Poster for Jeunes pour Montréal
You don’t usually see third-party interest groups in municipal elections, but one has appearently formed called Jeunes pour Montréal. The idea is not to advocate for any particular political party but to raise issues of specific interest to youth, including public transportation. Its creators say they’re supported by student associations and not any particular party, so I’ll take them at their word.
They’re also (of course) active on social media, including Facebook, where we learn that the most popular issue apparently is metro service overnight. They’ve asked the three parties for their views on that issue.
Aside from the little traffic that would take a metro at 4am, the overnight hours are when track maintenance and other work is carried out that can’t be done while the trains are running.
But an increase in the frequency and reach of night bus service is an idea worth looking at.
UPDATE: Turns out the group isn’t authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer and its signs are up illegally. Some of them have already been taken down.
Couldn’t they at least do overnight métro service on Fri-Sat-Sun and do the maintenance on the other days?
There is actually no maintenance done in the saturday-sunday night.
However, what would make more sense is to run buses along métro lines during the night, instead of the current hodge-podge of strange night bus lines what do not make sense (until you realize they are mostly intended for employees).
I used to be totally in favor of 24 hour metro service, but after thinking about it, most people will still take cabs, and drunks on the metro will cause more problems than imaginable. And I’m often one of those drunks. A pilot project of Fridays and Saturdays till 4am would be interesting, and would show how many people use the system…and highlight problems, if any. Also, don’t forget, Bixis are 24 hours!
I saw some of the signs along St-Denis yesterday just north and south of Jean-Talon (in the area with the little knot of yummy (East/Southeast) Asian shops … bbq duck re-yum). Didn’t quite understand why more cycle lanes, more transport access etc were portrayed as “youth” issues – I was riding a bicycle as I’ve been doing for at least 35 years – but thought it was a worthy effort to get out the youth vote.
The idea behind Québec’s electoral reform was democratic – preventing lobbies with a lot of money from weighing in on elections, but using it against groups advocating more participation by youth, recent immigrants or any other group that often feels left out of the electoral process strikes me as overkill.
Too bad the métro can’t run until 3 am when the bars let out, but I guess that doesn’t provide enough time before it starts in the early morning for tired commuters.
Yeah, but after last call, coat check, poutine, walk to the metro, wait for train, ride to destination station, the earliest you can expect anyone to “finish” with the metro is closer to 4:30am…..
Very sad that they are being excluded from the process. Their efforts have more merit than the ridiculous propaganda of the official parties…. The city and the government can put up signs encouraging people to vote. Why can’t other groups do similar?
The issue is that they’re unregistered. Allowing such unregistered organizations to start putting up election signs opens the door to political parties secretly and/or privately funding groups to raise their issues without any accountability.
Hopefully the group and the Chief Electoral Officer can come to some arrangement to get them registered and keep them active, assuming their intentions are not to back a specific political party.
Richard Bergeron, Projet Montréal’s leader talks economy and first term achievements on this video found on Youtube. http://c8l.ca/ra
He promised the metro would go west, that’s the way.
Who is funding this group?
The provincial electoral law says that only parties (registered) can spend money to encourage the election of a candidate.
The municipal cleanliness by-laws says you are never allowed to put up posters on the public domain, unless you are a political party during an election campaign.
Ste-Catherine street in the Village is full of their posters…and they haven’t been taken down, at least as of breakfast time Saturday.
I understand that track maintenance on the metro is done during the off hours.
But perhaps it could be like Berlin, with 24 hour service Friday through Sunday?
You say there would be little ridership, but on those days, the last few trains are packed, and would probably continue to be packed if they were run later.
at the very least, they could run once an hour until say, 345am.