ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. — Parents in one St. Johns County subdivision are pleading with the school district to reconsider its decision to end school bus services in parts of the neighborhood. They say a crash Tuesday morning exemplified why a sidewalk to the school is not a safe alternative.
“We knew something like this would happen,” Amanda Lane, who lives in the St. Johns Forest subdivision and has two young children who attend Liberty Pines Academy, said.
First Coast News first reported on the decision to end the bus route from the subdivision to the school in June. A school district representative said currently, the buses are still running, but they are slated to stop in January.
At issue is a sidewalk, constructed as part of the 9B project, that puts parts of the subdivision within the two-mile radius of the school. But parents say the sidewalk isn’t safe for their young children.
“There are so many cars coming by and they’re going so fast because the on-ramp is right there,” Lane said, pointing to the ramp to 9B from St. Johns Parkway. A crash Tuesday morning left a car overturned on its side in the middle of the sidewalk.
“There’s no guardrails, there’s nothing,” Lane said. “I mean, what’s stopping a car from doing that.”
First Coast News asked a St. Johns County School District representative whether they would reconsider ending the bus route or put up preventative barriers, like guardrails, but the representative declined to comment citing pending litigation.
In the meantime, Lane said parents are scrambling to find alternative ways to get their children to school.
“I just hope that this [crash] doesn’t happen again,” Lane said. “But unfortunately, it probably will.”