Parents in Apex are concerned about their children having to walk to Apex Friendship Middle School this year because the route crosses a busy main road.

Alison Alcaine said her son’s walk to school is not very far, but requires crossing a crosswalk at Humie Olive on Evans Road. Despite a sign and flashing lights, that is not safe enough, Alcaine and other parents said.

In October 2022 A student at Apex Friendship Middle School ended up in the hospital with serious injuries after being hit by a car on the bike path to school.

In 2017 a 15-year-old A student at Apex Friendship High School was hit by a car and taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

The speed limit is 45 miles per hour, but drops to 35 miles per hour during school hours.

For more than a decade, parents have been campaigning for increased safety measures at crossings.

“He’s going into 7th grade and I told him I’m going to go with him for the first few weeks because I’m scared you’ll cross the border,” Alcaine said of her son.

Alcaine says her part of the neighborhood had bus service last year, but the school district eliminated it.

“As parents, we are all concerned about how we will get our children to school safely when classes start next week,” she said.

Most of Alcaine’s neighborhood meets the limits for a limited traffic zone, a state law that does not require schools to provide transportation if you live within 1.5 miles of your child’s school.

But Alcaine says she was not given a reason why her son’s bus route was canceled, which went to houses even farther from school than hers.

WRAL asked Wake County Public Schools what factors go into the bus route decision-making process and whether a shortage of bus drivers is partly to blame for the bus changes for the Apex Friendship families. We have not received a response from WCPSS.