Go bus workers plan to strike starting Monday, Nov. 7 if they do not reach an agreement with Metrolinx
McMaster University commuters could find themselves forced to hop on a Go train or carpool to campus if a new offer is not presented by Metrolinx by Monday Nov. 7. A vote held by the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1587, which encompasses all Go bus drivers, revealed that 93% of workers were in favour of going on strike.
Go Transit is a division of Metrolinx, and the two parties had been in negotiations since Apr. 2022. Union workers had been working without a contract since Jun. 1.
The strike was initially set to start at midnight on Oct. 31 if an agreement was not reached by that time, applying pressure on Metrolinx to come to an agreement. The strike was averted when Metrolinx presented an offer, which union workers took to a vote on Nov. 2 and 3. ATU Local 1587 said they wouldn’t encourage their members to either accept or reject.
On Nov. 4, it was announced that the union declined the offer in an 81% vote in favour of rejection. Bargaining has continued over the weekend of Nov. 5 and 6.
ATU Local 1587 has set the new strike date for Nov. 7. If Metrolinx has not presented a counteroffer by midnight Nov. 6, all Go bus drivers and attendants will be walking off the job, leaving many commuters stranded or forced to commute via Go train.
ATU Local 1587 has set the new strike date for Nov. 7. If Metrolinx has not presented a counteroffer by midnight Nov. 6, all Go bus drivers and attendants will be walking off the job, leaving many commuters stranded or forced to commute via Go train.
This strike would call for cancellation of all Go bus services, due to a walk off of bus drivers, station attendants, office workers, maintenance workers and safety officers. The strike would be indefinite, until Metrolinx presents an offer that workers vote in majority to accept.
McMaster students that commute may need to prepare an alternate route to school, due to the cancellation of Go buses that could start Monday Nov. 7. Updates on the strike can be found on ATU Local 1587’s page where they post vote outcomes and strike mandates.
This is an ongoing story.
PHOTO C/O Metroland
Delivered right to your arm!
The GO-VAXX mobile COVID-19 vaccine bus is returning to McMaster on Tuesday, March 8th and Wednesday March 16th.
The mobile clinic is providing first, second or third doses to McMaster students, staff, faculty and members of the Hamilton community.
Clinic appointments can be booked via the provinces booking portal or by calling the Provincial Vaccine Contact Centre at 1-833-943-3900.
Appointments for the March 16th slot can be booked starting at 8 a.m. on Saturday, March 12th.
The bus will be in Lot I on McMaster’s main campus.
It is recommended that attendees bring their Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) and/or University Health Insurance Plan (UHIP) card to the clinic.
International students should bring physical, hard copies of previous vaccinations from other countries.
As of Jan. 5, Metrolinx has cancelled service to the York University Keele campus and Keele Street stops for multiple Go Bus routes, including the highway 407 47 route, which stops at the McMaster Go station.
Instead, the bus routes will end at the highway 407 Toronto Transit Commission subway station.
In a written statement, Metrolinx spokesperson and senior media manager Anne Marie Aikins said the change is part of a larger plan to move service to the highway 407 stop, which was implemented as part of Toronto’s line one subway extension in December.
“By focusing direct access on Highway 407 and TTC Line 1 Subway, customers can expect improved service reliability in the Keele Street and York University area, which can incur additional 20 minutes of travel time in peak hours due to traffic congestion,” said Aikins.
[spacer height="20px"]Aikins added that the decision was made in collaboration with York University, which has plans to turn the old Go bus loop into a pedestrian area.
McMaster students will now need to leave the 47 bus at the highway 407 subway station and take the subway two stops south to the York University station to arrive at the old bus loop.
Students will also have to pay TTC fare if they transfer, though they will receive a $1.50 discount transferring between the Go bus and the subway if they use their Presto card to pay.
Some McMaster students who rely on the York University stop have expressed concern that their commutes will be negatively affected by the change.
The 47 Go route was the only Toronto-Hamilton route that stopped at the McMaster campus.
Second-year arts and sciences student Daniella Mikanovsky frequently takes the 47 route to York before getting picked up or transferring to a TTC bus. However, with the service change, Mikanovsky says she will now likely have to take a different GO bus route all together.
“I like the 47 because it has a stop on campus. The 40 stop is at [King Street West and Dundurn Street North], so I need to take the Hamilton Street Railway before [Go transit], but with the new change, the 40 drop off is closer to my house than the 47,” said Mikanovsky.
This may pose a problem as the HSR is not known as being a particularly reliable transit system. For instance, last year, a spike in driver absenteeism resulted in thousands of bus cancellations, missed pickups and underserviced routes.
[spacer height="20px"]York University students also see Metrolinx’s decision as problematic. For instance, the York Federation of Students’ Yu Ride petition, which calls for the return of GO bus service to the Keele campus, has already gathered over 17,000 signatures.
The Canadian Union of Public Employees 3903 at York University notes that the return of the stop would save users over $1,000 in additional transit fees. As such, the change may create serious financial pressure for users who cannot afford to pay extra transit fares.
McMaster University’s CUPE 3906 adds that Metrolinx’s decision also affects sessional faculty members who routinely teach at multiple campuses across the province.
“For a workforce that is already precarious, the additional three dollars per day in TTC costs and the additional 10 minutes in commuting time will make life even harder,” reads part of a statement from CUPE 3906.
In addition, CUPE 3906 suggests that universities continue to lobby the provincial government for direct and affordable inter-campus transit.
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It was suddenly the day before April and I found myself broken down and tired. With exams around the corner, my savings trickling to their end and a general lack of motivation, I needed something to look forward to as I transgress the final stretch of the academic year.
I began to imagine myself sipping yerba mate at a café in Buenos Aires, Argentina, strolling through the Jalan Surabaya Flea Market in Jakarta, Indonesia, or even getting lost in the painted alleyways of Chefchaouen, the Blue City of Morocco.
But like many students, the commodity of time and money maintained my imagined travels as pieces of fiction. While I hope to fly away to faraway places in the nearby future, I still needed to find a way to get my fix of wanderlust for the summer.
The answer I was looking for happened to be poster-sized and framed in a GO bus shelter. I’ve passed by the system map and disregarded it several hundred times before realizing all the travel opportunities it presents.
From Hamilton, GO transit lines can take you as far north as Lake Simcoe, west towards the Waterloo region and east to Niagara Falls with dozens of stops in between each direction. Combined with each city’s independent transit systems, bike share programs and widespread Uber availability, the possibilities seemed endless.
I compiled a list of 20 new places I could visit, almost all of them by public transit and made it my goal to explore each one by the end of the summer. The plan was simple, everything beyond determining the route to the destination had to be spontaneous.
This meant I had to rely on my natural instincts and the advice of locals for directions to interesting spots and places to eat. I also had to learn to be comfortable with the idea of sometimes not knowing where I’m going and walking for hours on end.
This was in stark contrast to how I was used to travelling in the past. I’m known for planning out meticulous details in hand-drawn itineraries, complete with time estimates, cost calculations, printed maps and screenshots of Instagram photos.
In desperate need to experience things in a new way, I decided to approach my 20 destinations without building any prior expectations. My list included places like Brampton, Burlington, Cambridge, St. Catharines, Waterloo and Kitchener, which are often overlooked cities for travel and entertainment.
I believed that each place was waiting to reveal its charm to those willing to take the time to build an intimate relationship with their surroundings. No matter where I went, by slowing down and taking in every detail, it became possible to have an immersive and valuable experience.
Travelling with this mindset completely changed my perspective and I learned there is so much more to the towns next door.
Suddenly Cambridge’s graffiti-painted alleyways became more than just a common trait of Ontario cityscapes. I discovered that the freshly-painted murals on walls of business establishments were part of a rare project where dozens of graffiti artists showed off their skills to their community earlier in June.
A long day of walking through Vineland farms and Prudhommes Antique Market in search of sweet peaches and vintage finds ended with crashing at a random café in downtown St. Catharines. I quickly forgot about my aching bones as I lied down on a worn-out couch and listened intently to the atmosphere changing from a quiet coffee shop to a homey concert experience as a band rehearsed next door.
A different couch, this time a little fancier and in a Parisian-inspired macaron shop in Brampton, became the setting of a new found appreciation for a friend. As I stirred sugar into my coffee, I realized that something else was brewing within us, the trip made my friend and I open up our hearts in ways we hadn’t before.
Local travelling forged an opportunity to reconnect with old friends and nature. I hiked the beautiful trails of Don Mills, Milton and Tobermory with friends I hadn’t seen in years. The astonishing clear waters of Georgian Bay and meaningful conversations while driving back from the Bruce Peninsula are memories I hope to never forget.
Sometimes the commute itself was an experience. I was stuck on a bus with a handful of passengers for two hours while returning to Hamilton from Burlington the night of the infamous May wind storm. A man who had just finished a shift at a steel plant became our unofficial tour guide as we drove at a maximum speed of 10 km/hr.
He talked about the history of the buildings around us, shared stories of growing up in Hamilton and working as a rigger on oil platforms and mines between occasional sips from a bottle of Disaronno. He had been working for 22 days straight and the wind storm was testing his patience.
I let a stranger be my guide through Greektown in Toronto. She greeted me with a dried lavender bouquet and basil seeds. We immediately clicked like long-time friends as she walked me around her neighbourhood garden, showed me photographs from her travels and taught me a few tips on how to live in a more ethical and environmentally conscious way.
While in Kitchener I let hunger guide me through downtown, walking briskly from one street to the next, until the irresistible aroma of wood fired pizza stopped me dead in my tracks. I ordered a Quattro Fromaggi and patiently watched as David O’Leary from Bread Heads tossed my pizza into the fire.
Mass consumption of pizza is a hallmark of my university experience, yet somehow I managed to develop a deeper connection to my slice when I learned that Bread Heads was a travelling pizzeria. Bread Heads and I have been travelling all summer long throughout Ontario.
David took the time to sit with me and chat about pizza and life as a Celtic musician. While looking for a wood fired oven for his backyard he came across the idea of a mobile oven and realized it was a brilliant solution to combat drab festival food.
In another sweet shop I met Buba, who kept telling me to dare to dream over and over again as she shared her story with me. Her young family fled Bosnia when the war broke out 25 years ago. She left her aspirations and the little café she owned to start her life over in Canada.
After facing adversity, unpredictable change and constantly putting her children first, she decided to take her own advice and start Lola, a café and chocolate bar in Burlington named after her first grandchild.
Buba thanked me for listening to her story even though I had accidentally trespassed into her closed café. She bid me farewell with another reminder to dare to dream as I made my way to visit her neighbour, Rayhoon Persian Eatery, in the 19th century inspired Village Square.
I felt like a nomad as I peacefully enjoyed chai with a saffron rock candy. My attention would shift back and forth from the book I was reading to the father of the owner and self-proclaimed big boss. I watched on and learned as he taught his restaurant-goers how to traditionally eat their dishes and get the most out of the flavours.
Perhaps it was my travel backpack or the messy journal I was writing in that gave me away as being from out of town, but the big boss refused to let me pay and wished me luck on my journey. I did not anticipate these moments of kindness and wisdom from strangers, but I’m thankful for how they’ve shaped my experience.
I’ve left every destination with a content heart and excitement for the next trip. I’ve lost count of all the clock towers, bridges, historic buildings, museums, farmers’ market and bookstores I’ve visited in every single city, but each time I come across yet another bookstore I’m consumed by the thrill of discovering something new for the first time.
Sometimes I found nothing. I’ve even walked kilometres only to realize I’d hit a dead end. But even those moments were valuable as they presented me with the time for contemplation and reflection while I retraced my steps.
While reflecting on these trips, I learned that we tend take where we live, go to school and work for granted. I was more often than not met with expressions of disbelief when I shared stories of travelling in my friends’ hometowns.
We are surrounded by so many unique and diverse communities yet we rarely recognize them as places worthy of travel and exploration. I didn’t need a plane ticket to sip yerba mate or walk through bustling flea markets and painted alleyways, instead I created my own versions of those experiences by paying more attention to what the cities next door has to offer.
