Angry parents are promising the Bay of Plenty Regional Council a fight over plans to remove the school buses next July and instead place students on the commuter Hopper buses.

A mother of Tauranga Intermediate pupils says instead of her children embarking and disembarking from school buses at the school grounds, they will instead have to walk about a kilometre to school from 15th Ave. To catch a bus home they will have to first cross 15th Ave.

Another parent points to Cameron Rd becoming much more hazardous, with drivers facing the prospect of navigating through crowds of college pupils crossing Cameron Rd twice a day.

Tauranga Intermediate's senior administrator Mike Bibby says the school will be making a submission on the proposal, but at the moment it is the parents who are venting their spleen.

'We're caught in the middle. We believe what we have got going is good and we don't see any reason for change,” says Mike.

'What we have tried to do in the first instance is just get everyone the opportunity to exercise their democratic right. It's not really only for the school to be saying what's going on, its parents. And that's what we are getting at the moment. In a sense we're just the agents here to meet their needs.”

The regional council is proposing to cut the number of school bus services in the city from 45 to 11 by moving students onto the Bay Hopper network and adding additional urban network buses to provide peak capacity.

Mount Maunganui College deputy principal Ady Van der Beek is urging parents to engage in the feedback process.

The college is looking at the prospect of hundreds of its students being dropped off on Maunganui Rd and having to cross two lanes of traffic to get to the college.

'We're somewhat stunned to see the proposed exit point in the morning is across the road for our students,” says Ady.

'We are going to have students navigating Maunganui Rd, I believe in conflict with an increasing amount of traffic, because if this system comes in, more parents are going to decide to drive their kids to school.

'At a time when we are going to have more traffic on the road we are going to have people trying to navigate two lanes of traffic bumper to bumper. Frustrations will arise. There's a huge potential for injury.”

Car parking on the railway side of Maunganui Rd was removed and a ‘no stopping' zone introduced some years ago after a fatality outside the college.

'And now they are proposing to put in a bus bay, it's ludicrous,” says Ady.

Feedback on the proposed changes to the school bus services can be submitted online at www.drivechange.co.nz until 5pm, June 6.

There's a possibility the current plan is to also drop off Mount Maunganui Intermediate students opposite the college, meaning they will have to cross both Maunganui Road and Golf Road on their way to school. There are no pedestrian crossings on Maunganui road outside the college. There is a pedestrian crossing in Golf Road, but it is past Links Ave, about half way to Waitui Grove.

The city loop idea has some merit, but the proposed Farm Street interchange needs another look, says Ady.

'We believe that there needs to be some amendments made for the ease and safety of students' movements to school.”

He says there will be times when students changing buses will need to shelter from the weather, and asks how that is to be provided. The college is also concerned about their proximity to the ‘real lure' of Bayfair.

'It's in the community's interest to have all students at school and not have absenteeism rife,” says Ady. 'The more difficult it is, the more steps involved, particularly next to Bayfair - I can see concerns for families and for the school that our attendance rates might be negatively impacted upon.

'Just get that bus moving straight on through and bring them into school.”

A ‘school train' of about three buses that just takes the students straight to school past the interchange, and then carry on

I think with some small tweaking that there are a few designated buses over a period of half an hour that don't do the interchange – they just come straight on through.

Let the loop run normally but that the buses between 8am and 8.30am - but they might need to put a couple more buses on.

'If they are looking at running a bus every 15 minutes – students are no different from their parents. They are expedient in their choices. They all assume there is a seat for them on the last bus coming through,” says Ady.

'To expect student act differently from what adults do, everyone is being very optimistic.

'Once a bus is full we don't want to see it driving past students who are standing on the road, but if we know there's a train at a designated time that doesn't go to the interchange, it goes straight to school and then carries on in the normal loop system.

'That helps the public. The kids are all gone, the loop system can still sit there, and it drops them off in the bus bay.

'I think some creative thinking will resolve the issues. This is just from Mount Maunganui College. Other schools will have their own concerns. I do accept that this is draft plan No 1 and I would encourage the families whose children use the bus service to look closely at this.”