Last Updated on: 9th January 2022, 10:17 am
Everyone’s favourite federal government strikes again?
Since the new federal budget made it through the various levels of government and can now set about laying waste to everything in its path, word has come down that Guelph’s VIA Rail station will have no people working in it come October.
This news is about as fantastic a happening as getting one’s pubes caught in one of those wind-up toy cars we used to play with in the 80’s…or so I would imagine.
Yes, we can buy our tickets elsewhere. There are phones, internets, all that happy crap. And eventually there may be staff in a roundabout fashion once the city takes over the building and this transit hub finally happens for real. but there’s something that’s not being mentioned here, at least not that I’ve seen.
Let’s say you’re me, and you want to take a train. Not being totally familiar with which train parks where and being unable to read the helpful signs, you request assistance getting to the one you want. Are you beginning to see the trouble? Unless the scope of what is possible in the universe has changed because Stephen Harper demanded it do so to save one of its countries a few dollars, a person can neither ask for nor receive help from people who do not exist. In this article I’m reading all about the where’s and how’s of giving money to VIA and GO, but I’m seeing nothing about how a guy like me is supposed to find and board the train I just paid for.
Maybe somebody knows something I don’t and I’m getting worked up for nothing. I’m posting this in the hope that this is the case. But if there are two things governments are pretty terrible at, they’re thinking things through all the way to their ends and considering those who may need help through no fault of their own. I have pretty much 0 confidence that anybody with pull in or around VIA Rail has given a moment’s thought to this.
Figured I had better throw this out there. Happy travels…if you can figure out where you’re supposed to meet them.
