Catoosa County officials concerned over bus route safety

CSX Communication has not responded to calls from Sheriff's Office, Board of Education

CATOOSA COUNTY, Georgia (WDEF) — Catoosa County leaders need the community’s help to make a school bus route safer.

Both the local sheriff’s office and school board are asking residents to call the transportation company responsible with their complaints.

The safety of the county’s children was on the minds of both Catoosa County’s sheriff and superintendent today — they’re calling this urgent.

Hypothetically and in a worst-case scenario, there could be elementary school students having to walk over a mile home.

Sheriff Gary Sisk and Superintendent Charles Nix say a precarious bus route for students is currently closed.

While driving over train crossings on Lovingood Road and Saunders Road, bus drivers carrying children can’t see oncoming traffic ahead.

“When they’re coming out, there’s not enough room at that intersection for them to stop and look down Ooltewah Ringgold Road,” Sisk said. “They have to have that sight distance to be able to look down Ooltewah Ringgold Road because they can’t stop on top of a railroad track — that’s the issue.”

Piles on piles of cross ties and overgrown vegetation further hamper drivers’ vision.

Sisk says communication with CSX Transportation has elicited no response to action.

Nix says it has left the school system unable to deliver certain students directly home.

“The only thing you can do is drop kids off at the church,” Nix said. “They’re going to have to walk across 151-North, the railroad tracks and then a mile home, which is unsafe. We have elementary kids over there. So it’s not just a tremendous inconvenience, as the sheriff said it is a huge safety issue.”

Nix says the situation has created an additional chain of further issues.

Some parents must now take off work early to grab their children, some now pay for after-school care, and others can’t take advantage of tutoring.

The superintendent personally took the route via bus and said, as a father, it’s simply unsafe for children.

“You can not stop on the track and you can’t stop between the tracks because there’s not a wide enough clearance,” Nix said. “So once the driver commits to going across that roadway, there’s no place to stop and it is unbelievably dangerous.”

Nix compared hearing back from CSX to “radio silence.”

Sheriff Sisk encourages all residents to call the company personally with their concerns and complaints, but be friendly to the call takers when doing so.

If CSX continues to ignore their calls, Sisk says letting someone at the state level know may be the next step.

On Facebook, the Catoosa County Sheriff’s Department said the following:

“The public is requested to call CSX at 1-800-232-0144 to report the problem (you must provide the corresponding crossing number for Lovingood Road “340579L” and Saunders Road “340581M”) to help us get this dangerous situation resolved. ”