Transport-starved Doreen and Mernda residents are set for some relief with more buses planned to connect students to high schools.
Transport Minister Jacinta Allan announced last week that Public Transport Victoria would add more bus services in 2016, linking Mernda and Doreen to Hazel Glen College, Whittlesea Secondary College, Mill Park Secondary College and the future Mernda P-12 school in Breadalbane Avenue.
The announcement follows Yan Yean MP Danielle Green’s repeated calls for more school buses to and from Mernda and Doreen. Hazel Glen College is the only high school in the area. It’s first cohort of year 7s started classes in January this year.
Often families are given no choice but to fork out about $300 for each child per term to put them on notoriously crowded school buses to popular schools such as Mill Park Secondary College or Diamond Valley College.
Soaring growth of the teenage population in the outer north places more pressure on the inadequate bus services.
The state government also plans to reinstate the Whittlesea to Greensborough bus service and introduce a new service from South Morang railway station to Diamond Creek station, with an extension to Diamond Valley College before and after school.
Doreen father of four Michael Harding, whose eldest two children attend Mill Park Secondary College, was rapt with the news.
“It’s a positive outcome and should alleviate the current services,” he said.
But Doreen mother Rachael Rees was outraged. Her daughter is a student at Diamond Valley College and was recently refused a seat on her school bus because of overcrowding.
She said the additional services would be of no help to Diamond Valley College students.
“There’s no logic here – it’s the most ludicrous situation,” she said.
“How are they supposed to get to and from South Morang station?”
Ms Rees wants a bus service from Whittlesea to Diamond Valley College and for students to be able to use the Myki system, which would save parents with more than two children thousands of dollars each year.
