Vineland parents appeal for bus stop relocation

VINELAND – Parents, concerned for their children’s safety, are urging school district officials to relocate the bus stop near the Brewster and Oak roads intersection that they say is loosely controlled by four-way stop signs.

“The first day of school was horrible,” Diamond Diffenderfer, mother of a Petway Elementary School second-grader, told The Daily Journal at the bus stop site on Monday.

Diffenderfer recounted how the bus stopped on Brewster Road, adjacent to the Martine’s Countryside Florist property, to pick up children and was nearly rear-ended by a vehicle making a right-turn from Oak Road.

To help control costs and offer transportation to as many students as possible, the school district has moved toward regional bus stops. 

“We are eager to continue working with the impacted families to see if they can agree to a suitable alternative site for this bus stop,” Joseph Callavini, the registration-transportation coordinator said an email response to The Daily Journal. “In my experience, the most important and challenging aspect of addressing these types of concerns is arriving at a compromise that the majority of the parents and the district find workable."

Parents said they understand they will no longer get front-door service as was offered in the past, but they do want their children’s bus stop to be in a safe location.

They are suggesting moving the bus stop farther east on Oak Road, away from the intersection.

“We've been calling and trying to talk to the supervisors,” Diffenderfer said. “No one wants to return our calls.”

Parents requested district officials visit the bus stop when students are there to see it first-hand.

“This is not safe,” Diffenderfer said.

“We appreciate the frustration parents feel when the tremendous volume of late August and early September phone calls causes delays in response time,” Callavini said in an email to The Daily Journal. “In this year of significant redistricting, our families have faced many challenges and we all realize that change is never easy.”

Faatima Basir-Bey drives to the corner to pick her granddaughter, a Petway kindergartner, and pointed out there is no sidewalk at the busy intersection.

There’s also no road shoulder for parents to park to wait for the bus.

When the bus does pull up and stop, drivers seem to think it’s an inconvenience, she said.

“They are blowing their horns,” Basir-Bey said.

Orlando Martinez, picking up his fifth-grade daughter, is also concerned about the four-way stops.

“Cars blow through the intersection, everyone is in hurry, people are trying to get to work,” he said.

“The intersection should have a traffic light,” Martinez said, noting it should not have a bus stop.

Relocating the bus stop away from the intersection would reduce the risk of the bus being rear-ended, parents said, adding students would be safer getting on and off the bus in less traffic.

Deborah M. Marko; dmarko@gannettnj.com; 856-563-5256; Twitter: @dmarko_dj

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