School buses may change route

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33783, 4 March 1975, Page 1

School buses may change route

(From Our Own Reporter)

NELSON, March 3.

An alternative route for buses carrying school pupils to the Rotoiti Lodge will be suggested to schools because of the fatal bus accident near Kikiwa on Friday.

The proposed route is ! through Kawatiri Junction, described by the manager of a bus company as by far the safest road to the lodge, at Lake Rotoiti.

The lake is served by two roads from Nelson. One,

mainly shingle, branches from the main road at Korere and passes through Kikiwa. The other, paved, branches from the main road at Kawatiri Junction.

A bus carrying 30 pupils from the Golden Bay High School was on the KorereRotoiti route on Friday when it plunged over a steep bank near Kikiwa. One pupil was killed.

The principal of Waimea College (Mr J. D. Briasco), the chairman of the Rotoiti Lodge principals’ committee, said today that he would suggest to the other principals that the Kawatiri Junction road should be used. To his

knowledge, none of the northern Nelson secondary schools had used it.

The popularity of the Korere route, which includes about 28 kilometres of winding, shingle road, stemmed from lower transport costs and having one hilly section, compared with two on the other. Travel sickness had to be taken into account, said Mr Briasco.

However, he recalled that a group of training college students from Palmerston North had also gone over the edge of the road — about this time last year, a little distance from the scene of the Golden Bay bus accident. 1

The manager of Wadsworths Motors, Tapawera (Mr R. L. Wadsworth) agreed that the Korere-Rotoiti road was not a very good one. He felt that the Kawatiri Junction route was far safer, although longer and more costly, and the Hope Saddle (the second hill) had to be considered. Drivers of his company, which has mail contracts to Lake Rotoiti and contracts with four Nelson secondary schools for transport to the lodge, were very familiar with the road, and had not been involved in any big accident in the 30 years it had been travelled, he said. The Kawatiri route has n

much to recommend it. Although 117 kilometres, compared with 104 km, it is paved throughout (about 18 of the 32.8 km from Korere to the Rotoiti highway is shingle). The Kawatiri route includes two hills, but the long, straight, paved sections of the highway compensate for the second hill and the additional 13km. Travel times on the routes are about the same.

When conditions are suitable, pupils often travel by: bus through the internal roads of the Golden Downs State forest, joining the Korere route at Kikiwa. 1