Albany transportation director outlines staffing, ID-swipe and child-safety plans as bus overcrowding persists

Dorette Miles, director of transportation for the City School District of Albany, told the school board on Oct. 8 that the district has added routes and vehicle capacity this year and assigned more monitors to special-education and many general-education routes to reduce ride duration and behavioral incidents.

Miles said the district is currently reporting about 87% on-time performance and expects ride times and ridership figures to stabilize by December, when school-year routing typically settles. She said the district has 105 dedicated home-to-school routes, the largest total in her five years in the role, and that it has prioritized shorter rides for students in special-education placements.

The presentation focused heavily on interactions with CDTA, the regional transit agency. Miles said CDTA’s recent push to enforce student ID swipes has improved the accuracy of ridership reporting but has also revealed hardware and process problems: Albany High recorded the highest number of ID-related issues, and Miles said student ID cards can become demagnetized (for example when stored near phones or in wallets). She said CDTA’s counts capture only successful swipes and therefore undercount students whose cards fail.

Board members and student representatives raised safety and capacity concerns on high-ridership lines, especially several “tripper” CDTA lines that serve secondary schools and North Albany. Members pressed Miles about adding monitors on CDTA routes and about alternatives such as off-board swiping or phone-based payment, noting CDTA drivers are not always able or required to confront fare or behavior problems.

Miles said child-safety-zone planning is underway: the district has contracted a bus-transportation planning service experienced in school transportation and expects a study to start in late fall or early winter to prepare for the 2026–27 school year. She also briefed the board on technology and communication tools for families, including FirstView (for First Student riders) and SchoolMessenger alerts for district families.

On enforcement, Miles confirmed that First Student buses now have more than 100 cameras and that the city will implement stop-arm camera fines beginning this Monday; she said fines are processed by the city and not the school district. She asked parents to sign up for route-tracking apps and to understand that route timing remains subject to change while enrollment and transfers continue.

Board members requested that the district keep the issue of monitors on CDTA routes on the front burner, noting the CDTA contract is due for renewal and that any new contract could specify dedicated bus aides or other monitoring arrangements. Miles told the board she will continue to pursue hardware fixes for ID cards, explore alternative swipe options and work with CDTA and school principals on route-level responses to misbehavior and capacity strains.

“We’ve significantly increased dedicated vehicles and drivers since our RFP for 2024–25,” Miles said. “Our goal is to reduce ride duration and the number of passengers per route to limit opportunities for behavioral incidents.”

Board members asked for routine follow-up and quarterly updates on monitoring, CDTA contract negotiations and the child-safety-zone study.