Local school district announces new bus routes

MARQUETTE–With a decline in students riding their school buses, Marquette Area Public Schools is making some changes to busing services for middle and high school students.

With buses operating at less than 50% capacity on most routes, the school district is reducing the number of stops buses will make within subdivisions and neighborhoods. The district plans to make fewer stops and pickup more students while covering the same geographical area.

“The geography is pretty much the same there are some roads that we won’t necessarily travel down now that we did before that parents might have to drive down to an intersection,”auxiliary services director John Kurkowski said. “But nobody has a long vicinity of walk time. It’s a difficult kind of puzzle to put together when you’re trying to cover the same geography with fewer buses.”

For kindergarten and elementary school students, the transportation plans for the upcoming school year are essentially unchanged. The new school year at MAPS starts September 5th.