I am a frequent LRT traveler. In Edmonton, we have a relatively short light rail transit system that runs from the North East end of the city where I live, South and West to the University area. This is a great connection for me. A train ride to the University, once I get on the train, takes about 20 minutes. This is a great deal for me considering driving would take at least 35 minutes. Not to mention all of the parking, and gas, and maintenance costs. Plus the lack of dealing with crazy Edmontonian drivers during rush hour is a big plus. There is a down side however. I have to deal with various people on the train and around the train system. One of the reasons I bring up the train system is the people who it is their exciting duty of passing out the relatively new metro newspaper to anyone and everyone who will take one. They stand, at the choke points in the train stations, lurking to pounce on unsuspecting train goers to pass on their gigantic piles of free papers.

Ordinarily, I don't mind people who give out free stuff in the train stations. If it's something I'm mildly interested in, I might even take a copy of whatever they are handing out because it might hold some value to me. One time, Diane and I even got handed a bowl of soup! It wasn't very good, but it was something to talk about for sure.

The problem with the Metro people is that the people passing them out are increasingly pushy, and they are there both in the morning and the afternoon so they pass out papers to you on your way to work and on your way home. One particularly pushy woman stands at the bottom of the LRT stairs and almost forces a paper at you. You have to actually change your planned path to avoid this woman. Maybe I'm overreacting, but c'mon! Is it really that damn important that you need to get a newspaper in everyone's hands?

One of the things that angers me about this activity is that so many of these papers get left on the train. The litter left over is extremely unappealing. I've seen several times where the driver of the LRT walks down the train picking up all the loose papers he can see and dumps them unceremoniously into the nearest garbage can. Great ... now those papers are getting dumped in a land fill instead of being recycled. Yuck.

This marketing campaign has lasted a couple of months, and apparently shows no sign of stopping. Every additional day I see these people I feel like swearing at them to stop doing it. I know it's not really their fault -- they probably have a quota of papers to get rid of each day. Still, I hate it, and wish they had put a stop to it a week after they started.

Heraldk