The STM has announced that, starting Dec. 6, adults who pay their fare to get on the bus or metro will be able to take up to five kids under age 12 for free on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays. (Via Transport in Montreal)
The STM has pulled $400,000 out of its ass as the projected “cost” of this program.
It’s part of a campaign by the city to get families out doing stuff (going to museums and other attractions) on weekends by reducing prices.
Meanwhile increasing the prices of the tickets by January. Great Didn’t they promise to make all Metro stations handicap accessible a few years back?
They did, and they will. They’re already working on Lionel-Groulx and Berri-UQAM, among others.
Cool beans then. I just haven’t seen much improvement, in the sense that the experience is the same. The changes are there, I’m not blind but they seem insufficient for now. I’ve seen some walls today that I witnessed falling down in 2006 and they are not fixed yet.
^ The metro is worthless for those of us with any sort of mobility issues. Out-of-town friends are often surprised when I tell them it was put in place post-1965, the system being so infrastructurally broken down on one hand, and so disenabling on the other.
It’s nice the kiddies are getting a free ride though. I wish older university students could be also thrown a bone this year, as was promised by Tremblay waaay back in 2001 (referenced here and here) and never realized.
Guaranteed some kids under 12 get a better allowance than the average grad school student.
How does one come up with this figure (the $400 000) anyway? And why do they insist on calling it a cost? To justify the upcoming increase?
It’s so frustrating to see them come up with these ideas, but completely disregard comments made by the current users (like increase frequency, try to repair your equipment, etc.).
In some Scandinavian countries, the people who make decisions about public transport must use it. The idea being that someone who is in the metro every morning gets how frustrating it can be when, for example, there is only one tiny staircase available at Berri. Or how it feels never to have a seat on the train when you get on it (and knowing yours is the second stop).
What I wouldn’t give to see the STM (or ATM) people squeezed in the middle of the morning crowd on the green line…
One thing they could do is allow two for one for pass holders on evenings, say, after 20h and maybe even on week-ends. This could capture the movie/clubgoing scene while introducing transit to people who don’t normally take it without unduly overloading the network.