Rachael Morrison

36:36 Rachel Morrison: My name is Rachel Morrison and I'm here today as part of the bus 5834 care inquiry. We thank you for allowing us to present this deputation. Our request is a simple one, to reinstate the original bus route of 5834 in Kawoiba so it continues to service our primary and secondary aged school children. We request support and immediate action from the council to achieve this. There are a few points we would like to make. Last year the CDC bus route should service a number of rural residential areas. Sorry, rural residential streets, in this case Silver Drive, Illawarra Drive and Carries Way or Kawoiba. Our children, several of them primary school age, would walk a short distance from their home to a Hayland ride stop. In the morning the children would embark on the bus. The bus would undertake a reverse turn onto a cul-de-sac and then continue its journey. For the afternoon drop off the bus would undertake a reverse turn first, then the children would disembark and the bus would continue. This system has worked successfully and without any incidents for the last 10 years on these specific roads. It should also be noted that they are all mostly roads in 50k zones. As of January this year, the bus route 5834, serviced by the state funded and private company CDC, stopped servicing these roads.

37:56 The reason for this is TMR are no longer supporting reverse turns. The children of the previously serviced Carries Way and surrounding roads, CDC and TMR established a new Hayland ride in the T intersection of Carries Way and McKenna Drive. For the children of the previously serviced Silverwood Drive and surrounding roads, CDC and TMR use the existing bus stop on the intersection of McKenna Drive and Silverwood Drive. Not far from Central and Backwoods. Upon complaints from parents of the dangerous location of the Carries Way intersection Hayland ride, CDC and TMR deemed this route as a risk and took the stop away. So now Carries Way school students have to make their way to the bus stop at the intersection of McKenna Drive and Silverwood Drive, over 2km from their homes. Children who live in the Silverwood Drive area also have to use this bus stop on McKenna Drive. This bus stop has created many problems which I will now outline. The present pick up point is located in a 100km zone unapplied corner with no safety barrier in a high speed and incident slash crash zone, with no pathways or infrastructure aligning this T section of McKenna Drive or Silverwood Drive.

39:13 Residents will experience near miss crashes along McKenna Drive caused by sun glare, excessive speeding, near misses when pulling onto McKenna Drive, and driving down ditches to avoid speeding motorists. Many have not been reported to the police as drivers were forced to take evasive action. This road has a high volume of traffic because of an increased population and has a regular flow of logging and quarry transportation trucks. It's basically a mini highway from Comona, Coran, Kin Kin and Gympie. 15 school children can be waiting at this bus stop of a morning. That is 15 children waiting to be hit by a speeding truck or someone in a hurry who takes the platform too fast. As parents, our children having to wait in this area of a morning is a constant worry. Our only other option is to transport our children either to school or to the Tewantin State School interchange, adding to the already heavy traffic at this time. And this defeats the purpose of having a school bus. The bus stop has increased the risk of dangerous walking conditions for all school aged children by forcing them to walk on the road with no pavement, along blind corners, through vegetation ditches, with flooding dangers in harsh weather conditions, and navigate the Tewantin intersection section area to reach their school bus stop.

40:36 One primary school child has already twisted her ankle in this bus drop off area. Children as young as 7 are expected and may even have to walk between 1.3 and 2.2 metres. To catch the bus to school. For example, a child who is carried away is expected to walk over 2 kms along the ditch ridden area in a 100 k zone if their parents cannot take them. Then across the busy T intersection. Children who live in the vicinity of Silverwood Drive also have no pavement and have to navigate blind corners, speeding motorists and the incoming and outgoing vehicles turning across the T intersection at peak times. More child fatalities waiting to happen. The usage of the bus stop has further caused increased motorist drop off as parents now have to drive their children from Carriageway and the surrounds and Silverwood Drive and surrounds. This has created a higher density of traffic in the T intersection area of Silverwood Drive and McKinnon Drive. There is an increased volume of motorists who now have to turn around at the top of Silverwood Drive and dropping their children off at peak times with up to 6 cars navigating turns with limited child safety. Plus incoming traffic from McKinnon Drive and outgoing residential slash commercial traffic.

41:56 In the original route, parents did not use their cars. Their children could simply walk the short distance to their hail and ride stop. TMR deemed the existing hail and ride bus stop on McKinnon Drive as a safe stopping location. In a meeting last week we had with CDC representatives, they stated that the existing bus stop on McKinnon Drive is a safe stopping location. They said that this bus stop is safer than the previous hail and ride that they removed on the intersection on McKinnon and Carriageway, also in the 100 kt. However, a CDC bus driver stated that the present pick up point for children is more dangerous than the previous route that included the reverse turns of the Silverwood Drive and Carriageway. Just because there is an existing bus stop on McKinnon Drive does not equate to this being a safe pick up or drop off area. This was predominantly used as a senior bus stop.

42:52 Which many parents are still unhappy about and complain about. Now it is a bus stop for children over 6 years old. We have asked TMR to lower the speed limit and they have stated that a 100 kt speed limit is an appropriate speed limit in this area and no plans for a speed limit reduction. They stated they review this with Queensland Police and Noosa Council representatives to see if there are any plans for a speed limit reduction in this area. There has been no notable change in road, environment or crash history but locals will refute this. They have also stated there are no plans to update the bus stop nor provide appropriate signage. This decision to stop servicing Silverwood and Carriageway was made by TMR and CDC without any prior communication or consultation with residents or schools. A former principal in the area complained to myself and Sandy Bolton that the bus stop was a chaos that CDC calls every year with the disruption of their route changes. The removal of the original route has created a number of safety risks and dangers to these children. TMR and CDC have failed to provide and demonstrate secure alignments with minimal passenger impact. Nor have they provided a common sense risk approach to this route change instead exposing children and their parents to a number of now situational risks which did not exist previously.

44:16 We have had both Sandy, Bolton MP and Councillor Lorentson visit this site and they were in agreeance with our assessment of the situation. It should also be pointed out that the Good Shepherd bus service continues to conduct a reverse turn on Silverwood Drive. This is an independent bus company and not on the IT line. We as a parent group have initiated an open communication approach between TMR, CDC, TransLink, Noosa Council and Silverwood Drive. We have seen little action or progression. This has been an ongoing hot potato since January and every day our children are exposed to a much higher safety risk waiting in a 100km on a blind corner rather than being picked up by a bus within walking distance of their homes. Therefore, we need Noosa Council for support in action the reinstatement of the original route of 5834 that services Silverwood Drive and Carriageway. This is an ongoing hot potato since January and every day our children are exposed to a As soon as possible. A reverse turn has worked for the last 10 years with an impeccable safety record as opposed to the mayhem, danger and angst that is being created for our children and parents. The decision made by TMR and CBC is not a one size fits all. Exceptions have to be made when safely managing school aged children in rural residential areas. Options for this include a smaller bus that can accommodate only some children that require this service.

45:46 To provide a spotter on this service or use the buses that already have cameras for reverse turns. This is an acquired cul-de-sac, if I may add. Or a co-share with the Good Shepherd bus which was being discussed with Sandy Bolton and possibly Councillor Lorenton.

46:06 We must emphasise we want the reinstatement of the original bus route. We do not want our children to use the existing McKinnon Drive bus stop. CBC is a foreign owned company with shareholder interests at stake. This is a state funded service using tax payers money. They have taken it upon themselves as a cost paying measure to be blaming this on a safety issue. Instead of continuing with the minimal risk of the original route, TMR and CBC are now exposing our children to an array of risks with a much higher likelihood of accidents happening and potential multiple fatalities. We invite all of you to the intersection of McKinnon Drive and Silverwood Drive at 7.35am and 3.45am on a school day to witness these risks. Finally, this is about providing a safe, hale and wide service for our primary and secondary risk students within the vicinity of their home. CBC and TMR are not delivering this and are in breach of their own safety and community guidelines. This is about what suits them, not the best interests of our children. They are not delivering the services they need to the best interests of the community. And how far will they go? Will they stop servicing rural and residential areas altogether and parents are then forced to add to increase traffic volumes in Noosa?

47:23 We are not asking for anything new and we know this can be solved. Term 4 starts on the 30th September and we are asking for support and immediate action for the reinstatement of the bus route to the already happening Kami safety record. Thank you and this is our next representative.

47:46 Speaker 11: I just wanted to bring up about some of the statements at KMR saying that there hasn't been any accidents along the Kern Drive. There's been quite a few. I've lived out there for quite a long time now. One load was airlifted right out in front of the rural fire station there. It was the corner of 12 Font Road. There's been an accident there. There's been an help loader that pulled out of there with his dad who got hit. There was a local mechanic controlling his car out there. He just stopped sitting here by the court. There was another accident right out in front of Coral Found as well. And it just comes back to... People driving far too fast out there.

48:47 And nothing seems to be done about it. We've made so many calls to police and main roads. They just keep shrugging it off basically.

49:02 Just to have our kids there for how long in that ditch all the way up to the bus stops. It's just not good enough. It's not safe. Some of the kids are on the spectrum as well. They can't control themselves at the best of times and can't drop them. They have to walk all the way up there and stay off the road.

49:23 All around it's just a danger really.

49:26 Speaker 6: I'm Deanne and I live in Carridge Way. And there is no infrastructure on the side of the road. My son's 15 and he's more than capable to run 20 kms. He's really into his sport. But I just won't even let him walk 2 kms to the bus stop because there's a skinny verge on the side of the highway and people are just flying along there at 100 kms. So I'm trying to work. My husband works FIFO. If I can't get my son to the bus twice a day, how can I hold down the job that I have to drive to the bus 2 kms when it used to come down our road? So quiet cul-de-sac, immerse, pick the kids up and go out again. And the alternative of picking them up on the highway was even more dangerous. That was one of my questions to CMR last week, I don't know, to the CDC. It was, don't you balance those risks and check, you know, isn't this risk lower than that one? And it was just a flat out, we're not reinstating reverse turns. The risk of them going on that highway is far greater than turning a bus in a little quiet cul-de-sac.

50:33 Speaker 8: Thank you.