Welcome to 1970′s Moscow…I Mean Ottawa
I can see transportation buildings, cold and sterile with missing ceiling tiles and scarred floors. Seats hard as iron to keep the people moving. All lines and no hint at the color and history that still is that great city.
I’m sorry, I’ve just described where I’m sitting as I wait for my next bus at the Ottawa Greyhound terminal.
I’ve learned bus stations are always more functional than grand, but this can’t be a gateway in and out of my nation’s capital.
I watch as Abraham Indrias, an Ottawa taxi driver heading to Montreal with his wife and two children, struggle to find a place to sit.
Instead, they stand and wait for their bus.
I’m told by workers here that the central bus station has been around for 40 years after they moved from another part of the city.
Since then, thousands of people have passed through this sad and dismal place.
Though in fairness, they do have free WIFI and a sub shop. So there’s always that.
Peter Bevan, a mining supervisor back home for a visit from work in Mongolia, takes a souvenir photo of his girlfriend, Nicole Girard, in front of a lone transit map hammered to the beige wall.
“I took the picture because I can’t believe this is all the information that greets visitors who arrive in our capital,” the father of two says, looking around for any tourist brochures or even someone to guide the way.
“I feel like I’m back in Mongolia,” he says.
But then he adds, most places in developing countries try to welcome visitors and treat bus passengers with a level of respect on their arrivals.
The Chicoutimi, Quebec, man flies first class but wanted to take his two weeks off an explore his country by bus.
“This is not the vibe you expect of Ottawa,” he says, as the pair look over the picture taken on his phone.
Inside this terminal you can find a large poster for a guest house, and up on a monitor, some ads, including for a tattoo parlour and what I think is a dating site.
But Ottawa seems a long bus ride away from this place.
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