District assesses its transportation system

Haldane's school buses are usually less than a third full.

And when they're dropping off or picking up students at the school, they're part of an "alarming" traffic pattern, "where you have a lot of students intermingling with buses and buses intermingling with cars."

So said Paul Overbaugh, a consultant hired by the district to review its student transportation. Overbaugh works for On the Bus Transportation Planning Service, created in 2023 by the Franklin-Essex-Hamilton BOCES in Malone. He presented his findings at the Tuesday (Jan. 6) board meeting.

Overbaugh said he found that Haldane buses were never more than 38 percent full and often had far fewer students. He cited one elementary route that averaged only 13 passengers on a 65-passenger bus. The district should aim to fill 70 percent of the seats by consolidating routes or using smaller buses, he said.

Eliminating a large-bus route could save $47,000 a year on fuel and maintenance, he said. The district owns 18 buses, ranging in capacity from five to 65 passengers.

Superintendent Gail Duffy said that Haldane hopes to increase ridership, which is "lower than we'd like." She said the district plans to evaluate its routes and encourage families to use the buses.

Overbaugh recommended that the district formalize its policy around which students live within "walking distance" and are ineligible for bus service. He said the district has 217 students in the "walk zone," which is a half mile for kindergarten through fifth grade and a mile for grades six to 12. Formalizing the policy would require voter approval.

He also discussed traffic patterns on campus. "If you have parent drop-offs in the morning, they should be separated from the bus traffic," he said, noting some 200 vehicles drop students off every morning.

Overbaugh recommended a pattern that is already included in a $28.4 million capital project approved by voters in 2024. Under that plan, buses would enter campus from Route 9D on Craigside Drive, while parent and student vehicles would enter on Cedar Street from Route 301/Main Street.

District officials experimented with the same pattern in the fall of 2018 after discussions with the Cold Spring police and fire departments about cars parked in the circle at the center of campus, which has a fire lane. School officials said at the time that in two cases when the fire department was called to the school during the morning rush, first responders were slowed by vehicle and bus traffic.

Duffy said that the district plans to test the pattern beginning in April. She said traffic "gets congested" during pickup and drop-off, and "parents are in a rush and so sometimes they are maybe not following the speed limit." Students are good about using crosswalks, she said. "It's not a free-for-all, but we could absolutely tighten it up."

Julia Sniffen, the high school principal, said one issue is the presence of vehicles near the Mabel Merritt building, where some classes are held. "You hold your breath when you see the high school kids pull in [to reach parking behind the building], the buses come down and the high school kids trying to cross, all at the same time," she said.

The capital project is expected to reduce pedestrian traffic by eliminating classes at Mabel Merritt and upgrading sidewalks and crosswalks. Construction, which includes a major addition to the high school, is expected to begin later this year.