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SANDY — A state engineer and the superintendent of the Canyons School District have recommended halting school bus service in Big Cottonwood Canyon due to growing safety concerns and dwindling ridership.
The bus route traverses a roadway that Bruce Spiegel, engineering consultant to the Utah State Division of Risk Management, describes as "unsafe for bus travel."
Superintendent James Briscoe recommended that the Canyons Board of Education eliminate the route starting this fall, noting its "inherent safety dangers," including steep grades, curves, lack of guard rails, narrowness of the road and increasing use by hikers and bicyclists.
Spiegel, in a letter to the school district, wrote that "there exists a high probability of a serious unfavorable outcome with the Big Cottonwood Canyon route."
The division deferred the decision to the school board but said it supports ending the service "because the roadway fails to provide adequate safety for students by bus," the letter states.
The school board agreed Tuesday to consider the matter at a future meeting so that families affected by a possible change could be notified personally.
Spiegel inspected the portion of the route from the mouth of the canyon to a parking lot at Brighton Resort, which is 28 miles roundtrip. The route serves students who attend Butler Elementary School, Butler Middle School and Brighton High School.
The Big Cottonwood Canyon school bus route "encompasses a significant distance of roadway exceeding 6 percent grade with inclined, obscured, skewed intersections and curves, insufficient shoulder width adjoining steep embankments, large variance in speed and traffic conditions and modes of transportation. The roadway up Big Cottonwood Canyon is unsafe for bus travel," Spiegel concluded.
This year alone, there have been two bus slide-offs and a collision with a deer, according to a recap of an earlier board meeting on the district's website.
The superintendent's recommendation was also based on dwindling ridership, which district officials expect will drop below 10 students this fall. The school district is reimbursed 50 percent for bus routes that transport four to nine students.
Kevin Ray, risk management coordinator for the school district, said the number of students riding the bus has dwindled in recent years.
"There are times the bus driver will run that canyon and have three or four students on board, that’s it. A lot of weeks, that’s normal, three to four kids on the bus," he said.
Between increased usage of the narrow canyon road by runners and bicyclists and reduced ridership, district officials had been examining the future of the route. Heavy snows this winter spurred the discussion, Ray said.
"As we looked at the route, especially this year with the heavy snowpack we had with a lot winter storms, we found that quite often, that the canyon would be closed or we would have a bus stuck up the canyon for avalanche control. As you know that can take up to two or three hours out of a morning," he said.
School community council leaders at each of the affected schools said they had received no complaints about ending the service.
According to a district report about an earlier discussion on the issue, "parents have expressed frustration over delays in service caused by inclement weather and the inability to communicate with drivers once the bus is deep in the canyon."
The school district may reimburse parents for the costs of providing transportation themselves as it does parents in Draper's Suncrest community.
