Category Archives: Public transit

| Blogosphere, Navel-gazing, Public transit, Radio, Video

Welcome Daybreak listeners

(or, at least, those who hear about a website in the morning and make a note to visit a half hour later)

In case you missed it, I was invited by CBC Daybreak to come in and give them an analysis of blog coverage of the federal election campaign (my super-secret project). I was originally supposed to go on yesterday, but with the debate going long I was bumped to today.

Unfortunately, in the first time in months (years?) that I’ve taken a metro train during morning rush hour, I experienced four separate delays (one of which had me stuck in the tunnel). I practically had a heart attack, knowing full well that radio deadlines aren’t flexible by even a second.

I gave up at Laurier metro as the lights went out in the train, and hurried outside to let the producer know I wasn’t there. They quickly decided to do the interview by (pay)phone. (One thing payphones still have over cellphones is that, because they don’t have to compress their data into compact wireless streams, the sound is much clearer and more radio-friendly. Not as good as in-studio, but desperate times…)

As I told host Mike Finnerty, I don’t blame the STM for the delays, which were due in part to technical problems and because of the traffic tie-ups those problems create. But I wasn’t thrilled with the transit corporation this morning, that’s for sure. (And, of course, the trip back home was entirely uneventful)

Anyway, we talked about this blog (it’s really a place for any opinions I like to give on anything, though I focus specifically on the media, public transit, stuff going on in the news, blogs, and of course myself. You can also read what I’ve written about the federal election so far.

We also got into the meat of the matter (though six minutes goes by so fast when you’re talking about stuff), discussing blogosphere reaction to Elizabeth May in the debates, as well as a video by Justin Trudeau (and the parody of that video by Prenez Garde Aux Chiens, whose season premiere is tonight at 10pm on Canal Vox) that has been making the rounds in the blogosphere recently.

I’ll try to get a clip of the segment up soon.

| Montreal, Opinion, Public transit

Vaudreuil screwjob

Hey, remember back in June when I told you about that AMT contract to run two new express bus routes with crazy perks like air conditioning? And then two months later everyone hears about it for the first time (thanks to a press release) and is immediately outraged, saying this is “two-tier transit” and it’s illegal demanding it be scrapped?

Well you’ll be pleased to know that the Quebec government has done exactly that, bending to municipal pressure (and unions) and putting the kibosh on the project, mere days before it was to go into service.

Actually, it’s not really suspending it. Instead, the minister has taken the contract from Limocar and given control of the Vaudreuil line to CIT La Presqu’ile, which serves local transit needs of the western shore.

Of course, that’s what should have been done in the first place. The regional transit authorities around Montreal all have express buses going onto the island, including the RTL, STL, CITSO and companies that run transit in towns you didn’t realize had transit systems. Even CITPI has routes that connect with the STM network at John Abbott College in Sainte Anne de Bellevue. Why spend gobs of money on a private contract when you can just let the local transit authority handle it?

And even if we concede that the AMT needed to hire a company to run this route, why the requirements for air conditioning, Wi-Fi access and the rest that instantly disqualified the transit companies from the process? The government has been clear in the past that air conditioning is a luxury and they won’t pay for buses to have them. So why did AMT get special treatment?

Mentioning the delay between my reporting in June and the decision this past week isn’t just to make me look good. There are consequences to going back on decisions like this. Limocar went through a fair bidding process in good faith, and now they’ve been screwed over. It’s unclear whether they’ve spent any serious money setting this route up, but even if we just count the manpower they spent on the bidding process, that’s a lot of resources for something that has turned out to be irrelevant.

In other words, expect a lawsuit to develop out of this, or expect Limocar to get some serious cash in severance costs.

And, of course, all that is money out of our pockets.

All because people complained about a contract after it was awarded instead of when the ridiculous requirements were announced.

| Montreal, Opinion, Public transit

We need to rid our city of driver-side bus mirrors

After recent injuries to pedestrians due to rear-view mirrors on STM buses, some are asking why these predatory reflective objects are allowed to keep recklessly and deliberately attacking poor bystanders whose only crime was standing less than four inches from the driver’s side of a moving bus.

The STM has refused to retrofit their buses in order to remove these threats to our (taller) children, even after discovering that people can get hit with them.

This is about safety. The ability of a bus driver to look at himself or look back at roads he’s already driven through should not get in the way of keeping our streets safe for pedestrians.

We must not rest until our buses are mirror-free.

| Montreal, Opinion, Public transit

Westmount doesn’t want trains on its train tracks

Apparently, the city council in Westmount isn’t keen on the idea of a high-speed rail link between downtown and the airport going through their little town on the lines currently used by the AMT commuter trains going to Windsor Station. Instead, they’d prefer if the route used tracks further south in St. Henri.

The reasoning is somewhat complicated, and has to do with some very technical aspects of the two tracks. In order to better explain it, I’ve created a diagram of the situation below:

As you can see, it’s better for everyone involved if the train uses the lower tracks.

(I realize this is classic NIMBYism and not specific to Westmount, but you’d think it would occur to them that such a suggestion without any reasons behind it would lead to this kind of impression.)

UPDATE: Aww Pat, I’m touched (again). Your kickback will be in the mail shortly. Pour vos lecteurs, vous pouvez lire mes billets sur les médias, Montréal et, surtout, sur Patrick Lagacé.

| Montreal, Public transit, West Island

STM adds service, but still short on buses

As part of its promise for vastly increased service for users (and in order to meet government-imposed quotas to get extra cash), the STM has announced sweeping improvements to bus service across the island, as well as better service on the Orange Line of the metro (which will now use renovated MR-73 trains exclusively), all starting next Monday (Sept. 1) as the new schedules are released.

The actual improvements to bus service aren’t quite as dramatic as the long press release would make it seem. Part of the reason is that the STM simply doesn’t have enough buses to meet up with all the increased service it wants. More are being manufactured, but won’t arrive here until next year.

Nevertheless, there are some highlights in the new schedules:

New route: 480 Pointe-Nord-Île-des-Soeurs (plus collective taxi)

The 480 Pointe-Nord Île-des-Soeurs route, which was first announced back in April, finally gets started. It’s an express link between downtown and Nuns’ Island’s new Bell campus. That route will also be paired with a collective taxi service which will run between the campus and Nuns’ Island’s commercial area during lunchtime.

New “seniors” routes: 252, 253, 254

What do you do when a pilot project fails miserably? Try it again in another place without changing any of the things that were wrong with it, of course. After trying “seniors” routes in NDG and Côte des Neiges, the STM is repeating the experiment in Montreal North, Saint Michel and Rosemont.

Like the previous incarnation, these buses will only run on certain days (and it’s not the same days for each bus), during midday, on a confusingly circular route at unreasonably large intervals of between 50 and 80 minutes. The latter two will also use minibuses, which are high-floor buses (it’s unclear if they’ll have lifts like adapted transit buses do) and tough to get into for older people.

The stops will be identified with the same yellow signs as the previous versions, even though yellow signs also indicate temporary routes (like the shuttle running through Georges-Vanier metro) and tourist routes (like the 515 Old Port bus)

470 adds weekend service

As part of its incremental increases to service to the 470 Express Pierrefonds, a route described (repeatedly) as a “home run” by STM director Marvin Rotrand, the STM has finally added weekend service for the first time. Service will be provided in both directions between 6:30am and 6:30pm, at intervals ranging from 20 minutes (during weekend rush-hour times) and 30 minutes (around noon). That’s great, only it took them a year to do it.

103 service intervals to plummet

Service intervals on the 103 Monkland will drop dramatically next week during all hours of service. On weekdays during the day, intervals will be closer to 10-12 minutes than the current 15-20, and during rush hour it will drop below the 6-minutes-or-less threshold.

On Saturdays, morning eastbound service will be at 15 minutes instead of 20. Westbound, intervals will drop from 20 minutes to 15 from 1-4pm, and from 30 minutes to 20 minutes during the evenings.

Sunday’s schedule stays mostly the same.

Neighbourhood routes get later evening hours (but only during weekdays)

Following up on a promise to offer late-evening service to certain routes, new schedules for five seven-day routes show less truncated weekday schedules, which will now end closer to the metro’s closing time of 1am. Weekend service, however, will remain unaffected and still end as early as previously:

Sundays start earlier on the West Island

Anyone who’s tried to get around the West Island early on a Sunday morning quickly realized that it’s not possible before 9am. For some arcane reason, service starts at 7am on Saturdays, but everyone’s expected to just sleep in on Sundays. Only certain routes like the 68 or 211 offer any service before 9am. That changes next week, as the late-rising routes through Fairview start getting up at 7am instead of 9:

Seven-day buses with slightly improved service during rush hour:

(Barely) extended rush hours, up to 1 hour on each side:

Existing “all-day” (but not evening or weekend) routes whose service will end at 7pm instead of 6:30pm:

Service reductions advertised as service increases

Perhaps there was a mixup of some sort. But comparing schedules, it seems there are actually slight reductions in the service on two routes where the STM has advertised slight increases:

  • 268 Trainbus Pierrefonds: Two fewer departures eastbound cutting service after 4pm, three fewer departures westbound cutting service before 9:30am. In exchange, two extra departures at the end of rush hour westbound.
  • 430 Express Pointe-aux-Trembles: One fewer departure westbound in early morning

UPDATE: The papers have stories on the schedule changes. La Presse, notably, mentions nothing about the 470 weekend service nor the earlier Sundays for routes going through Fairview. I guess they think the West Island doesn’t matter.

| Business, Montreal, Opinion, Public transit, Technology

Koodo using crappy game to get attention

Interactive Koodo ad at Peel metro

Interactive Koodo ad at Peel metro

Last weekend, some metro station platform ads were replaced by a television screen inviting people to “train” with some Koodo-branded games. Koodo, you’ll recall, is the Telus-owned “discount” cellphone service which competes with Rogers’s Fido and Bell’s Solo Mobile services. It unexplicably uses cheesy 80s workout clichés as the basis for its branding.

A user interacts with a Koodo ad at Berri-UQAM metro station

A user interacts with a Koodo ad at Berri-UQAM metro station

Lo and behold, it worked. People on a metro platform waiting for a train are a notoriously bored bunch (even if they’re in a hurry). Shiny things with buttons will quickly find people willing to press them.

Unfortunately, the games themselves weren’t that good. In fact, one wasn’t even a game, it was just a menu filled with information about Koodo’s cellphone plans. The only actual “game” is a Where’s Waldo-style search game that requires the user to “scroll” through the map because it doesn’t all fit on the screen.

The game had clearly not been usability tested, because I couldn’t figure out how the scrolling worked. Tapping near the corner caused it to slowly scroll in that direction by about an inch. Dragging a finger toward the corner caused the screen to quickly scroll in that direction and then quickly scroll back. Dragging a finger away from the corner caused about the same thing to happen. (UPDATE Aug. 27: I’m not the only one to notice this failure.)

Also:

Unexpected click gives a 404 error

Unexpected click gives a 404 error

I’m not quite sure how I did this, but I somehow created a new tab in Internet Explorer (which this apparently runs on) and sent it to a page which doesn’t exist.

Closeup of Koodo ad 404 error

Closeup of Koodo ad 404 error

So apparently these ads are running on Windows servers using a two-year-old version of the Apache web server. (On the plus side, the system resets itself after a minute or two of inactivity)

I have to give Koodo credit for this one. After all, I’m blogging about it, which was the point. But it doesn’t make me want to get a Koodo phone plan any more.

| Montreal, Opinion, Public transit

11 problems with STM’s new magnetic fare card

Nameless new STM fare/transfer card

Nameless new STM fare/transfer card

This spring, after outfitting all buses and metro stations with new equipment, the STM introduced a new, smarter fare system which uses smart cards instead of magnetic-strip passes, and cards with magnetic strips instead of … tickets with magnetic strips. Both not only serve as fare payment, but also as transfers.

Though Opus, the smart card, is the sexier and more revolutionary of the new fare cards, the STM started with this flimsy paper thing that has caused nothing but confusion and problems (even its website is down)

Below is a list of the problems I’ve noticed with the non-Opus paper card, even though I’ve never actually used one:

  1. It doesn’t have a name. Unlike the Opus smart card, which has a whole branding effort behind it, this paper magnetic card has neither a proper branding name nor any simple two-word description. The result is that people can’t describe it in a way that obviously differentiates it from the Opus card.
  2. The card was announced in the same breath as the Opus card, further leading to confusion.
  3. The card is neither reusable nor recyclable. The result is that they fill trashcans and litter streets.
  4. The card also acts as a proof-of-payment system, which means it must be carried until the end of the trip. This is a departure from the current fare payment system which has not adequately been explained. Since proof of payment isn’t enforced in the system (because some people still use old tickets and old metro transfers), it leads to even more confusion.
  5. The card replaces both single fares and strips of six tickets. This has led to a problem where users insert the card into a turnstile and then don’t retrieve it, losing the other five tickets. That has resulted in a change of policy, and they now issue six cards with one fare each, instead of one card with six fares. This leads to more waste.
  6. Metro turnstiles don’t open until the user retrieves the card. Many users have no reason to retrieve the cards because they’ve already paid their fare.
  7. While the Opus card arguably makes fare payment faster, this card makes it take longer. The machines on buses take five seconds to process a card or eject a new one, from the time payment is accepted and the green light appears. Five seconds may not seem like much, but multiply that by a dozen people getting on, and the bus is already a minute late. A bus that gets a lot of tourists or occasional riders is going to experience significant delays.
  8. Bus fare boxes issue cards for every fare paid. But because they’re treated as optional transfers, users who aren’t planning to transfer move to the back of the bus before the card is issued. Drivers have to manually collect the cards, which they then give out when other users pay using tickets. When the number of people paying cash and not wanting a transfer outweighs the number paying tickets and wanting one, a surplus emerges which the driver has to dispose of.
  9. When inserted into a fare box, no feedback is given other than a green light (fare accepted) or red light (fare rejected). Because the cards act as both fare payment and transfer, there’s no way to tell until after the fact whether the fare box has accepted a transfer or deducted another fare. (This is a larger problem with the Opus card, which has no human-readable indication of how many fares remain on it.)
  10. Because the card is designed for disposability, it isn’t very tough. As a result it gets folded and wrinkled and then becomes unreadable, causing further delays.
  11. The cards are not accepted on minibuses or collective taxis.

Have you noticed any problems with the card apart from these? Comment below and I’ll add them to the list.

| Montreal, Opinion, Public transit, Slow News Day

STM, media need to learn Bullying 101

The local media is busy rewriting this STM press release (or republishing this Presse Canadienne piece with its incorrect web address) about how students will be forced to use the new Opus smart card as a transit pass this fall. The card, valid for two years, will have a picture and personally identifiable information on the back.

For some bizarre reason, the STM started this campaign without updating its web page on the card so that students could learn more about the new system.

One of the claims by the STM, as highlighted by The Gazette, is that the card will eliminate fraud and, hence, taxing by fellow students. The way this will be done, it suggests, is by revoking the card’s credentials once it’s reported stolen.

Let me repeat that: Once it’s reported stolen (This is assuming, of course, that the student in question knows the serial number of the stolen card or the STM can search a large database of personal information to find it).

Now, to those who have never been bullied in high school: What do you think is going to happen after someone has taxed you for your transit pass and you report it stolen?

Of course, the fact that ID and pass are on the same card, and that ID should be checked any time the card is used, should automatically make it impossible to use the card of anyone but an identical twin. But, as we all know, verification of student ID cards is hardly 100 per cent.

| Montreal, On the Net, Public transit, Technology

More mobile options for bus times

STM Mobile screenshot

STM Mobile screenshot

via Patrick, a new iPhone application has been launched called STM mobile that scrapes the STM website for bus arrival times and keeps track of favourite stops for easy access. It costs $0.99 through the Apple AppStore.

For those without an OMGcool iPhone, there’s the free busmob.com service, which does the same but through a light-weight website instead of an application.

Or you could just call AUTOBUS from your phone, or check the posted schedule, but that won’t make you cool.

UPDATE (July 31): Pierre-Nick has a review that’s mostly positive, but points out that it doesn’t use geolocation to find the closest stop.

UPDATE (Aug. 2): CFD has an interview with the program’s creator.

UPDATE (Aug. 7): The Gazette’s Roberto Rocha has an article about STM Mobile and busmob.com and how the STM is planning its own mobile schedule service for the fall.

UPDATE (Oct. 24): There’s also this very basic service which does pretty much the same as busmob.

| Opinion, Public transit, West Island

Bus route suggestions on the cheap

To complete my public-transit-in-the-news trifecta, The Gazette’s Henry Aubin has some suggestions about how the STM can help improve the network cheaply, based on readers’ comments:

  1. The MTC should do more to ensure that buses don’t reach bus stops well before their scheduled arrival time: That all depends on what “do more” means. Inspectors check after buses at busy stops to make sure they’re all on time. Individual buses are supposed to keep to their schedules, and in some cases will take breaks in order to keep from moving on too early. But it’s unrealistic to expect an hour-long bus route to be accurate to within one minute at all stops. A simple traffic light or two would be enough to put them off schedule (and often it does).
  2. More posted bus schedules would be handy. No schedules are posted for six to eight bus stops on some routes. What routes? I’ve never seen that many stops between posted schedules. And aside from the fact that every bus stop in the network has a code you can use to call using a cellphone and find out when the next bus comes, the STM has added schedules (and maps) to most of its shelters, as well as stand-alone schedules to many stops. That number is increasing, but there are many less-used stops that don’t have schedules posted.
  3. More generous hours for bringing bicycles on the métro would help certain commuters. Sure, but at the expense of others. The STM limits bicycles on the metro during rush hours and events (such as the fireworks) when the system is too crowded to support them safely. When the network has to choose between allowing a bike on a train or letting three or four people board, it will go with the people.
  4. The MTC could do more to synchronize the routes. Again, what does “do more” mean here? Synchronizing routes sounds very simple, but it’s extremely complicated. Each bus will connect with maybe dozens of others. They can’t all be synchronized in every direction so that every transfer has a minimum wait time. There are some specific areas where individual routes’ schedules could be improved for better synchronization (the 371 and 382 is a personal pet peeve of mine – a delay of a minute over a half-hour route can mean the difference between zero wait time and an hour in a dark outdoor terminus in the middle of the night), but in most cases they do they best they can.
  5. Fewer routes should be part of the Fairview Mall hub-and-spoke system; more should be either east-west or north-south, with transfer-friendly co-ordination between them. The STM has already agreed with this and is transitioning away from the hub-and-spoke system for the West Island. I don’t necessarily agree – I like the idea of a terminal where you can switch from any line to any line, but I guess I’m missing something.
  6. As well, some heavily used routes could cut travel time by avoiding meanderings that benefit relatively few people – the 211 bus’s deviation onto small Dorval streets, for example. I always found that deviation a bit odd, but it does serve the mall at Dorval circle. And the rush-hour 221 skips it for people in a rush. But sure, go ahead and change that.
  7. Other routes could be eliminated entirely, with the resulting savings plowed into new routes or into more frequent service on existing routes (such as) keeping only the 202 and reconfiguring it (to eliminate the 203). The 200 and 205 could be killed. (Notice a West Island bias here?) Well, the 203 is currently the only bus serving Lakeshore General Hospital, so I hope that would be part of the reconfiguration. The 200 is the only bus between Fairview and Ste. Anne de Bellevue on the weekend, but I wouldn’t cry if it disappeared (it doesn’t run after 7pm right now anyway). As for the 205, it is the only bus serving the rather large Rive Boisée area of Pierrefonds. Without it, people would have to walk up to 1,500 metres to the closest bus stop.

But hey, that’s just my opinion.

| Montreal, Public transit, Slow News Day

STM drivers do OT: The horror!

Matinternet has a piece about an Info690 report that plagiarizes (without attribution) an OMGclusive article in the Journal de Montréal this morning that says bus drivers in Montreal are doing a lot of overtime, a few of them even doubling their salary with all the extra work they do.

I guess this is news for some people. If you’ve ever seen an STM driver’s schedule (four hours on, two hours off, three hours on, etc.), you’d start to understand a bit better.

The articles, of course, offer no solutions to this problem. The STM is doing the best they can to hire more drivers, but that takes time, and the number of retirements is creeping upward at the same time as the transit agency wants to add more service.

| Media, Montreal, Public transit

Gazette starts transit column

This morning, The Gazette launched a new weekly column where readers submit incessantly boring rants about the most minor of uninteresting inconveniences questions and suggestions about the Montreal transit system and they get responses from an STM flak.

The first column includes complaints about metro doors closing too fast, the 162 bus schedule, and wheelchair ramps on buses.

It remains to be seen whether such a column can sustain interest to be repeated on a weekly basis, or whether it will degenerate into a bunch of random people ranting like old men about how the buses are always too full, people aren’t courteous, or that one bus showed up late that one time.

| Fun, Montreal, Photos, Public transit

The metro car ice cream parlor, and other Just for Laughs outdoor fun

The other day (you know, back when it wasn’t raining), I wandered on to the Just for Laughs outdoor fun zone. For those of you who have never been here, it’s not so much funny ha-ha (the comics are saved for shows people pay for), it’s more about having fun with games, clowns, mimes and other amusing things.

The most amusing thing for me was this: a metro car, pulled out of the garage and parked on the street to be turned into an ice cream parlor.

Continue reading →

| Montreal, Public transit

STM to add evening service to downtown routes

Last week at its board of directors’ meeting, the STM approved a plan to extend service hours to five bus routes serving the downtown and near-downtown areas:

All of these routes are 7-day daytime routes, but their service ends before midnight (the 31 and 138 have their last runs as early as 7pm). Though the STM hasn’t said what exactly the extended service hours will be, expect these routes to have added evening service seven days a week, starting at the next schedule change in September.

Also at the meeting, the STM approved a new senior shuttle service for Montreal-North, St-Michel and Rosemont. I guess the stunning failure of the previous senior-shuttle experiment hasn’t fazed the transit authority.