STM to add more off-peak bus service starting Monday

The STM’s summer schedule starts next Monday, and the Planibus schedules were posted online today. As expected, there are many service improvements, especially to increase service outside of rush hour on weekdays (links go to PDF schedules).

The following bus routes will be extended to full-day service (meaning Monday to Friday, excluding holidays, during morning and afternoon rush hours and the time between them) at 20-minutes-or-less intervals from about 6am to about 6:30pm:

The following bus routes will move to a one-direction-until-noon, another-direction-after-noon schedule, with 20-minute intervals off-peak, until about 6:30pm:

Other changes:

  • 11 Montagne will have added service in the evenings to coincide with the opening hours of Mount Royal Park. Service will now run until midnight instead of 9pm. However, the western part of the route after 9 will go to Côte-des-Neiges and Queen Mary instead of up Ridgewood, which is kind of silly since the 166 detours up Ridgewood after 9pm. Why not just keep both on their original routes and save everyone the confusion?
  • 210 John Abbott ceases to become a seasonal bus linked to John Abbott’s schedule, and gains all-day weekday status. It will have a 25-minute interval between 6:10am and 5:45pm westbound, and 6:45pm and 6:20pm eastbound. Its route will also be modified to take Sainte-Marie Rd. straight from Highway 40 instead of continuing to Morgan Rd.
  • 219 Chemin Sainte-Marie loses a loop on Sainte-Marie west of Morgan Rd. to EMS Technologies near Meloche.
  • 268 Trainbus Pierrefonds undergoes a radical change to both route and schedule: The route will be extended up Grenet St. to the Côte-Vertu metro station in both directions. Eastbound departures continue every half hour until 3:50pm, and westbound departures from Côte-Vertu are every half hour from 8am to 5:45pm (more frequently during the afternoon rush hour)
  • 505 R-Bus Pie-IX becomes 505 Express Pie-IX, which better reflects its role not as a rush-hour reserved-lane replacement for the 139 bus, but a limited-stop express bus that acts as a second option during rush hours.
  • 515 Vieux-Montréal/Vieux-Port is a new shuttle between Dorchester Square, Berri metro (and the Station Centrale bus terminal), and de la Commune St. The circular route – in both directions simultaneously – takes René-Lévesque, Peel, de la Commune and Berri/St. Denis. Departures are every 13 minutes (10 minutes during weekend afternoons, 20 minutes in the late evenings), seven days a week from 7am to 1am.

Other changes, such as the 480 on Nuns’ Island and weekend service on the 470 Express Pierrefonds, will come in September.

Did I miss something? Let me know in the comments. I haven’t found anything yet on the Old Port bus that’s supposed to come.

7 thoughts on “STM to add more off-peak bus service starting Monday

  1. Shawn

    Dang. I was hoping you were going to say that they’d extended the 460 Metropolitan express bus past rush hour. Oh, well.

    I was down in Old Montreal this weekend, hoping to see some sign that the announced route was starting soon. I saw nothing: no signs or indication of any kind, least not yet.

    Reply
  2. Max

    The 515: useless. Too many turns and detours. There’s no stop at the corner of berri/dorchester because it has to turn left, go up, turn again to come back down. But there’s a stop at dorchester/hotel de ville; there’s nothing there. Useless!

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  3. lagatta

    Is the 460 the bus that goes to the Dorval bus terminal – from there an easy shuttle bus or taxi ride to the airport? I certainly wish that had extended hours – it always seems packed. I take it from Crémazie and Berri if I want to get to the airport – no more complicated than airport buses from Villeray, and a hell of a lot cheaper.

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