George Brown College remains open after heavy snowfall

Last night’s snow storm created very poor driving and commuting conditions for students

Photo from George Brown College's St. James Campus. Photo: @shalom08 via Twitter

Photo from George Brown College’s St. James Campus. Photo: @shalom08 via Twitter

George Brown College (GBC) remains open today after a winter storm dropped 22 cm of snow overnight according to Environment Canada. However, as of 12:30 p.m. 80 classes are listed as being cancelled.

As a commuter school that has students coming from other cities, the college is expecting students to make the commute.

The Toronto Police’s Operations Centre tweeted, “Road conditions are very poor on all the major arteries and on side streets. Avoid the risk, stay home if you can or use public transit.”

“Many Schools and Universities across the GTA have been closed due to terrible weather. As George Brown College is a commuter school, the idea of traveling in this weather, sometimes as far as Burlington, is not convenient,” said Gagan Deep, the Student Association’s (SA) director of public relations. Going into the college today, Deep says he went to “approach our members, and inquire about the difficulties they faced while commuting to George Brown this morning.”  

Deep says that it was difficult for students to walk and drive in 20 inches of snow, and wait up to an hour for TTC buses and subways. The GBC website advised students to “plan extra time for their commute to the college.”

The TTC has been experiencing major delays both above and underground, and buses in other cities have either been cancelled or also experiencing delays.

For culinary management student Aaron Stevens, making his morning class was impossible. Commuting from Hamilton by GO Transit, Stevens says, “the buses (to the GO station) had been cancelled until 10 a.m., but I had an 8 a.m. class.”

GBC is one of five post-secondary schools in the GTA that remained open today, Seneca, Ryerson, U of T, and York are also open, and in the event that classes are cancelled, GBC’s website says announcements will be made on local radio, television stations, and the college’s main telephone line. The website also says, “unless or until specific notification of cancellations or closures is made, the college will remain open and the George Brown community should presume classes will continue as scheduled.”

According to the GBC SA on Facebook, “our offices will be closed today, sorry for any inconvenience. And yes, we think the school should have closed too.”

A planned degree fair at St. James campus was cancelled.

The Safewalk program tonight has been cancelled “due to the large amount of snow, freezing weather 2nite, and unsafe travelling conditions.”

 

The OPP’s GTA Traffic account tweeted that “traffic continues to move, but slowly, already over 200 collisions this morning,” while Environment Canada continues to warn the public of hazardous winter conditions.

Students are unhappy about the college remaining open, and are expressing their feelings to the college on social media; they have also expressed their refusal to attend classes because of the unsafe road conditions.

 

 

 

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George Brown College remains open after heavy snowfall

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