Moncton — The Hub City is optimistic more people will want to walk or take public transit when the new downtown events centre opens in September. Under the new plan, walking trails and city buses will be laden with chips, pop, chocolate bars and other tasty treats to entice Moncton area motorists — dissuaded by a lack of parking — to embrace alternative modes of transit.
City staff presented the plan to council last March, detailing how to accommodate people coming to and from the 8,800-seat centre.
“Essentially this will be a lot of salty and sugary snacks liberally laid out along walking trails and city buses for our less physically motivated citizens to grab with their meaty hands as they make their way downtown amidst profuse sweating and heavy breathing,” said Moncton council member Laura Becker.
“In addition to concerts, Wildcats games, and a host of other big attractions, Moncton-area residents will be treated to delicious little delights such as Zesty Doritos, sweet-and-sour jujubes and of course Vachon cakes as they waddle their way outdoors for probably the first time in years,” she added.
In a trial run, Moncton city workers laid a three-kilometre trail of goodies leading from the McDonald’s in Riverview to the riverside baseball fields in Moncton, and, over the course of two days found an impressive of amount of pedestrian traffic showing up to local softball games that were not otherwise promoted.
“We saw a lot of new people up here that we normally wouldn’t see,” said softball player Craig Shaw in reference to the hobbling mass of loose-clothes-fitting, flip-flop-wearing, tasty-snack chasers.
Adding, “We were happy to have them, but once they ran out of treats there were a lot of complaints about no vendor offering hotdogs topped with barbeque pulled-pork nacho chips.”
Councillor Michael Patel laughed off the minor complaint, stating: “You can rest assured this new events centre will have hotdogs topped with barbeque pulled-pork nacho chips and God knows what else…but you’ll need to follow the snack trail to find out!”