Barrie, Ontario: Cat Tries To Ride The GO Bus

BARRIE, ONTARIO (September 24, 2005):

GO Transit MCI D-4500 Bus no. 2286

It was a nice Saturday morning when I was driving a southbound Barrie - Newmarket - Toronto Union Station GO bus. At Mapleview, I pulled over to board a passenger waiting at the stop. There was a cat there with him.

I asked him if it was hit cat and he said, "No."

The cat first ran under the bus and then boarded the bus, running to the back. I left my seat, went to the back to pick up the cat and dropped it off outside the bus. It then ran back on. Again, I picked it up, and this time carried it off the bus and deposited it on the other side of a nearby fence, in a vacant lot.

I ran back to the bus, closed the door and took off. The cat then tried to run after the bus.

Back then, GO's two-way radio system didn't work in the south end of Barrie and Innisfil Township and neither did cellphones (Oh, what beautiful days the were, not having to listen to the radio and not having passengers yelling into their cellphones either, but I digest).

Upon reaching radio range in Bradford, I reported the details to GO Transit's Bus Operations Centre at Steeprock Garage in Toronto since passengers will complain about anything, including delays caused by a cat). I was speaking with Acting Supervisor (a driver who occasionally takes on supervisory duties temporarily, while still in the union, before returning to driving) Carl L., a driver out of Oshawa.

Carl agreed that since the cat wasn't in a cage, let alone not having a ticket, it was not eligible to ride the bus. Those were great days at GO. It was before the bureaucratic monster known as Metrolinx was created.

If anybody is interested, the cat lived at 43 St. Paul's Crescent in Barrie, one block east of Yonge Street. Poor kitty's probably long gone now. In fact, it's been so long since I've been up there, the whole block is probably a Wal-Mart by now.

That part of Barrie has changed quite a bit since then. Yonge Street was widened and a new GO Train station, Barrie South, opened just north of that intersection a few years later.

And yes, that sound you hear is the sound of a driver making change and selling a passenger a ticket. I edited a part of the video after this happened becauseI I made a mistake: The gentleman who boarded asked for a ticket to the Finch Subway Station, but I was so distracted by the cat I only issued him a ticket to Newmarket. The connecting driver of the York Mills "B," Ron R., told me the passenger was mad because he had to buy a new ticket from Newmarket to Finch. So, buddy, if you're out there, sorry.