Re: “USC, admin hoping to make best of bad situation” Nov. 17, 2009

To the editor:

I have never been one for university politics, but now, as I arrive on campus after a 45 minute walk and open the Gazette, I feel compelled to take up proverbial arms against a student council who’s efforts in looking out for students’ best interests is laughable.

I read the quoted product of a meeting between Emily Rowe and the London Transit Commission union president as “It’s safe to say they will be striking on Monday,” and I weep at the prospect of our council providing a viable action plan during the strike, which, from the example of last year’s Ottawa transit strike, could last for months.

Notice of the impending strike has been present for months, yet the best idea to come from weeks of University Students’ Council effort so often defended in these editorial pages is a carpool program and a how-to lesson on hitchhiking. The mere notion that droves of students will offer up their taxi services to strangers is absurd.

The time and money spent creating the web portal required for that endeavor could have been better spent on hiring one school bus to shuttle students to and from a centralized location on Monday, which would have helped hundreds more students in one day than the carpool program will for the entire strike.

This idea, which took me about five seconds to conceive, is the obvious solution I was expecting before I received that contrived email on Western brotherhood and banding together as a student body. I don’t know how long it took the council to brainstorm the “Mustangs moving Mustangs” campaign, but that time should have been spent looking into the costs of realistic alternatives like the actions of two entrepreneurial Ivey students.

These students, who, like most people, came to the logical conclusion that a shuttle service should be offered, were not only dismissed by Western executives, but were threatened with legal action by the Western Police department.

So, to sum up the action plan of the USC and our president Emily Rowe for students to cope with the cessation of transit services: find a friend or find your thumb. 

—Jeremy Goldfarb

Medical Science IV

Ed note: Western Administration, in partnership with the USC began a volunteer run shuttle service for students Monday afternoon.