Government has set aside eight buses to take CedarBridge Academy students directly to and from the new senior school which opens at Prospect next month.

And while the buses -- which each seat about 50 people -- can only accommodate about a third of the school's student body, CedarBridge principal Ernest Payette and National PTA president Anthony Steede told The Royal Gazette they welcomed the service which will help students avoid the violence-plagued and congested Hamilton bus terminal.

Noting that 331 CedarBridge students were 15 years of age or younger and 819 were 16 or over, Mr. Payette said: "We would prefer the students to use public transportation as opposed to bikes.

"Now if parents want to drop them off, that's fine. But as many kids as you get using the public transportation system, it solves a lot of congestion traffic problems, problems with students getting to school on time, and a whole bunch of other things. It's usually more efficient and more effective than when you have kids trying to get here various ways.'' Public Transportation Board director Herman Basden explained that with the arrival of five new buses this week, PTB was able to provide eight buses for CedarBridge.

"We believe we're in a position that we can provide that number of buses,'' Mr. Basden said. "We are under the impression that they'd need more. But since I have to provide buses for all the schools, I have to share up scarce resources as best I can.

"We know there are about a third of the student population in most schools that need to use the bus. The rest of them find other means of getting to school ...

"So we are using that as a yard stick with CedarBridge and seeing where we go from there. There's no doubt in my mind we have to come back for a re-adjustment.'' Eight buses will run from St. George's, Somerset, and St. David's, stopping along the routes to pick up CedarBridge students.

And while as many as another 35 buses could be available for schools throughout the Island under the revamped bus service system, CedarBridge buses may also pick up students from other schools if space allows.

Mr. Basden said: "I know this (system) will be an improvement over last year and hopefully as time goes on we will continue to improve it until we have the resources and travel patterns down.

"This is a whole new schedule that has been torn down and built up. We just hope when the day comes it all runs according to all the data we collected. We hope this will improve things.'' Mr. Payette said he believed the direct busing would.

"I come from a system where we had direct busing for the majority of our students who had any distance to come from,'' he recalled. "It was a much more efficient system. It is easier for the students. It's less time consuming, easier to manage, and you have fewer disruptions.'' Pointing out that the National PTA was part of the driving force behind the "direct busing'', Mr. Steede said: "We insisted that there be direct busing from the extremities so that there was a prevention of that number of people ending up in the city. So we're excited that there are going to be eight buses provided.

"Ideally, it would be nice if there were more, but we have to work within the constraints of what the PTB can provide.'' For further information on the bus route for CedarBridge students call PTB project coordinator Patricia Darrell on 292-3851.