Back to transit this week, on a suggestion from reader Zain Farookhi:
What bus stop is shared between the most bus lines?
(Note that for the purposes of this question, a terminal with multiple stops is not considered one stop.)
UPDATE: Steve Hatton is the first to get the right answer.
STM bus stop at René-Lévesque and Mansfield (westbound)
This stop at René-Lévesque Blvd. and Mansfield (that’s the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in the background) has 10 bus lines serving it as of March 29:
- 150 René-Lévesque, the “regular” day route serving the street
- 358 Sainte-Catherine, the night bus (the eastbound service is on Ste. Catherine St., which is why the stop across the street doesn’t have the same number of bus routes)
- 410 Express Notre-Dame, an east-end-to-downtown express bus
- 427 Express Saint-Joseph, the new express from Saint-Joseph Blvd.
- 430 Express Pointe-aux-Trembles, similar to the 410
- 480 Pointe-Nord/Île-des-Soeurs, the rush-hour bus connecting downtown with the Bell campus on the northern tip of Nuns’ Island
- 515 Vieux-Montréal/Vieux-Port, the underused loop bus connecting downtown with the Old Port
- 535 R-Bus Du Parc/Côte des Neiges, the reserved-lane bus that uses Montreal’s two busiest axes during rush hour
- 747 Express Bus, the new airport express
- 935 Trainbus Blainville, the STM-operated but AMT-administered shortcut for Blainville train users
Of those 10 routes, two are less than a month old and two others are less than two years old. Before last week, the answer would have been (unless I’m mistaken) the stop at Brunswick Blvd. and St. John’s Blvd. outside the Fairview mall in the West Island, which is served by nine routes all coming out of the terminal.
Kellergraham points out an alternative that also has 10 routes serving it.
EB Rene-Levesque/Mansfield
I retract my former answer
EB Brunswick/St-Jean
Bus stop #57621 at Brunswick & St-Jean: 9 lines stop here.
I think my answer is the same as SMS.
I’m going with Rene-Levesque/Mansfield but westbound instead.
The late night 358 means there’s an extra bus at the westbound stop, also for a total of 9 buses.
Actually make that 10 buses at that stop. For some reason the 935 Trainbus isn’t showing up on the list at stm.info, yet I’m pretty sure it stops there.
Only on the island of Montreal right? Because #74139 has 10 bus routes :)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kellergraham/1435185403/
BTW, do you mean a bus stop serviced by STM only, or would STL and/or RTL bus count as well?
Any public transit bus (STM/STL/RTL/AMT/CIT). The answer I have is STM (well, STM/AMT in one case), but extra credit if you find another service that has more lines serving a single stop on the island.
I don’t have an answer for the montreal island, but it’s gonna be hard to beat the Quebec City RTC René Lévesque / Quebec Place stop with a stunning 25 to 30 routes stopping there (, most of them are rush hour eXpress towards suburbs but this stop, and that dosent count other transit services stopping there.
A streetview of the stop (Note: Since route 214,215,283,294 and 295 are unloading only at this stop, they are not on the pole)
http://maps.google.ca/?ie=UTF8&ll=46.809034,-71.217263&spn=0,0.019205&t=h&z=16&layer=c&cbll=46.808965,-71.217404&panoid=SgdG3Phce9xQl-NSJRcieQ&cbp=12,109,,1,1.23
I’d like to point out the RTL stop at Lafayette and Saint-Charles, which serves 14 bus lines, as follows:
http://bit.ly/bAUn1E
These stops have nothing on Quebec City where, in the downtown area, it is commonplace to see at least a dozen routes sharing the same stop.
Sometimes they are staggered by a few feet.
Of course visitors to London England know that in many parts of the city, there may be as many as 20 bus stops within a five minute-walk and you need to look at the map beside the stop to know where your route stops.
In downtown Montreal (St James Street, etc) in the 1950s, rather than list the names of the buses near Craig Terminal, there were stops which simply said something like “All buses” (in English and French.)
I remember very well that they were marked “Toutes les lignes” in very small type.
That’s still the case for STO bus stops on de Maissonneuve in downtown Gatineau.
On the transitway in Ottawa, all-day buses are listed on the stops (but there are fewer than 11 of those at any given stop). If all rush hour buses stop at the stop, it will just say “All AM or ALL PM, depending on the direction”.
The RTL stop south of William on Nazareth on the island has 11 buses
30, 34, 38, 42, 44, 46, 47, 59, 90, 132, 142
Speaking of buses, in the ’80s during a transit dispute (hard to believe, I know), the bus drivers were protesting by dressing as women. As we waited on the bus at Angrignon for the driver to return, a drunk came aboard and said “If the driver comes back in a dress, I’m gonna f*** him up the a**!”
(Fagstein, i don’t know your policy on swearing. i was gonna write it out in full, but whatever is appropriate for your site is important. However, the guy did say the words in full.)