Category Archives: Public transit

| In the news, Montreal, Public transit

Transit fares going up (but down in Laval)

$TM

It’s about to hit December, which means it’s that time of year when the STM announces its fare increases for the coming year. It’s required to give 30 days notice of fare increases, so that’s why it happens now.

The skinny:

  Adult fare
(Jan. 1, 2008)		 Now Increase Reduced fare
(Jan. 1, 2008)		 Now Increase
Monthly CAM $66.25 $65 1.9% $36 $35 2.9%
Weekly CAM Hebdo $19.25 $19 1.3% $11 $10.75 2.3%
Six tickets $12 $11.75 2.1% $6.50 $6.25 4%
Cash fare $2.75 $2.75 No change $1.75 $1.75 No change
Tourist card (3 days) $17.00 $17.00 No change      
Tourist card (1 day) $9.00 $9.00 No change      

The STM argues that these fare increases are modest (average of 1.9%, and lower than last year’s increases), and combined with a hefty increase in the amount Montreal is giving the corporation will help pay for increased capital expenditures and better services, some of which have already been announced or implemented. These include:

  • Running six trains all day on the Blue Line
  • Replacing 40-year-old train cars (currenty operating on the green line) with new ones
  • Increased metro service (26%), especially before and after rush hour on the green, orange and blue lines
  • Increased bus service on its 30 most popular lines, including the 121 Sauvé/Côte-Vertu, 18 Beaubien and 24 Sherbrooke
  • Longer service hours for rush-hour expresses 470 Pierrefonds and 194 Rivière-des-Prairies (running both during the day between rush hours), and running the 12 Île-des-Soeurs on Sundays.
  • General budget expenses to cope with a 2% increase in ridership.

Laval cheapens up

  Adult fare
(Jan. 1, 2008)		 Now Increase Reduced fare
(Jan. 1, 2008)		 Now Increase
Monthly pass $74 $72.50 2.1% ? $43.00 ?
Eight tickets $18 $21 -14% ? $12.25 ?
Cash fare $2.50 $3.00 -17% ? $1.80 ?

The Laval transit corporation, meanwhile, is going in the opposite direction, reducing its single-use fares. A single fare will now be $2.50 instead of $3. There will also be cute little incentives like increasing the age at which children can travel freely from 5 to 11 on weekends and holidays.

The decrease makes sense, especially because now it’s cheaper to take the metro from Montmorency to downtown Montreal ($2.75) than it is to take an STL bus down the street ($3). The change will reverse that. (The fact that neither STL nor STM tickets are valid at the Laval metro stations is still a huge annoyance though.)

On the other hand, the price of a monthly pass is going up, from $72.50 to $74. This changes the math of how often you have to use transit for the monthly pass to be worth your purchase. Right now, if you use public transit fewer than 28 times a month (14 round trips), it’s better off to get tickets. That number goes up to 33 (16.5 round trips). So in the unlikely event that you travel by bus exactly 14, 15 or 16 times a month, you’re now better off getting tickets than passes.

The STL is also dramatically reducing fares on smog days to just $1, if a smog warning is in effect as of 3pm. That sounds great and all, but it takes effect during the evening rush hour, when people either have their cars at work with them or they don’t. It will also require some system to inform travellers (and drivers) when the reduction takes place.

Still no word from the AMT, which controls prices of regional transit passes, on what its 2008 rates will be.

| In the news, Media, Public transit, Technology, Video

If only bus drivers had writers like these

Via Martine, the WGA, the American writers union which is currently holding us hostage by denying us House-isms on strike for the rights to more than mere pennies from DVD sales and all of nothing from online publishing of TV shows and movies, isn’t lying down or holding useless marches with picket signs. They’re creating media to rally support for their cause.

In essence, it’s a tactic we’ve seen before but on a much larger scale. When CBC employees were locked out in 2005, they started producing blogs and podcasts to keep communication going. After it was over, the blogger for CBC Unlocked, Tod Maffin, was given the job of running Inside the CBC, a decidedly uncorporate, uncensored blog about the inner life of the Mother Corp., with its blessing.

Locked-out journalists at the Journal de Québec are still, since April, putting out a competing daily newspaper as part of their pressure tactics. The move has rallied support among other unions (who have helped them financially) politicians and newsmakers (who refuse to deal with Canoe reporters, a fly-by-night “wire services” and other scabs) and readers (who have cancelled subscriptions and are picking up the competing paper).

With Hollywood, the tactic that’s getting the most play is online video (ironic since the dispute is over how little they get paid for online video). Writers for popular shows like The Office, the Daily Show and the Colbert Report have been cracking jokes on YouTube, and the actors are coming out to support them. Some like McDreamy and co. talk calmly about the issues, others like Sarah Silverman make the funny, and then there’s Sandra Oh.

The latest campaign, called “Speechless“, involves short black-and-white clips of actors in a world without scriptwriters. Most of them are of the actor-stands-blank-faced-and-says-nothing variety. Others are pretty funny. There’s a new one every day.

Some of my favourites below:

Continue reading →

| Navel-gazing, Public transit, West Island

Hindsight is 470/20

The West Island Chronicle looks at the new extended service on the 470 Express Pierrefonds, which you’ll recall had weekday daytime service added to it a couple of weeks ago.

Based on conversations with users, the article concludes that the extended service is popular, but people are annoyed with the fact that there’s no service after 7pm or on weekends. They’re also having trouble with connections, missing the bus by a few minutes:

“Anyone who has university courses until 7pm or right after has to take two buses to get home, it’s really annoying,” she said.

…

Another point of contention seems to be that the bus’ arrival and departure times at the Fairview shopping centre, which is the West Island’s largest bus terminal, do not line up conveniently with those of other buses leaving Fairview.

David Chernofsky, a Dollard des Ormeaux resident, said that he had to wait 15 to 20 minutes on average for the next 208 bus when exiting the 470 at Fairview.

Really? If only someone predicted exactly that before the service started…

That’s great news, unless you plan on staying downtown past 7 p.m. or want to go downtown on the weekend. And really, how many kids in the West Island would want to do that?

Another problem is with the schedule. About half the people who use the bus (based on my oh-so-scientific anecdotal guesstimation) use it solely for its metro shuttle part, and use another bus to get between home and Fairview. Most of those buses run every half hour on the half-hour, so they’re timed to arrive at the terminus and drop off their arriving passengers a few minutes before the half-hour mark.

Thing is, all but two of the eastbound departures from Fairview take place six minutes before the half-hour mark, about the same time as these buses are arriving. It’s a schedule that seems almost designed to make people miss connections from about a dozen different bus routes, and I can’t seem to find any reason why the schedule as a whole can’t be delayed by six minutes to make the transfers easier.

I-told-you-so’s aside, it’s good the STM is recognizing this so quickly. Expect more evening departures and schedule realignments. The STM will be meeting with West Island mayors today to discuss bus service further.

| In the news, Montreal, Public transit

Another STM strike?

It sounds a lot like déjà vu: Montreal risks being “crippled” again by a transit strike.

The STM union representing bus and metro drivers and ticket-takers voted 97% in favour of a strike mandate today. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll strike, but it does mean the union can call one at any time. Negotiations broke off last month after a long stalemate at the bargaining table.

To be clear, this is a different union than the maintenance workers’ union that went on strike in May. Those workers agreed to return to work (after a pretty serious public backlash) but reserved the right to go back on strike. They have not yet agreed to a contract.

The only difference between the two: If this union goes on strike, you can blame the bus drivers for it.

UPDATE: The STM wants the union to stop pressure tactics that involve making managers do more work, such as bringing buses to the wrong garage or not locking up metros at night.

| Montreal, Public transit

Better metro service in exchange for higher fares

Interesting how just after we hear the news that metros will run more frequently in the hours around rush hour (though not during rush hour when they run pretty well at capacity), we get the first hints that transit fares may go up again for the 11th straight year.

In 1997-1998, the last time fees didn’t go up, a regular monthly pass was $45 ($19 for reduced fare) and a single adult fare was $1.85. That puts today’s prices into perspective.

The problem, of course, doesn’t lie with the transit authority (or its 90% unionized workforce) but with the government, which is forcing the users of public transit to fund its operation to an increasing extent. In 1990, users were funding 42.5% of the STM’s revenues, now that number is above 50% (though not as high as the 58% of 2001).

How much the government should be funding public transit operations is a matter of personal opinion. If you think we should be paying all the basic operating costs, expect to pay $130 a month on transit passes, or up to $400 a month if you live in the suburbs. If you think it should be free, well you’re not going to be happy with this news.

| Fun, Montreal, Public transit

Metro party tonight

It’s a bit last-minute, but a metro party is being planned on Halloween night (tonight).

The plan is to get on the last car at the Côte-Vertu metro at 9pm, in costume, and rock on all the way to Montmorency, 48 minutes away. (Don’t worry, you can get back free as long as you don’t leave through the turnstiles.)

Those of you interested can check out the Facebook page.

And if you have no idea what a “metro party” is, check out my recap of the one that happened in March.

Don’t expect this one to be as popular though, since it’s organized last-minute and a lot of people (including me) will be busy doing other things.

UPDATE: Looks like it went pretty well, judging from this photo by Alex D:

Metro party

The sister party on the Toronto subway also seems to have been well-attended.

Let’s hope the next one will be soon.

UPDATE (Nov. 22): A video of the party.

| Public transit, West Island

A small step for West Island bus service

About two and a half years ago, the STM introduced a new rush-hour bus route to the West Island. The 470 Express Pierrefonds was a strange beast, running limited-stop along the western half of Pierrefonds Blvd., then travelling up St. John’s Blvd. on regular-stop duty to Fairview. From there it would run non-stop straight to the Côte-Vertu metro station where most people would get off. The route ran, in both directions, during both rush hours.

The route turned out to be a big success, particularly for its non-stop shuttle service between Côte-Vertu and Fairview, which was the first of its kind. (The closest thing they had to it before then was the 216 Transcanadienne, which took the service road of Highway 40 and was designed to serve the industrial buildings in that corridor.)

But the bus was still rush-hour only, much to the annoyance of students, stay-at-home parents or anyone else without a car who wanted to do something during the day, at night or on the weekend. Some people (like me) have suggested over and over and over that the service be extended to become a regular 7-day route, just like the 211 Bord-du-Lac, which is non-stop between the Lionel-Groulx metro and Dorval train station, and then continues westbound to Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue. Because it’s so fast and frequent, it’s the most popular bus route serving the West Island.

Starting Monday, the STM will be taking the first (small) step in that direction. They’ve announced that the 470 will fill the gap between morning and afternoon rush-hours and run “all day” (see the schedule in PDF) on weekdays. (A similar announcement was made about the 194 Métrobus Rivière-des-Prairies on the other side of the island, just to make sure us anglos aren’t getting special treatment.)

That’s great news, unless you plan on staying downtown past 7 p.m. or want to go downtown on the weekend. And really, how many kids in the West Island would want to do that?

Another problem is with the schedule. About half the people who use the bus (based on my oh-so-scientific anecdotal guesstimation) use it solely for its metro shuttle part, and use another bus to get between home and Fairview. Most of those buses run every half hour on the half-hour, so they’re timed to arrive at the terminus and drop off their arriving passengers a few minutes before the half-hour mark.

Thing is, all but two of the eastbound departures from Fairview take place six minutes before the half-hour mark, about the same time as these buses are arriving. It’s a schedule that seems almost designed to make people miss connections from about a dozen different bus routes, and I can’t seem to find any reason why the schedule as a whole can’t be delayed by six minutes to make the transfers easier.

Hopefully these things will become very apparent to the STM very shortly after the additional service is launched on Monday.

| Montreal, Public transit

The spooky metro car

I got on the metro the other day to do some grocery shopping and I finally stumbled on the one metro car that’s been retrofitted as part of an art installation.

For those who have never seen it, it’s easily recognizable by its dark blue interior (there are also buildings painted on the windows). When you get on, you don’t notice anything else unusual (it looks like just another one of those wrap-around ads they always have), but then you start hearing the sounds. Some are literally bells and whistles. Others are children talking. (There’s at least one video of it on YouTube)

It’s not immediately clear where it’s coming from. A lot of people on my train turned their heads wondering who was carrying speakers. The sound is surprisingly clear, and just a little bit louder than the station announcements. Reaction was sadly underwhelming. People coming home from work are amazingly uninterested in things going on around them.

I ended up taking the train all the way to Laval (with my groceries) to experience it (tangent: It’s surprising, anecdotally at least, how many people ride the metro to laval. Almost half of those passing Jean-Talon seem to go to either Cartier or Montmorency stations and transfer to the buses.)

Radio-Canada has a radio interview (third item down) with the artist, Rose-Marie Goulet, who explains that the purpose is to bring art galleries to people who don’t go to them. She also says that the STM was eager to help her with the project (though the fact that she went straight to the top with her request probably has something to do with that.) The interview also includes a couple of audio clips from the train.

The car (#78-007, at the centre of the 9-car train) is currently on the orange line, and will make the rounds on the blue and yellow lines over the next six months.

A little bit of irony: I would have missed the train entirely had there not been a metro delay earlier in the evening caused by a stroller on the tracks at Plamondon.

| Montreal, Public transit

Proposed bike rental system has issues

Stationnement de Montréal is going to spend $15 million to setup a bike rental system downtown similar to the one launched in Paris in July. Except they’ll spend 1/10th the money to have fewer bikes at fewer stations. And they’ll charge 10 times as much. (See correction below)

Whereas in Paris the bikes cost the equivalent of $1.50 a day (plus a $150 refundable deposit), The Gazette reports the Montreal system would cost “as little as $1 per half-hour”.

Perhaps difference in price is meaningless for most people. If it’s necessary to get the system running then I’m all for it.

Then again, as Kate reminds me, there doesn’t appear to be any insurance against bike theft. So if someone makes off with it while you’re doing your shopping, you’re on the hook for that deposit. Enough theft of these easily-identifiable bikes might drive people away.

CORRECTION: I goofed. The Paris system is 1 Euro a day plus the rental fee, at a rate which increases the longer you use it (which to me doesn’t make any sense — it would just encourage people to return a bike and take another one).

| Montreal, Public transit, Slow News Day

More suburbanites taking public transit

A pair of interesting bits of information are proving that more people are interested in public transit than even politicians might think. The metro extension to Laval has drawn in 20% more people than expected, enough that the STM has had to add a new train to the morning schedule. A cynic might suggest that the government intentionally lowballed the figure so it could herald the successes later, but that’s just crazy-talk.

The article hilariously compares the unexpected excess popularity to the unexpected excess price, even though the first is 20% over and the second is 450% over.

It also says that this means more cost to the STM because public transit is underfunded by the government. I’m not quite sure what one has to do with the other.

Some out-of-my-ass suggestions on why the Laval metro is getting so much action:

  1. It was hyped, like huge and stuff. Free transit on opening weekend turned it into more than a free ride. It was a circus. People brought their kids to see this thing. It was like a mini Expo. The AMT took advantage and setup special rides of the Blainville train. It was an event.
  2. On the same day the metro open, Laval’s entire public transit map was overhauled. Almost every bus route was changed. Most of the buses that service the western half of the island now go to the Montmorency metro. Most of the buses serving the eastern half go to Cartier. The move forced everyone to rethink how they had to get around, and for many that meant using the metro.
  3. It’s unclear how many people switched to the metro from the bus and how many people actually took up public transit as a result of this huge investment.
  4. There’s just plain more people living in Laval and north shore suburbs.

Meanwhile, ridership is up on the Montreal-Dorion/Rigaud train line compared to September of last year. Though the AMT is being cautious and waiting until the end-of-year numbers, it’s a good sign.

Unfortunately, service on that line is still less-than-stellar, due to scheduling problems with CP who run freight trains on the line west of Lachine, and the fact that the line from Dorval to Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue is rendered redundant by the cheaper and more frequent 211 bus.

| Montreal, Public transit

Westmount still hates us commoners

Apparently the City of Westmount has a policy against public transit bringing people to its lookout.

The Westmount Lookout, at the Westmount peak of Mount Royal, offers spectacular views of the southeast, and is a popular tourist destination.

Unfortunately, because it’s such prestigious real estate, insanely rich people live there and they don’t want no stinking commoner buses roaring up their streets.

This means that the only way to get there is to walk up from a few blocks away, along streets whose sidewalks should be broken up into stairs.

Westmount Lookout public transit

In this image, the yellow area is the higher part of the mountain’s peak, and crossing into it is painful on the feet.

Instead of having actual bus service to this lookout, Westmount is proposing building a pedestrian walkway connecting the top of Ridgewood to a neighbouring street. From there people could walk across the park and to the lookout.

Why wasn’t this done already? Politics. Ridgewood is in Côte-des-Neiges, where the peasants live. Connecting it with a neighbouring street in Westmount would bring violence, drug use, prostitution, theft, sodomy, corporate embezzlement, profanity and bad manners into their uber-rich-and-therefore-problem-free community. So instead, people who want to walk between adjacent streets must climb down a hill, walk along Côte-des-Neiges and then climb another hill.

The pedestrian path is way overdue, and the access is an acceptable compromise (especially since the 11 bus also connects to the other two lookouts). But it’s still making it awkward to get to a public place that we should be encouraging everyone to visit.

| Montreal, Public transit

Students will seek junk food

When I was in high school, a 250ml carton of milk could be bought for $0.20 in the school cafeteria ($0.25 out of the vending machine), thanks to heavy government subsidies. Soft drinks, candy bars and other junk food were also freely available, for a price.

Last week, the Quebec government announced that they would no longer allow junk food to be sold in public schools, in an effort to get kids to be healthier. It’s a sensible move: if you want kids to eat better, don’t dangle sweets in front of their faces.

This morning, La Presse reports that a special STM shuttle bus is being used to take kids to and from Mount Royal High School to the Plaza Côte-des-Neiges mall during lunch – ostensibly because they want to gorge on high-calorie foods. And the Marguerite-Bourgeois school board is trying to get them to stop.

The STM’s response is simple: They’re there to provide transit service to paying customers, not to second-guess their motives. “School extras”, the extra student-only shuttles that usually start mid-route at the school to take students home, aren’t there because the STM wants to be nice. They’re there to avoid dozens or even hundreds of students suddenly trying to get on the same bus after the bell rings.

Quebec’s junk food plan will help a bit, if only morally, to help control junk food intake. But students will go out to get what they want, even if that means they’ll have to take a bus to get there.

Expect a lot of weekday-only fast-food restaurants to start opening up near schools as a result of this policy.

UPDATE: Le professeur masqué has some thoughts on this issue as well. Another blogger asks if we’ve all gone crazy.

UPDATE (Sept. 26): The STM caves, vowing to only run shuttles to bring students back to school, a compromise about as stupid as the entire controversy.

| Montreal, Public transit, Slow News Day

Oh no! It’s the bus pass loaners!

Here’s an interesting one from the Gazette: Apparently there’s “some” people renting out their monthly transit passes to make a little extra money. The article cites the Chinese-language sinoquebec.com website as a source of postings offering bus passes for short periods.

Is this really widespread? I’d never heard of this before and it doesn’t seem to make much sense.

First of all, would you hand over your $65 bus pass to a complete stranger in exchange for a couple of bucks and a promise to bring it back?

Secondly, at $2 a day or $5 for a weekend, these passes are clearly being rented at a loss. Nobody’s going to make any money from that. It’s just some people not using their passes who figure it can make a few bucks.

There’s a lot of borrowing of bus passes between friends, or groups trying to use one pass with more than one person (it doesn’t work for the metro turnstiles, and bus drivers can spot the trick a mile away). And there are certainly lots of people selling passes they bought in error or no longer need. But renting just seems silly, and unworthy of our attention.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the article is from spokesperson Odile Paradis:

“No, you cannot pass the bus pass to the person behind you in line, but it can be loaned to family members and friends,” Paradis said. “Just not for money.”

I can’t find anywhere in the STM by-laws that specifically prohibits borrowing bus passes (so long as two people aren’t using it simultaneously), so I guess that makes it official: Bus passes are transferable, so long as you don’t charge for it.

| In the news, Montreal, Public transit

Hybrid buses coming

The STM board of directors have approved a plan to buy new hybrid buses from NovaBus and run them on some routes next year.

The list of routes (66, 80, 103, 105, 162, 165, 166, 535) seems a bit biased toward Cote-des-Neiges and NDG (only one of the routes doesn’t travel through that borough), which also happens to be the home of Tremblayite Snowdon city councillor and STM vice-chair Marvin Rotrand. But we probably shouldn’t read too much into that.

Instead, let us celebrate the awarding of a new contract to NovaBus, a company that loves to create lemons when experimenting with new designs for buses, confident that because they’re the only Quebec company in the business, gross incompetence won’t stop the customer from coming back for more.