students from Sydney Boys High School (SBHS) and Sydney Girls High School (SGHS) are not allowed to catch buses other than their school bus, the 610, and the M50, a bus that stops at their school. Many students at Sydney High School (SHS) need to catch a bus, before school buses begin to run, to make it to their before-school co-curricular activities on time. We are not able to walk to school, as that takes a large amount of time, as well as the fact that students may be carrying heavy items. For example, a student may be playing a tuba in the school band, and is, therefore, unable to walk. The 610 service, their school bus, starts running at 8:00, at Central Station, and comes every five minutes until 8:45. The M50 starts at 6:57, coming every 10 minutes. The 610 takes around 12 minutes to get to school, while the M50 service takes around 9 minutes to arrive at school. So, the only option for boys doing co-curricular activities in the mornings is to catch the M50. This is a problem because the standing/seating limit on most buses is 80 people. The number of students doing band is 160. The number of students with classes before school is 328. The number of students with before-school training is approximately 496 - half of the boys at our school doing competitive sport. The number of students with music tuition is approximately 30. There are also approximately 25 students doing chess in the morning. The students playing in the band, the students with before-school training, the students doing chess, as well as music tuition have 3 morning sessions every 3 weeks. The students in classes before school have approximately 7 sessions every 3 weeks. Boys in the strength and conditioning program have the ability to attend in the mornings, before-school, rather than after school. However, we were not able to find out statistics on that. This all comes to a total of 3007 morning sessions every 3 weeks. The number of people allowed on the M50 on the 3 buses between 6:57 and 7:30 are 240. This totals to 3600 people every 3 weeks. This may seem fine, but that is not only the absolute maximum of people on buses, and the public has to catch these buses. Through observation, there is usually at least 30 members of the public catching the M50. This brings the bus space available for students to 50 people. This brings the total available bus spots for students for 3 weeks to 2250. This is a whopping 1350 less than the number of students able to catch the bus. This makes the bus lines congested, making it hard for the public to make their way through, and causes many Sydney Boys Students late to their co-curricular activity. This hinders many students' development, both physically and mentally, as it limits the amount of time they spend there. This is why students should be able to catch buses that aren't the M50. "Golly gosh, this is terrible! Too frequently do I have students arriving very late for my morning Greek classes due to them not being able to catch a bus to school." - Mr. Drivas, a teacher at Sydney Boys High School So, what's the solution? There are many other buses departing from the place, also reaching the school, and are also somewhat empty. Examples of these include the 372, the 373, the 392, and the 393. Not only is it discrimination to not allow some people onto a bus but allow others, but letting us onto these buses may help solve this issue. This would fill up the other buses that go to our school, allowing students to reach school in time for their co-curricular activities, but it would also allow all of the public that need to catch the M50 bus service to get on indefinitely. This would also help stop congestion at the bus stop - a common complaint given to the school. Although there is also public that need to get to places, we do too. Because there is space on these services, we should be able to fill these spaces up, while allowing people who need to catch the M50 space to do so. We acknowledge that this may potentially overfill the other buses, but because of the number of the buses, as well as the fact that some have a reasonable amount of room, this should balance the situation. Another solution to this issue is to get more buses running in the morning. This would either be more M50 buses or earlier running 610 services. The benefits of extra M50 services would be to get more students on buses to school, as well as guaranteeing that the public also catching the M50 service. This would also take people out of the bus lines, preventing overcrowding. Earlier running 610 services could be introduced. These could be long buses to maximize efficiency. This could be a service That runs at 7:00, 7:15, then 7:30. This would take most students away from Elizabeth Street, preventing overcrowding. This would also allow the public catching the M50 to do so.
What can you do about this? Well, we have a petition. If you look at the top right of the web page, there will be a petition. There will be a link on that page redirecting you to a petition. Please sign it to ensure safe and fast travel for school students. We will write to Andrew Constance regarding this issue.
If you want to make sure this happens, there will be a "Posters" page in the top-right corner as well. If you can print them, and stick them around your local area, that would inform more people, getting more signatures, increasing the likeliness that this will change.