A ZOOM meeting was held on Friday 4th February with representation from the St Ives High School P&C Campaign Team, MP Matt Kean, MP Alister Henskens and MP Jonathon O’Dea. The P&C were pleased to have this meeting and are cautiously optimistic that the actions arising detailed below will result in meaningful changes to transport issues impacting the school communities in St Ives.
The Member for Hornsby, Matt Kean, took the lead on actioning the following items:
Trains
The P&C requested an increase in the frequency of trains operating between Hornsby and Berowra in the afternoons. The Berowra train runs at 30-minute intervals after the St Ives High PM school bell. It is a long wait if students miss their train from Gordon Station. It was also noted that more frequent services in the afternoon would also benefit students from many other schools and the wider community.
The MP for Hornsby undertook to take this fight to the Minister but acknowledged that it would not be an easy task, as the next review is not due for another five years.
The Post notes that an increase in services was achieved for Upper North Shore train stations back in 2019. "Pymble and Warrawee will now have eight trains an hour or a train on average every seven to eight minutes during the morning peak as customers will get an additional two trains an hour at Pymble, Warrawee, Turramurra and Gordon. Evening peak hour services to Pymble, Warrawee and Wahroonga will double from four to eight trains an hour from the CBD, meaning a train on average every seven to eight minutes." This is lifted from a press release by MP Alister Henskens, Member for Ku-ring-gai. It’s unclear what the driver was for these outstanding improvements to train frequencies for his electorate. However, seeing this result does give hope for the Hornsby electorate to have increased services for our young people trying to get to and from school.
Unfortunately, the return to school wasn’t met by a full train timetable, nor are they expected to return to a full timetable until around 28th February. Evidently, this saw many parents driving their children to school, especially in the case of new students. It’s hard enough to navigate a new high school, make friends and become familiar with the timetable, public transport should be a given.
Buses
The P&C requested an extension of the 591 Hornsby-St Ives Service to include a St Ives High loop for the benefit of students attending classes and extracurriculars outside of regular bell times both before and after school.
In Term 1 a single extended 591 service departing from St Ives High to Hornsby at the PM bell was introduced aimed at students who live along this bus route and rely on buses to get to and from school. The P&C also requested a corresponding bus to get these students to school for the regular AM bell time. At the present time, these students take two buses to school, catching their connecting service from St Ives Shops. As a result, they are often late.
Matt Kean committed to working with Alister Henskens on extending these 591 services to St Ives High in the morning and afternoon.
The rollout of the PM 591 service to St Ives High has not been a smooth one. The Post Publisher, Tina Brown, was shocked to learn the 591 service departs the school half empty, even when there are students who rely on this service queuing to board. “I witnessed this myself and questioned the TransDev staff in attendance at the school. I was told “it’s so that the bus can pick up other passengers along the way”. It’s unclear to me why ‘other passengers’ would take precedence over students ready and waiting to board a bus in front of them”. It’s unclear where this rule came from, but it certainly doesn’t put the students’ needs first.
Perhaps if there were other 591 services just a few minutes behind it could be excused, but this is the only bus. students who rely on this service to get home don’t have a travel alternative.
The queues to get on a bus from St Ives High School of an afternoon are managed by High School staff. Due to the sheer number of students who rely on public transport to get to and from school, it can easily take 30 minutes to board a bus, unless they live beyond Hornsby and have a ‘push pass’ to ensure they get on the first available buses to Gordon Station so they don’t miss the connecting Berowra service.
However, the overcrowding and unsafe boarding of buses at Gordon station in the morning continues to be an issue. Transport authorities are failing to manage the volume of passengers and putting the safety of students at risk.
The Post has received reports of children being knocked to the ground in attempts to get on the bus at this transit point. Once the students are actually on the bus, they are often packed shoulder to shoulder and not always able to access something to take hold of in case of a sudden stop.
Due to the safety issues arising from the lack crowd management at the Gordon Station interchange and the overcrowding on buses to school, many concerned parents are choosing to drive their children rather than let them take the bus.
Improved train services would see a knock-on effect at this transit point both morning and afternoon.
Pedestrian Safety - Yarrabung/Kelvin Pedestrian Crossing Update
At the zoom meeting on 4th February, the local members watched footage provided by the P&C of children weaving and ducking across Yarrabung Road at the PM bell to get to Kelvin Street.
A key undertaking on the pedestrian front was that Matt Kean would send a joint letter from all MP’s in attendance at the meeting regarding this critical pedestrian safety infrastructure to the responsible body to address funding.
Subsequent to the meeting, MP Jonathan O’Dea’s office advised that the crossing cannot go ahead until money is also found for a required street lighting upgrade. This seemed to come out of nowhere and hasn’t been raised before, but is now a huge roadblock to progressing with the crossing.
The Post will continue to follow this serious issue as it impacts the most precious members of our community.