Bus Stop Anxiety

I am really not satisfied with the bus stop location for my girls.  The apartment we're in is a complex of several buildings, and they can get to the assigned bus stop one of two ways. They either have walk up a hill and across a large yard behind us and walk down through a parking lot on the other side, which works now but will not be an option at all once it snows, or they have to walk all the way around another separate building, though parking lot all the way that I know is not plowed safely enough for walking in the winter.  Beside which, Melanie's bus comes at 7:30, which will still be dark in the middle of winter, and Kate doesn't get home til between 4:30-4:45, which will also be nearly dark in winter.  The distance around the building is 1/2 mile by my odometer and Katie is terrified to walk that by herself even now when it's broad daylight.  There are also no other kids from our building going over to that stop for her to walk over with for safety.

So I've put in bus stop change request forms with the school district to get them to please add a stop somewhere over by our own building.  So far I haven't had any response, though the form did say they wouldn't address any requests til after Sept 19th. (But that has been and gone.)  So far I have been having to walk or drive Katie over to the bus stop every morning, and until last week I was going over there every day to meet her getting off the bus too. For now she is coming home over the hill where I can see her from our balcony and she can see me so she knows she's going the right way.

The first couple weeks she wanted me to wait with her in the morning until the bus actually came, but now I just get her there a few minutes before and let her wait on her own.  She has to learn that she can do ok without me by her side every minute.  I do watch her sometimes though as I'm leaving and it's interesting to me that she seems to linger at the edge and not walk up into the rest of the group of kids standing there.  She is not usually that shy.  If she sees strange kids at a playground she'll go right up to them and start to play with them (usually bossing them around before too long!), so what's the reticence at the bus stop about?  There is one little girl there she has made friends with, and when they see each other they go running up for hugs, but other than that she holds back.