School bus chaos!
7-yr.-old told to get on city transport - THREE times - to get to class
BY ERIN EINHORN and CARRIE MELAGO
Joseph Merizalde, 7, has a new suggested route to take to school. It starts with a walk to to catch either the BX26 bus or the BX28 bus. He would take the bus to Bartow and Baychester Aves., where he would cross the street and get the BX12 bus. He would take the BX12 to Pelham Bay Park, where he would switch for the BX14 bus.
A 7-year-old Bronx boy became one of the victims of the city's bizarre school bus reorganization yesterday when he was told to catch THREE different city buses on his own.
Joseph Merizalde has been catching a yellow bus to school since kindergarten.
But yesterday, as 116 routes were axed and hundreds more rescheduled, Joseph was told he was getting a MetroCard and instructions to navigate three city bus routes to get to school.
Normally, Joseph's 5-mile trip from his home in Co-op City to the Villa Maria Academy in Throgs Neck would be a simple 30-minute affair.
But after the reorganization, Joseph found he didn't meet the new requirements to join his friends on the yellow bus and was given his marching orders.
His furious mother was told the first-grader would have to use a MetroCard to get the BX26, where he would have to change at Bartow Ave. - crossing the busy six-lane road to reach the stop for the BX12.
He'd stay on that bus until he reached Pelham Bay Park, before he had to change AGAIN - to get onto the BX14 for the remaining portion of his journey.
Two of those bus stops had no shelters, leaving little Joseph unprotected against the elements, not to mention the deadly traffic on Bartow Ave.
"There's no way I would ever put a 7-year-old child in that kind of danger," said his mom, Lisa.
The reason for Joseph's nonsensical rerouting was that he lives ever so slightly more than a quarter-mile from the school bus stop.
Others had similar horror stories on the reorganization's first morning - a frigid day in the middle of the school year.
"No bus came at all," said Melvin Charley, 41, who ended up carting his son and six other kids to Public School 113 in Glendale, Queens, after their bus driver apparently got lost.
The plan, which required parents to register for busing for the first time, was designed to eliminate underutilized routes and is expected to save the city $12 million a year.
But state Sen. John Sabini (D-Queens) said the cost-saving efforts created "unnecessary chaos" for families.
"To do it on a cold day in January has a kind of Oliver Twist feel to it," Sabini said.
Following the registration, kids like Joseph were told that although they had been taking a yellow bus to school, they didn't actually meet all of the requirements.
So while a bus still takes most of Joseph's Co-op City classmates to Villa Maria Academy, he was given a MetroCard instead.
In Queens, Cecilia Consalvo was furious when she learned her first- and fourth-graders were slated to be picked up at 8:04 a.m. - just six minutes before their start time at PS 113.
"Our kids are going to be late for school every day," she said.
She was even angrier when she waited 45 minutes yesterday and the bus never showed, stranding 25 kids. One mom squeezed kids into her car, while the others gave up and walked.
The Education Department said it is working to iron out problems.
"We recognize that the new routes caused difficulties for some families today, and we are working closely with schools and parents to resolve any legitimate concerns," the department said in a statement.
And the School Bus Contractors Coalition said it added dozens of extra buses to the routes to prevent kids from being stranded.
That was little comfort to Bonnie Bonfiglio, whose 11-year-old daughter's bus was slated to pick her up at 8:18 a.m. - 18 minutes after classes started at the Mark Twain School in Coney Island.
The overcrowded bus ended up arriving when it always had, about 7:05 a.m., but Bonfiglio doesn't know if that will last.
"They're putting the education and safety of children second to their budget," she said.
