Ontario proceeds with crossing-arm retrofits

TORONTO — The Ontario government established a mandate that all school buses be equipped with crossing arms, and it provided funding to do so.

Since 2005, new school buses in the province have been required to have the safety devices; now buses built before that year must be retrofitted.

A previously announced bill in the Legislative Assembly aimed for the same mandate. Though the bill had yet to be passed, the Ministry of Transportation decided that there was a great enough need to go ahead and enact a regulation.

The government committed $2 million towards equipping pre-2005 buses with crossing arms. An estimated 6,000 to 8,000 of the 17,000 school buses in the province need to be retrofitted, with the deadline having been set at Jan. 1, 2008.

“This is an important step toward making the school bus — already the safest vehicle on the road — even safer,” Transportation Minister Donna Cansfield said.