City councilman raises safety concerns after school bus crashes

A Jacksonville City Council member said he is working to address growing concerns about traffic safety on Zoo Parkway after two school bus crashes happened on the same road within one week.

Both bus crashes happened near railroad crossings and were less than 2 miles apart.

The most recent crash, described as a “minor crash,” happened Wednesday. Eight children and one adult were taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries. The students were from John E. Ford Elementary School and were returning from a zoo field trip.

Last week, students from San Pablo Elementary were heading to the zoo for a field trip when a tractor-trailer rear-ended their school bus. The school district said four kindergarten students were injured. However, the crash report shows five patients were taken to the hospital that day.

According to crash data from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, 37 crashes happened near the Jacksonville Zoo and Botantical Gardens over the past six months. One of those crashes was fatal.

Councilman Mike Gay said he was working with the Florida Department of Transportation to address some of the concerns and improve road conditions.

“Our immediate response is to check and make sure everybody’s OK and that everybody’s safe, and then waiting on the information to come into us on exactly what happened,” he said. “Then we go back to our (FDOT) contacts to start pressing them for. What can we do? How can we put some signs up warning drivers more of railroad crossing ahead, buses, or vehicles that will be stopping? It’s not just school buses. You’ve got your (Jacksonville Transportation Authority). Any kind of passenger vehicle is gonna stop right there.”

He said the incidents have highlighted long-standing infrastructure shortfalls.

“The traffic is so intense out here to where that’s one of the flags I’ve always been waving — our infrastructure is so far behind,” Gay said.

Duval County School Board Member Tony Ricardo said student safety remains the district’s top priority.

“Biggest concern for us is student safety,” Ricardo said. “That’s our primary objective, is to make sure our students are safe.”

Gay acknowledged he did not reach out to FDOT after the first crash but said he has since made contact.

“Not the first one, but I have since then reached out to them like we gotta come up with a plan,” he said.

Bus drivers not at fault in crashes

Ricardo said the district is monitoring what state officials may do to address conditions on the road and noted that bus drivers were not found to be at fault in either crash.

“Obviously we’re going to be looking at what the state wants to do with the road there,” Ricardo said. “Our buses are really bright yellow and they do have stop signs on them, so there’s only so much you can do. Our drivers were not at fault in either situation.”

Despite the crashes, the district is not considering scaling back zoo field trips at this time.

“There’s no talk of reducing the field trips,” Ricardo said. “Obviously we want to be careful. We want to make sure that all the buses are properly equipped and they’re all safe to ride on.”

News4Jax contacted FDOT about its improvement plan and received the following statement from spokesperson Hampton Ray:

FDOT is aware of the recent crashes along Zoo Parkway near the Jacksonville Zoo. As part of our standard operating procedure, FDOT reviews all reported crashes on state roadways, as reviewing crash reports is critical to understanding crash causes and prevention.

The crashes remain under investigation by law enforcement, and it would be inappropriate to speculate on contributing factors ahead of the investigations. Following the conclusion of those investigations, if opportunities are identified to enhance safety, FDOT will work to evaluate and implement appropriate improvements. This process includes careful analysis by professional engineers and other evaluations that may be warranted.

State and federal law requires school bus drivers to stop at railroad crossings and look and listen for oncoming trains before proceeding.

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This story was produced by News4Jax, a Jacksonville Today news partner.