After 55 years busing students, Hamilton Bus Lines loses contract for local school routes

A company that has served Peterborough area schools for more than 50 years has lost its bid to continue operating school bus routes in the region.

Hamilton Bus Lines was beat out by three other bus companies in a competitive bidding process conducted by Student Transportation Services of Central Ontario (STSCO), the consortium responsible for planning bus routes for area school boards.

“This is a huge blow to our company that has been servicing our community and STSCO for 55+ years,” Dana Heard, operations manager for Hamilton Bus Lines, wrote by email. The company, which is owned by Burlington-based Attridge Transportation Inc., lost all of its 87 school bus routes, she wrote.

Ray Nadon, a driver with the company, said he got the news on the last school day before summer break.

“Before we did our last run, we’re finding out that we have no jobs,” he said.

“The summer is going to be a little bit tight. And we’re trying to figure out what we’re going to do in September,” said Nadon, whose route served Peterborough’s Westmount Public School.

Nadon and his wife Wendy were among a group of Hamilton Bus Lines employees who gathered outside the Peterborough Memorial Centre last Wednesday to discuss their next steps and speak to reporters.

Wendy Nadon worked as a bus monitor for Hamilton Bus Lines. It was her job to care for a Westmount Public School student with a disability while he rode the bus.

“I feel sorry for the child that I was dealing with, because he got so close to me,” she said. “So now he’s going to get someone new, and it’s just going to freak him right out.”

Yvonne Prouty, another school bus monitor, said she is also concerned about the impact of switching bus companies on the students she supervised, who all have complex needs.

“It takes time to get to know these children and look after them properly. And without the extra care they may be just misplaced in society,” she said.

Hamilton Bus Lines’ routes were divvied up between “two existing local companies” and GTA-based Wheelchair Accessible Transportation (WAT), according to STSCO CAO Roy Wierenga.

WAT currently provides busing for a number of school boards in the GTA and other parts of southern Ontario, according to its website.

Prouty said she intends to apply for a job with WAT so she can continue to work on the same bus route next school year.

”I am going to try to get on the same bus so that I can be there for my kids. When they come onto the bus they are my kids until they leave the bus and I’m concerned about their care,” she said.

But Julie Chatten, who has been with Hamilton Bus Lines for 10 years, said she doesn’t want to work for another bus company.

“Maybe it sounds cliche to say but we are honestly like a big family,” she said. “I feel devastated for the company… just to have everything gone in one fell swoop, it really, really hurts.”

“This seems very, very unfair,” she said.

Wendy Hargreaves, who has worked for Hamilton Bus Lines for 18 years, said the decision was a “gut punch.” She said she thinks STSCO has “disregarded” the needs of students.

“We don’t shuffle kids around. We don’t just change the course of their day to suit the adults. These kids are in need of continuity,” she said.

“[We’ve known] some of these students from when they were two years old, standing in their driveways, waving goodbye to their siblings. And then we’ve seen these kids come onto our bus in kindergarten and go all the way through to grade 12,” she said.

She said she thinks the decision not to award any routes to Hamilton Bus Lines was about saving money for local school boards.

“Our community children, their value was given to the lowest bidder,” she said.

Wierenga did not explain what about Hamilton Bus Lines’ bid made it unsuccessful. But he said cost was only one factor in awarding busing contracts.

“While price is a factor in the evaluations, it made up less than half of the overall scoring,” he wrote.

He said an open tendering process is a requirement for any “high-value public sector” contract. “This type of bidding process is now a standard practice across Ontario for school bus transportation services,” he wrote.

“Hamilton Bus Lines has served our [school] boards for many years with excellent service, and we recognize and appreciate the significant impact this has had on drivers with Hamilton Bus Lines,” he stated.

He encouraged local bus drivers to apply for positions with the bus operators that were awarded busing contracts.

“We want to reassure families that your children’s bus routes will continue to be operated by drivers that have been hired locally and are part of our communities,” he stated.

Meanwhile, Hamilton Bus Lines is now seeking out other business opportunities and will continue to operate, according to Heard. She wrote that the company still has private contracts and plans to expand its charter bus business.

“We will continue to build on a strong foundation. We have great employees, amazing drivers and an updated fleet of buses. We will go after new business and continue to be here for our community partners,” she wrote.