Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness

I finally did a personal response for the awful plan to stop staffing almost all ticket offices in England (and one in Glasgow. Link is to advice on what to write, since of course there's no questions in this consultation and there are two separate bodies you have to respond to depending on whether you're talking about stations in London or not in London, with no clear definition of what "London" is for these purposes...

The government and the rail industry have sure made this consultation unusually complex and confusing to engage with! It's almost like they don't want anyone to respond!

I'm sure glad that such a ludicrous notion could never be the case, because they would be disappointed with the response if they did -- I don't have exact numbers, but I've heard 460,000, and maybe as much as half a million, for the number of responses received as of a day or two ago. All this in a consultation that, even having been extended, is about two-thirds of the length that the delightfully-named Gunning Principles would suggest for a consultation with such drastic impact.

I finished our organisational response at work today and sent that in. And of course my own overlapped with that a lot -- I know the stats by heart of course -- but I also got to say some different things. I put one of the most important points at the end, for rhetorical impact, which I also wouldn't be allowed to do at work, heh:

Among my first thoughts when I heard about this consultation is how are blind people going to know that the stranger on a platform or concourse who tells us they're a member of staff actually is one, and not a member of the public who reckons we're vulnerable people they can exploit? None of the TOCs' [train operating companies] proposals address this anywhere! I imagine they haven't considered this problem at all -- with three-quarters of working-age visually impaired people unemployed, that means most lines of work are missing out on our perspective and train operators don't seem to be any exception.

One of the main benefits of ticket offices is that they're a fixed location -- I can learn the route to the ticket offices in familiar stations, and I can ask the way to the ticket office in unfamiliar stations -- and only staff can get inside them! So I know where to go if I need anything, and I know I'm speaking to someone trustworthy.

I don't think sighted people appreciate how, when you're handing over cash or your bank card, or when you're asking for sighted guidance -- i.e. to be led around by holding on to a stranger -- you can feel so vulnerable! It is inhumane to take away the trust and confidence we can currently have in staff at a ticket office, only to replace it with stress and a world that's more hostile to us.