Imagine if a school bus refused to come near your home to pick up your children, and instead, you had to drive your kids every day to the pick-up point.
That’s the reality Tim Avery and his family have faced during the past five years after the City of Moose Jaw closed the Seventh Avenue Southwest Bridge in 2015 due to damage from a flood. Avery — along with his neighbour, Jim Thorn — had used that structure to access his property near the Valley View Centre (VVC) complex and get into Moose Jaw. He has lived near the complex for 42 years, while Thorn has lived in the same location for 21 years.
Five years after the municipality temporarily closed the bridge, the Averys and Thorns are struggling to have city hall either repair or replace the bridge so they can continue to reach their homes.
The provincial government has sold the VVC property and will officially block access through it on Friday, July 31. Once that happens, the two families will be permanently blocked from reaching — or leaving — their homes.
The Moose Jaw Express is chronicling the families’ struggles with city hall by running a multi-part series on this situation. This is part 5 in the series. Click here for part 1, here for part 2, here for part 3 and here for part 4.
School bus issues
Barry Stewart, transportation manager with Prairie South School Division (PSSD), confirmed to the Averys that the division will not supply bus service to the bottom of Seventh Avenue Southwest hill due to safety issues and because there isn’t an appropriate turnaround at the barricaded bridge, David Chow, the families’ lawyer, explained.
The primary safety issue PSSD has is attempting to navigate a school bus up the hill in the winter months from a standstill position at the bottom. If the bus could use the bridge, momentum to get up a snow-covered hill would not prevent school bus service. However, for that to happen, load weights on a new bridge would need to accommodate a school bus.
A sign near the bridge indicates the structure can handle five tonnes, but that is no longer a guarantee due to the damage sustained during the flood.
Since 2015, Thorn and Avery have cleared snow on Seventh Avenue Southwest to the west gates of VVC. Now that Valley View is closed, the province will no longer clean the roads through the property, which would make winter vehicle access — including emergency response units — to the residents’ properties impossible, especailly after significant snowfall.
“PSSD has indicated that it will send a bus down Highway 2 south to the east entrance of the Valley View property,” Chow continued. “However, it will not send a bus through the Valley View property irrespective of permission being granted by the province to do so.”
The only option Avery has is to travel through the VVC property and transport his children to the east end to meet the school bus. He will not be able to do that much longer, given the impending denial of access through the VVC complex.
If the municipality repaired the bridge but didn’t immediately replace it, the load capacity might not be sufficient for a PSSD school bus, said Chow. However, Avery would be able to take the direct route by private vehicle across the bridge to deliver his kids to the bus at the top of the hill.
The Express contacted Prairie South School Division for further comment, but education director Tony Baldwin declined to say anything further.
This series will continue.
