Parents and transportation advocates are fuming as hundreds of students on Staten Island are being left stranded during the school week as they wait for MTA buses that, they say, are either painfully late or do not arrive at all.
Students are stuck waiting up to two hours for MTA buses to pick them up in the morning for designated “school trips,” according to Staten Island parents and community leaders. School trips are bus routes made for middle and high schools to ensure students get to school on time and have a way home outside of regular local bus service.
Students are missing classes
NYC is only about two weeks into the public school year, but parents say they are already fed up with the lack of bus service, which was happening at times last year.
Adrienne Pappalardo-Arroyo’s daughter attends Wagner High School in the borough’s Mid-Island section. On many mornings, the young student waits up to two hours for a bus, often causing her to miss her first-period class.
“In the mornings, she waits an hour or more, but there have been days when she has had to wait up to two hours,” Pappalardo-Arroyo said, adding that she will sometimes have no choice but to walk home and miss school.
Her daughter is typically late four out of five days a week. Sometimes, she will give up lunchtime to sit in on other classes to make up for what she missed in the morning.
“The school does nothing, and we tried to get her schedule changed because she was failing math last year due to her never being there,” the concerned mother said.
Dawn DiGiovanni’s son is also a Wagner High School student. After continuous days of no-show buses, she now drives her son to school.
“I need to make sure he is present for all his classes,” she said. “I can’t have him be late every day and missing classes that cause him to fail.”
Officials at the MTA said they are aware of the problem and working on fixing it.
“We have been notified of concerns parents have raised regarding bus service to schools, and we have directed staff to review and take
measures to manage this closer,” Frank Annicaro, New York City Transit senior vice president of buses, said.
MTA has ‘an obligation’ to meet service needs
Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella, who has been vocal about combatting the borough’s dysfunctional bus service, said many buses are in disrepair. Simply put, he said the mechanical work to fix them has not been done.
“Our view is: Pay the people to do it, get more people to do it,” he said. “You can’t just say ‘sorry.‘”
According to data from Fossella’s office, from Sept. 2-6, of the approximately 796 buses needed daily, more than 300 were out of service and did not leave the borough’s four MTA bus garages.
“Now that school is opening and we have all these buses out of service, it’s going to get even worse,” he said.
On Sept. 12, Wagner High School was scheduled to have 21 buses pick up students at the school, but only seven showed up.
Wagner is hardly the only public school in Staten Island with bus service issues. Tottenville High School, the largest high school in the borough with approximately 4,000 students, does not have reliable bus service, either.
“The MTA has an obligation to meet these service needs,” Fossella said. “And to add insult to injury, they are planning to close one of the four bus depots, which we believe will exacerbate a bad situation. And that is scheduled to happen by the end of this year.”
On any given day, a high school could have 200 or 300 students waiting for a bus that never comes in the morning or afternoon. This has resulted in bus overcrowding, which affects local straphangers who wait longer for buses when others are too full to board.
Filippa Grisafi, a Staten Island express bus and local bus advocate, said the unreliable bus service has become a matter of public and student safety, too.
“The greater issue that this presents, is that you now have hundreds of children walking to and waiting at local bus stops together,” she said. “In the past, this has resulted in dangerous situations of bullying, fighting and in one instance a serious situation with a law enforcement officer and a child. We need to do everything in our power to keep our children safe. This is not safe.”
DiGiovanni’s son saw first-hand brutal fights on the S74 and S54 buses and at bus stops after school. In addition to bus tardiness, this is part of why she chose to drive him to school.
“He didn’t like the nasty fights that would break out,” she said.
Buses: Staten Island’s main public transit mode
Mario Buonviaggio, vice president of the Port Richmond North Shore Alliance, said that the inefficient MTA bus service is causing problems for residents in the densely populated Port Richmond neighborhood.
Buses are the go-to choice for public transportation in Port Richmond and the surrounding areas in a borough with no subway connection to the other boroughs, and only the Staten Island Railway crossing the island from northeast to southwest.
“We have a category of low- to middle-income families and the working poor in our community,” he said. “Many are home health aides who can not afford a vehicle, insurance and registration. They rely 100% on bus service, which we are lacking.”
Port Richmond’s I.S. 51 had a pattern of violent incidents take place among students waiting for buses several years ago, but things got better after more bus routes were added.
That is, until the start of this school year. On average, only one bus out of a scheduled three has been arriving to pick kids up after school.
“This school year, the buses fell short, Buonviaggio said.
In the meantime, many Staten Island parents who have the option — and time — to drive their kids to and from school choose to do so.
“My son’s safety and mental health is my #1 priority as a parent,” DiGiovanni said. “Why should my son get stressed and worry whether a bus is going to show up or not. I’ll make sure I’m available to get my son. I would never abandon him the way the MTA is.”
