Buses that turn left: 70, 174, 177, 213, 215, 216, 225, 470
Buses that go straight: 121, 171.

If the practical security aspects are insurmountable, then perhaps the buses should travel along Edouard-Laurin instead. Then the bus lane would only be for the 121 & 171!

Dropping of people at the southern entrance is very impractical because 8 of 10 buses terminate at Cote-Vertu and would then have to somehow get to their pick-up stop at the bus terminal. Also, how smoothly would this southern entrance work if 10 bus lines are all stopping to drop people of at the same spot?

My idea that was submitted to the committee was to:
- Move the stop line back several meters for all lanes except the bus lane
- Install a priority bus green light to allow the buses to move before the other 3 lanes of traffic are allowed to move.

I can sympathize with the frustration when someone stands up at a meeting and partakes in a 10-minute self serving diatrabe. If they cut the speaker off, they will be accused of stifling debate and free speech. I have tremendous respect for the bureaucrats who run these meetings and listen to all the comments. It's a very difficult task to make decisions that are beneficial and acceptable to everyone.

As for the suggestions:

1. That sounds both impractical and potentially dangerous. There's a good reason you don't turn left from a right-hand lane. Either make the left-hand lane a bus lane or, much more practically, have buses like the 470 drop off passengers at the southern entrance.

2. Storage lockers sound interesting, but bulky, expensive and hard to maintain. Certainly worthy of study, but I'm not ready to jump on the bandwagon just yet.

3. I'm not sure about installing tramways. The Gazette's Henry Aubin made a convincing case a while ago (can't find a link unfortunately) that electric trolley cars would be better than tramways because they are less expensive per vehicle, and more maneuvrable.

I’m actually in the photo as well. I’m on the left-hand-side of the photo with my arm draped on the back of a chair.

I have to agree with you that there were lots of comments that were not very relevant. Such as: I live on the west Island and didn’t hear about the meeting, AMT should create new train stations, and one metro car didn’t have enough grab bars etc…

Did you hang around to listen to my pearls of wisdom? I was second-last person to speak!
1) The intersection of Cote-Vertu and Gothier needs to be modified to allow buses to turn left into the AMT Cote-Vertu bus terminal from the reserved bus lane (which is on the right side).

2) Metro stations need bike storage lockers (I blogged about this on my blog here: http://transport514.wordpress.com/2008/04/27/we-need-bike-storage-lockers-at-metro-stations/)

3) We need tramways back in the city. Mr. Rotrand is not in favour of them because he thinks you can get the same result for less cost with bus rapid transit. My response is that you get what you pay for and that the cities in Europe, Dubai, Houston aren't crazy.

Incidentally, I just got back from NYC, where taking public transit is always one of my fun experiences. One observation: even with a reported upsurge of graffiti in New York, stations, buses and shelters are vastly less defaced than here in Montreal.