The chaotic service that passed for a public transport system in the 1980s through to the early 1990s is still fresh in our minds.

Individuals who had no concept of the importance of moving people and who lacked courtesy, decency, and professionalism operated what was basically a pathetic excuse for a transport system.

Ironically, we got to that point after the demise of the Jamaica Omnibus Service, which opened the floodgates to public transport hell with Jamaicans being subjected to subhuman conditions in minivans, Coaster buses, and, more recently, route taxis.

Schoolchildren bore the brunt of the abuse dished out by the people who operated these vehicles, traversing the streets with contempt for the law, risking the lives of their passengers, pedestrians, and other motorists.

It was against that background that this newspaper welcomed and supported the introduction of the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) in 1998. The minister of transport at the time, Dr Peter Phillips, received well-deserved kudos for this move to rid the country of the wild west-type service.

Unfortunately, over time, the JUTC was subjected to poor management, indiscipline, thievery, and political interference. However, in recent years we have seen a bold attempt by the Transport Minister Mr Daryl Vaz to correct those ills.

Most commendably Mr Vaz applied that same tenacity to the introduction of a rural school bus system — a project for which school leaders, parents and political representatives have pleaded over many years.

To his credit, Minister Vaz has now delivered on that promise, which, he said, will provide students with safe and affordable access to transportation.

Unfortunately, the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) has dragged it into the realm of partisan politics with Mr Mark Golding, the PNP president, vowing that his party, if elected to office, will pay taxi drivers and private bus operators to transport schoolchildren in rural Jamaica.

At the same time, his spokesman on transport, Mr Mikael Phillips, has told us that the PNP has no objection to a rural school bus service. Its concern is the manner of its implementation.

While there is room for debate on those points, we must condemn the shameful fearmongering by PNP spokesman on national security Mr Peter Bunting who has claimed, without proof, that the buses being imported by the Government to provide the service are not safe.

The Opposition should remember that as recently as last September the principal of Vere Technical High School, Mr O’Neil Lewin, made an emotional appeal for a school bus system to keep his students safe. This after two of his students were victims of road crashes. One died from injuries received when she was hit by a vehicle as she attempted to cross a street to get home and the other was hospitalised.

Four months earlier, we experienced the gut-wrenching pain of losing two Titchfield High School students when a taxi in which they were passengers collided with a parked truck.

For decades, such incidents have consistently triggered a renewing of appeals for a formal school bus system, especially in rural Jamaica, provided by properly trained, supervised, and accountable drivers.

Now, with the roll-out of the service, the Government says it will improve transportation access for students across 13 parishes, with each parish receiving at least seven buses.

It is a service that all well-thinking Jamaicans should support, especially because we have seen too many schoolchildren being included in the island’s road fatality statistics.