Shift puts Via Rail commute in limbo

Via Rail commuters are savouring the time left with their flexible passes — which allow them to catch any train to and from work in Toronto — before that service is scrapped entirely.

But when the end will come remains a mystery, leaving many formerly loyal Via Rail customers, such as 12-year commuter Anna Wilkinson, scouting out alternatives come D-day.

Last summer the rail company announced the impending change from an open-ended ticket system to an “e-pass” system, whereby commuters have to reserve their seats in advance.

“If I can’t get to a computer to reschedule my ticket before departure — because I’m in a meeting or something — I lose my ticket (under the new system),” said Wilkinson, a sales assistant at Slater Financial Group who lives in Brantford.

A pack of 20 one-way tickets costs her $330 — $16.50 per trip.

“If I’m stuck on the subway, I lose the money,” she said. “I don’t think I’ll be staying with Via Rail.”

Instead she is trying out the halfhour drive to Aldershot station in Burlington and taking the GO train.

Via Rail has not said when the flexible pass will disappear entirely.

The system left a percentage of seats reserved for commuters. If those seats are filled and the train is full, commuters may stand. But that leaves too many empty seats when commuters take a later train or stay home, Via Rail spokesperson Ted Byatalan said last summer.

The e-pass, now available at a discount, is intended to allocate more seats for full-fare customers. But it also destroys the 10-year routine on which Fran Foulds, an analyst at Queen’s Park, has centred daily life.

A major reason she could pursue her Toronto career, with its irregular hours, is because the Via Rail commute was convenient, she said. Her options are leaving her Brantford home at 4:30 a.m. to beat traffic or driving to a GO train station.

“Via Rail has said it’s not a commuter service,” she said. “(But) it is the only viable option outside the GO area . . . maybe they see us as being held hostage.”

She said about 130 people make the commute from Brantford to Toronto, not including any from London. In the east, most come from Cobourg.

A commuter petition of 160 signatures was sent to Via Rail.

Foulds said so the change doesn’t make sense if Via is truly trying to be more green. “With the way the GTA is growing, . . . why are they not targeting these bedroom communities to get the cars off the road?”