Category Archives: Public transit

| Montreal, Public transit

Say goodbye to the 21 and 23 … nevermind, you won’t miss them

Now that they’ve been in service for almost a year, the STM will be evaluating the “senior” buses running through Côte-des-Neiges (21) and NDG (23), and disappointment with their popularity might lead to them being cancelled.

Is anyone surprised? Let’s go over why these routes were a bad idea in the first place:

  • They run only on Tuesdays, from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., meaning you have to set your weekly schedule around them.
  • They run only every 50-55 minutes, which means you can spend almost an hour waiting for a bus.
  • They only stop where the STM thinks you want to go. So unless you live in a big apartment building and want to go to Loblaws, you’re out of luck.
  • The routes are confusing, even for me. Instead of going up and down a street like the very popular 105, they take wild loops around everywhere, passing on many major streets in only one direction, meaning you might have to go in the opposite direction of where you want to go.
  • You can’t find them listed if you go to the STM site and search for bus schedules. The only way to find them is to download the PDF flyers and search for departure times.

These routes, which were launched with much fanfare last June, were quite possibly the worst the STM have ever come up with, and that showed after the initial novelty quickly wore off with seniors.

What’s hilarious about this is that the borough mayor, Michael Applebaum, is worried about wasting money. Why? Each route uses only a single bus for four hours a week. Compared to the cost of running a single regular route (like, say, the underused 138), it’s barely a drop in the bucket.

Next time, focus less on the colour of the bus stops and more on how useful a new line will really be to users. There’s nothing special about seniors that will cause them to embrace crap.

| Montreal, Public transit

The strike is on, unless the union caves

Le Devoir has an opinion from STM chair Claude Trudel explaining the company side of the labour dispute that will take public transit off the road on Tuesday morning.

While it’s obvious he’s sugarcoating his own position on the matter, it’s hard to see how the STM doesn’t have the upper hand on this. Public opinion is on their side, despite valiant efforts by maintenance workers to justify the $22-25 an hour they’re paid (plus overtime) to keep 40-year-old equipment running smoothly for hundreds of thousands of kilometres per year. And the city’s position, that everyone has to get the same deal, makes sense. And it’s not like the STM is swimming in profit either.

When the strike starts at 12:01am Tuesday morning (or perhaps more accurately at 1:01am since they’re supposed to have late-night service), people will have to find alternative ways to get around:

  • Taxi drivers will get a much-needed funding boost
  • Bicycle use will skyrocket (also because of the nice weather)
  • Commuter train use will be even more unbearable than it already is (ATM is unaffected by the STM maintenance workers’ strike, however the Blainville, Rigaud and Delson lines might see delays because of an unrelated CP rail strike)
  • People might actually decide to get out and walk to places

Most importantly, the strike will send people back to their cars, and may convince some people that the uncertainty of public transit isn’t worth leaving their SUV at home.

| Fun, Montreal, Public transit

Metro party this weekend (but…)

Looks like some people on Facebook are organizing another metro party this weekend.

Saturday at 9 p.m., meeting at the Saint-Michel platform of the Snowdon station.

I’m not quite sure why they’re taking the short blue line instead of the considerably longer green or orange lines. In any case, there are only 18 confirmed guests, so it probably won’t be anything near the greatness that was Newmindspace’s metro party in March.

| Montreal, Public transit

All aboard the dream train

The city today released its 155-page transportation plan (PDF), which focuses on public transit, cycling and other green initiatives. Heck, even the report itself is green, so you know they mean business.

The report includes some very common-sense ideas: Extending the blue line metro East to Pie-IX and then Anjou, extending the orange line northwest to the Bois-Franc train station, connecting bicycle paths across the island, adding bicycle parking and adding express buses and reserved bus lanes to major arteries.

But just in case you’re hopeful that any of these initiatives will see the light of day, remember that it also includes a promise to finish the Cavendish Extension. Yeah.

As ambitious as the plan is, it’s not as crazy as tramway fetishists Projet Montréal’s plan (PDF), which proposes putting tramways on the highway and all the way out to Ile Bizard. (Well, some people at least think it’s worth the trouble)

Hidden in the sea of Montreal’s plan is another common-sense idea that I think would make a huge impact toward getting people to use public transit, especially in suburbs: Make express buses run all day. It works brilliantly for the 211, why not have something similar for the other suburbs?

| Montreal, Public transit

Rickety commute

One of the downsides of being young is that there’s a giant period of history I don’t remember. Expo 67, the Olympics, the opening of the metro, streetcars, and stuff I didn’t even know existed.

For example, I didn’t know there used to be a commuter train to Montreal North.

Fortunately the Web is allowing some of these stories to be told, and young people like me can experience a bit of life before we were born.

| Blogosphere, Public transit

Prochaine station … oh who cares?

With the Laval metro stations up and running, some young angryphones are griping about the lack of metro service in the West Island. Having spent 20 years of my life in Pierrefonds, and five of those regularly commuting downtown, I sympathize.

But there’s a good reason why the metro won’t be extended West from where it is now:Metro extension

That’s 10 km of mostly wasted tunnel travelling under uninhabited areas including the Taschereau rail yards, two highways, the Lachine industrial park and an airport runway.

At a cost of $150,000,000 per kilometre, the price of this extension to the airport terminal would cost about $1.5 billion.

Okay, you say, that’s big, but we can afford it, right?

Well, do you have $6,000 to spare? That’s how much each West Islander would have to pay the government to make this a reality.

Consider some alternatives, if you will, for that $1.5 billion:

  • Add 100 buses to the STM’s network for shuttle service to downtown points from various locations (Dorval, Fairview, Roxboro), and keep them running seven days a week for 40 years.
  • Create a high-speed rail link to Dorval airport and increase commuter train service on the Dorion-Rigaud line.
  • Multiply existing commuter train service 100-fold for 100 years.

My solution to this problem? Unsurprisingly, it involves increased commuter train and bus service to the West Island.

The 211 bus running along Lakeshore is insanely popular among southern West Islanders, because it’s a 7-day regular service bus that’s an express shuttle downtown. On the northern West Island, which is much worse served (except for commuter trains to Roxboro), the 470 Express Pierrefonds provides shuttle service from Fairview to Côte-Vertu, but only during rush-hour. Having an all-day shuttle from Fairview to the metro would save commuters as much as 20 minutes per trip.

I’m sure you can think of other express shuttle services that would serve the West Island well. And all of them put together would cost much less than extending metro service here.

UPDATE: More metro dreaming in this post, with maps.

| Montreal, Public transit

Free transit this weekend

For those of you confused (and you should be, the media hasn’t been very clear on this), public transit is free throughout the STM and STL networks, including the metro and its three new stations.

Little mentioned so far is that the AMT will be running special free trains from the De la Concorde metro to Saint-Jerome to celebrate its new intermodal station. The line, which normally only runs on weekdays, will have four special round trips during the day Saturday and Sunday.

| Media, Public transit

Wrong place, wrong time: Is it news?

Just when Jean Charest and company were worried about protests as they “opened” the Laval metro stations today, a sad event transpired with piss-poor timing: a transit worker died of a heart attack.

Heart attacks aren’t usually news, even when they happen on the job site. But the media was already there, so should they cover it? I imagine it was a dilemma for a few local agencies. Here’s what they did:

  • CBC.ca packaged the three events (opening, heart attack, protest) together.
  • The Gazette covered the opening but made no mention of either the protest or heart attack.
  • CTV also made no mention of the heart attack, but did briefly mention the protest.
  • Global TV talked about the heart attack over B-roll of a stretcher passing an ambulance.

It’s at best a footnote to two more important stories. But how would you have covered it?

| Montreal, Public transit

Bonaventure Boulevard?

So the city wants to take down one of its elevated highways, now that green and grounded is the new civic planning method. The three-phase project would replace the Bonaventure Expressway – the main artery into downtown from the south shore, into a redirected “urban boulevard” that diverts away from the waterfront and then splits in two as it turns into the city. The Gazette today focuses on the latter part. Depending on who you talk to, it’ll either be a wide-median green-as-all-hell fantastic-view gateway to the city centre, or two parallel roads with big buildings between them to make up for some of the money they’ll be spending.

Columnist James Mennie is rightfully skeptical about the plan, because while an “urban boulevard” sounds all cool and stuff, it won’t look that great when 18-wheelers are spewing carbon monoxide all over the place.

Of course, the biggest problem for me is that everyone coming into downtown will now have six new traffic lights to go through, even if they’re just using the Bonaventure to get to the Ville-Marie expressway. Though they don’t specify it exactly, Mennie hints that their solution to this problem will be to convince motorists to use public transit, and will include a bus-only lane to help facilitate this.

Yeah, good luck with that.