Sunday, May 31, 2009

Lilac festival. Crowds, road closures and track work

An annual outdoor event took place in Calgary today - the Lilac Festival. Against Darlene's better judgement, we went. She's not really into crowds and endless booths selling jewelry and tie-died shirts. But I digress. I kept the duration of our visit nice and short. In order to avoid trying to compete for the limited on-street parking that exists in that neck of the woods, we opted for transit. Transit was a great idea in theory, except that between the myriad of construction detours, marathon run routes and the clueless traffic police that tried to direct vehicles around them, it would take nerves of steel and a slightly aggressive driving stance to get anywhere - even to the nearest C-Train station. But take the C-Train we did. Total cost = $10 for the round trip journey for 2 adults. No $3 parking fee at the transit parking lot thanks to city council wisening (is that a word?) up and only allowing that ridiculous fee to be in effect on weekdays during work hours. Oh yeah, they were also doing track work on the C-Train rail network, so there were some.... how you say.... disruptions. Good planning there I tell ya.

Message to Calgary Transit: If this city is actually vying to host the 2017 World Expo, you might want to consider making it so that C-Train ticket vending machines accept more than just coins. That's right - no bills and no debit or credit cards either. Oh yes - they have change machines (in some cases), but that is so ancient and limiting a solution as to be insulting. If you're going to try and impress the world, start with your citizens, first.

No comments: