MOUNT VERNON — Effective July 1, minors under age 13 cannot ride Knox Area Transit alone.
Last fall, Transit Director Bethany Celmar created a student packet for parents with KAT’s policies and behavior standards. But problems persist with unaccompanied minors.
“We continue to have issues with children that are riding being bad, hitting, threatening — that kind of behavior,” Celmar told the county commissioners on Tuesday. “We also spend a lot of hours collecting the fares for those rides.”
Children, like all riders, must comply with state and federal seat belt laws and child restraint seat/booster seat accommodations. KAT buses each have one booster seat; if that is occupied, children sit in regular seats and are seat-belt restrained.
The new policy requires parents to supply the child restraint seat and ensure the child is properly secured.
Celmar said some parents see KAT as an alternative school bus. KAT delivers some children to or from school or between school and daycare. Some are open-enrolled students going to another district.
She noted there are different standards for official school transportation. KAT does not meet those standards.
“We’ve had several instances where drivers had to pull over because the children were wiggling, getting loud, or being disrupting,” Celmar said. “My drivers need to be focusing on the road.”
How do other transit systems handle minors?
Franklin County’s COTA system requires unaccompanied minors under age 13 to have an adult ride with them.
“We polled several other rural transit companies, and 13 was the age they use,” Celmar said.
County Administrator Jason Booth said the county has had instances where children as young as kindergarten age were riding alone.
“We can’t control who else gets on that bus. That’s the big liability issue to the county,” he said. “And there were times when we dropped off the child and there wasn’t any parent at home.”
Celmar said the July 1 effective date is designed to give parents ample time to work with the schools or private contractors to arrange transportation for the next school year.
“We’re not completely shutting it off, we’re just giving it a bit more structure,” Celmar said. “I do think it will be difficult for some parents, but we have to do it for safety.”
Celmar plans to send a letter notifying parents of the new policy.
KAT drivers had 29,181 completed trips in the first quarter of 2024. Last year Q1 tallied 29,141.
However, in 2024, vehicle miles totaled 160,366 compared to 173,636 in 2023.
“That means we are doing it more efficiently,” Celmar said.
The Night Bus program is almost at full capacity with 21 riders. The program expanded to Coshocton Avenue, which Celmar said benefits night and weekend food service shifts.
Also, on Tuesday, the commissioners awarded the bid for the Knox County engineer’s generator to Beck Electric for $113,000. The engineer’s estimate was $165,000.
