STM adds Saint-Michel express bus

The STM moves to its spring schedule on Monday. Here’s some of what bus users can come to expect:

Welcome to the Saint-Michel Express

The biggest change comes to the 67 Saint-Michel, the STM’s single busiest line, which like its counterparts along Côte des Neiges, Parc and Pie-IX will get a little brother. The 467 Express Saint-Michel takes the same route as the 67, but with only 15 stops. The STM estimates this will cut 10% off travel times (via CPTDB), thanks to the help of two McGill urban planners (thanks Dave). Other measures, such as a reserved bus lane (coming this summer) and priority traffic lights (coming in 2010), are designed to shave another 5-20% off.

The route will have 126 departures from 6am to 7pm in both directions, Monday to Friday.

The 467’s stops are:

  • Henri-Bourassa
  • Fleury
  • Sauvé
  • De Louvain
  • Émile-Journault
  • Robert
  • Jarry
  • Villeray
  • Saint-Michel metro
  • Bélanger
  • Beaubien
  • Rosemont
  • Masson
  • Saint-Joseph
  • Joliette metro

72 extended to Côte-Vertu and Fairview

The 72 Alfred-Nobel, which connects the Saint-Laurent industrial park with the Du Collège metro, is having its route extended on both sides. On the western side, the route will end at the Fairview terminus (via Hymus), and on the eastern side, continuing on Decarie up to the Côte-Vertu metro (where all the other West Island buses stop). Service intervals will also drop slightly for this route, which operates Monday to Friday from 7am to 7pm.

Other notable scheduling changes I stumbled across

  • 12 Île des Soeurs: Dramatic increase in weekday departures, which are now 23 minutes apart instead of 30 during most of the day.
  • 16 Graham: New eastbound departure at 7:20am
  • 68 Pierrefonds: Service intervals westbound on Saturdays drop from about 22 minutes to about 16 minutes in the afternoon, with more buses in the morning and afternoon going all the way to Timberlea/Anse-à-l’Orme. Eastbound Saturday mornings a departure is added at 8am. And for some odd reason, the 1:40am westbound departure on Saturday nights (half an hour later than the rest of the week, consistent with a later metro closing time) has been eliminated.
  • 150 René-Lévesque: Weekday departures are now 31 minutes apart instead of 30, in order to remove a departure from the schedule.
  • 173 Métrobus Victoria: Service intervals decreased from 20 to 15 minutes during high-traffic times (eastbound during the morning rush hour, westbound during the afternoon rush hour)
  • 201 Saint-Charles-Saint-Jean: Midday Saturday service intervals drop from about 32 minutes to about 22 minutes between departures.
  • 207 Jacques-Bizard: An annoying schedule quirk for this predictable (every half hour on the half hour) schedule has been partially removed. After 10pm, the departures in both directions would happen every hour instead of every half hour. Those who didn’t look at the schedule closely enough might get stuck wondering why the bus didn’t come. On weekdays, the departures return to being every half hour, but still every hour after 10pm on weekends.
  • 209 Des Sources: Added departure northbound at 11:39pm. Previous final departure was at 10:55pm
  • 215 Henri-Bourassa: Between 9am and 12pm Saturday mornings, time between westbound departures drops from 30 minutes to 20.
  • 480 Pointe-Nord Île-des-Soeurs: Service intervals drop from 15 minutes to 10 minutes at rush hour peak
  • 515 Vieux-Montréal-Vieux-Port: Service intervals increase from every 13 minutes to every 20 minutes during the day (it’s unclear if this reduction in service is a seasonal thing, as more people are expected to walk places in warmer weather, or if it’s a reaction to how little the bus is used)

Notice anything I haven’t seen? Comment below.

9 thoughts on “STM adds Saint-Michel express bus

  1. Urban Wanderer

    Great updates on STM as always. But what did the STM board decide on improvements to the 164 and 174 last month. And does anyone know when they might be coming? I ask as an occasional user of the latter service.

    Reply
    1. Fagstein Post author

      Various route changes are in the works (the 70, 207, 208, 209, 210, 219 and others will also be changed), most likely for implementation at the next schedule change in June.

      Reply
  2. Bill_the_Bear

    That change to the 150 takes it back to what it was a few schedule periods ago. What I’ve never figured out is why, on weekdays, the 150 runs roughly every 31-32 minutes, but on weekends, when there are fewer riders, it runs every 25 minutes.

    Reply
  3. Jean Naimard

    STM: the place where most buses run at st00p1d 12, 17, 22, 23, 25 or 32 minutes intervals, thus making it impossible for people to casually take the bus without having to look at a timetable when they know that with 5, 10, 15, 20 and 30 minutes intervals, the buses will always pass at the same minutes past each hour.

    Most ridiculous is the 209 who had (still has? Haven’t taken it lately) buses passing at intervals alternating between 23 and 42 minutes…

    Reply
  4. Todd

    I often take the 67 from the corner of Masson and St Michel so the express is great news (I can also use the St Joseph stop).

    The 67 is always busy no matter what time it is, day or night.

    Reply
  5. SMS

    This line will be a success for sure (and by this I mean the 467).
    Not so sure of the 72 extension… I think it will get 175’d ;)

    Reply
  6. SMS

    Here’s one service increase:

    470 early evening service westbound weeknights every 20 minutes instead of every 30 minutes.

    Reply
  7. SMS

    215 Henri-Bourassa: Between 3pm and 7pm Sunday afternoons, time between westbound departures drops from 30 minutes to 20.

    Reply

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