Category Archives: Public transit

| Montreal, Photos, Pop quiz, Public transit

A photo pop quiz to get the gears moving

No geography trivia quiz this week (still looking for ideas in case anyone has any). Instead, a different kind of challenge:

What are these?

UPDATE: After a dozen interesting guesses, Pascal gets it right: They’re metro turnstiles.

Old metro turnstiles

A sea of old turnstiles behind a gate at Pie-IX metro

Turnstile innards, with unrelated celebratory horn

These photos were taken at the Pie-IX metro station, where dozens of the old turnstiles have gone to die. They have been replaced by new Opus-enabled turnstiles, except for the one at each station that was kept for transition purposes (those will be joining them soon) and some exit-only turnstiles that don’t need to be replaced.

| Montreal, Public transit

RTL slow with the news

The Réseau de transport de Longueuil became the last major transit agency in the area to announce its fare schedule for 2010 on Friday, based on a decision supposedly taken at a board meeting on Dec. 3 (which took 15 days to publicize?)

Here’s how it breaks down:

2009 2010 Difference
Cash fare $3 $3 No change
6 tickets (regular) $16.10 (6x$2.68) $16.50 (6x$2.75) +2.5%
6 tickets (reduced) $9.60 (6x$1.60) $9.60 (6x$1.67) +4.2%
Monthly pass (regular) $79 $81 +2.5%
Monthly pass (reduced) $47 $48.50 +3.2%

The policy of having cash fares that don’t allow transfers is being maintained, much to the dismay of groups that demand transfers be reinstated.

The RTL notes that 48% of its clients use an AMT multi-zone pass, most commonly Zone 3, which covers Longueuil.

| Montreal, Public transit

STM sweetens late fare increase with money-savers

With only two (weekend) days left until people start buying passes for 2010, the STM finally announced its fare schedule for the new year, 17 days after what we would normally consider a deadline.

There are modest increases – the price of a regular monthly pass goes up 2.2% to $70 – but the price of a cash fare remains frozen at $2.75 ($1.75 reduced fare), and the price of one-day and three-day tourist passes is actually going down significantly.

The transit agency is also sweetening the deal with some incentives.

First, the table:

Regular Reduced
Monthly CAM $70 ($68.50+ 2.2%) $38.75 ($37 + 4.7%
Weekly CAM $20.50 ($20 + 2.5%) $11.50 ($11.25 + 2.2%)
Three-day tourist pass $14 ($17 – 17.6%) N/A
One-day tourist pass $7 ($9 – 22.2%) N/A
10 trips (Opus card only) $21 ($2.10/trip, $20 + 5%) $12 ($1.20/trip, $10.75 + 11.6%)
Six trips $13.25 ($2.21/trip, $12.75 + 3.9%) $7.50 ($1.25/trip, $6.75 + 11.1%)
Single fare $2.75 (no change) $1.75 (no change)

Like the AMT and STL, the STM is putting forward an annual Opus subscription that would save the hassle of waiting in line on the first of every month. However, unlike the STL and AMT system, the STM does not offer a 12th month free under this system. It has practical advantages, but no financial ones. (Also, ironically, because the STM was so late with this announcement, it’s too late to sign up for this for January.)

For those eligible for reduced fare, a similar system over four months does offer a financial advantage. In effect, those who pay the $148 in advance will be spared the fare increase and pay only $37 a month. Assuming they have $148 of unexpected mad money to spend, which all people on reduced fares obviously do.

For those who care, the STM is allowing people with Air Miles to use them to buy passes. It’s 610 for a regular-fare monthly pass, 330 for a reduced-fare pass. This works out to 20 miles a day, or 10 miles in each direction on a regular fare, which actually sounds pretty accurate when you think about it. The STM suggests this as a “great present” – presumably with a straight face. This will be available from Dec. 23, so you can use it for your January pass.

Cheaper to be a tourist

It’s kind of buried in the press release that the STM “with adjust the prices” of tourist passes, but they’re actually going down by a considerable amount (18% and 20%). This changes the dynamics of when to get these passes.

A one-day pass is worth 2.5 cash fares, or 3.3 trips when you buy them 10 at a time. Which means if you’re planning 3-4 trips in a day, it makes much more sense to get a one-day pass. Similarly, the three-day pass is $14, which is 5.1 cash fares or 6.7 Opus trips, working out to 1.7 and 2.2 trips per day respectively. So if you’re having a friend over from out of town, and planning to use public transit, the three-day pass makes much more sense now.

It also puts more distance between the three-day pass and the seven-day weekly pass at $20.50. Of course the weekly pass still has a set week (Monday to Sunday) even though it’s only available on Opus and changing that would seem easy enough to do. The three-day pass is over any three consecutive days.

And the politics

There’s a bunch of stuff about partnerships and service levels in the press release that even I glazed over. Feel free to read it if you like that stuff.

It should be noted that this fare increase was not approved at a public meeting of the STM board. I’m not sure what secret gathering occurred to come up with this, but it wasn’t done democratically.

And the opposition wasted no time speaking up issuing populist press releases. Richard Bergeron says the modest increases are still too much and he’s calling (after the fact) for a freeze in transit fares for 2010.

Vision’s Elsie Lefebvre just whines, saying hikes are “unacceptable” but implying they’d be okay with it if it was just the rate of inflation. This is particularly hypocritical considering Brenda Paris, who’s now with Vision Montreal, was on the STM’s board for all those years, and I didn’t hear a peep of complaint out of her when they approved all those fare increases.

| Montreal, Opinion, Public transit

Transitways before tramways

Government mockup of rapid-transit corridor on Pie-IX

Government mockup of rapid-transit corridor on Pie-IX

La Presse has another one of their “Exclusif”s, which sounds like hard-hitting investigative journalism but is really just being tipped off to a press conference ahead of schedule.

This one reports that the city is going to announce the building of a dedicated transit corridor in the middle of Pie IX Blvd. This would replace the contra-flow rush-hour reserved bus lanes that were shut down in 2002 after they were deemed unsafe for pedestrians (and left shelters in the middle of the road vacant since).

A median between the transit corridor and the traffic lanes would be built between 2011 and 2013. And it would go up to the end of the island, eventually being extended into Laval.

This is a good idea. It’s safer than the old contraflow system, and it encourages quick public transit. And though the article makes no mention of tramways, the corridor could be more easily converted into a tram line once it’s setup. Pie-IX is one of the routes being considered for a tramway (long ago, it was even considered for a metro line, to the point where it appeared as a dotted line on metro maps).

I like transit corridors or transitways, roads that are reserved 24/7 strictly for use by public transit (essentially buses). They seemed to work well when I went through them in Ottawa. So why don’t we have more of them here?

Bus-only roads are good enough for Ottawa. Why not here?

Bus-only roads are good enough for Ottawa. Why not here?

I ask this question because transitways are a good middle ground between reserved bus lanes and tramways. If we’re planning on building tramways on Côte des Neiges Rd. and Park Ave., reserving lanes in both direction 24/7, then why aren’t we doing that already for buses? Why not build the median and setup a transitway that can be replaced by a tramway later?

This could also help test the waters before plunking down serious cash for a tram line that nobody might use. Like Mayor Tremblay’s plan for a loop going from downtown to the Old Port. The city setup a bus along the route – the 515 – which has been a huge disappointment in terms of ridership. Tremblay still thinks a tram here is a good idea, despite the evidence to the contrary. Setting up a transitway along this route would remove any lingering doubts about whether traffic is the reason people aren’t taking a liking to public transit here.

It just seems like a no-brainer to me: if you’re going to take that parking away and reserve space for public transit, don’t wait until the tramway is built and just give the space full-time to buses already.

So why isn’t anyone else considering it?

UPDATE: La Presse says a simple reserved bus lane would cost a third the price. But, of course, it wouldn’t be as efficient.

UPDATE (Dec. 29): The MTQ has posted the “fiche technique” of the proposal for Pie-IX (PDF). Bus stops would be after intersections, and the bus lanes would narrow to make room for the boarding platform (or, conversely, would widen when buses leave the platform and travel at a faster speed).

| Public transit

STL is cool with the technostuff

The Société de transport de Laval is using Google Maps to show detours of its bus routes. It has eight so far, including this latest one for the 144 bus. Not only does doing something like this look cool, but it opens up data that can be exported to other sources.

The STL is also using Twitter to notify users of transit alerts.

But these videos? Just give us the transcript, thanks.

| Montreal, Public transit

STL fares for 2010 (plus discount offer)

STL

Fresh off the media blitz of announcing their new user information system (including an in-house video) and a scandal involving alleged corruption (or at least the appearance of a conflict of interest), the Société de transport de Laval tabled its budget and announced its 2010 fare table.

Here’s the skinny:

2009 2010 Difference
Single fare $2.60 $2.75 +5.8%
8 tickets (regular) $18.50 (8x$2.31) $18.75 (8x$2.34) +1.4%
8 tickets (reduced) $13 (8x$1.56) $13.25 (8x$1.66) +1.9%
Monthly pass (regular) $76.50 $78 +2.0%
Monthly pass (intermediate) $61 $62.50 +2.5%
Monthly pass (reduced) $46 $47 +2.2%

The STL is also throwing a carrot to its regular users, offering a month free if they sign up for automatic payment of their passes on the Opus card for 12 months.

They’re also offering a one-time rebate worth one monthly pass for people getting a monthly pass on the Opus card for the first time.

| Montreal, Public transit

AMT fares for 2010

The AMT on Tuesday finally released its fare table for 2010 to the public, becoming the first major transit agency to do so. Neither the RTL, STL or STM have released a table, though they are all expected to increase slightly (the STM board was expected to vote on an increase at their meeting Tuesday night, but apparently that’s going to happen at another meeting, possibly next week).

The AMT fares are going up by 1.5 to 2%, which is much less than the 3-4% they went up at the beginning of 2009. So a $100 pass would go up by $2 on Jan. 1, 2010, when it went up by $3.50 on Jan. 1, 2009.

Here’s the skinny by zone and type:

Zone 1 Zone 2 Zone 3 Zone 4 Zone 5 Zone 6 Zone 7 Zone 8
Areas in this zone Downtown Montreal North end, St. Laurent, eastern West Island, between Pie IX and Highway 25 Longueuil, Laval, eastern and western tips of the island La Prairie, Île Perrot Vaudreuil, Deux Montagnes, Terrebonne, Repentigny, Sainte Julie, St. Bruno, Chambly, Candiac, St. Constant, Kahnawake, Châteauguay and Mercier Saint Lazare, Hudson*, Rigaud*, Blainville, Mascouche, Verchères, Beloeil, Marieville, Beauharnois Les Cèdres, Oka, Mirabel, L’Assomption, St. Sulpice Valleyfield, Laurentides, St. Jerome, Sorel, St. Hyacinthe,
Train stations in this zone Central Station to Montpellier, Lucien L’Allier to Lachine, LaSalle and Chabanel Du Ruisseau to Roxboro, Dorval to Cedar Park, Bois de Boulogne Beaconsfield to Ste. Anne de Bellevue, Île Bigras, St. Lambert, St. Hubert, plus all stations in Laval Île Perrot, Pincourt Grand Moulin, Deux Montagnes, Dorion, Vaudreuil, Rosemère, Ste. Thérèse, St. Bruno, St. Basile le Grand, Ste. Catherine, St. Constant, Delson, Candiac, Hudson*, Rigaud* Hudson, Rigaud, Blainville, McMasterville, St. Hilaire St. Jérôme None
TRAM (regular fare) $81 (79.50 + 1.9%) $94.50 ($93 +1.6%) $111 ($109  +1.8%) $121 ($119 +1.7%) $140 ($138 +1.4%) $168 ($165  +1.8%) $194 ($191 +1.6%) $222 ($218 +1.8%)
TRAM (intermediate fare) $65 ($63.50 +2.4%) $75.50 ($74.50 +1.3%) $89 ($87 +2.3%) $97 ($95 +2.1%) $112 ($110 +1.8%) $134 ($132 +1.5%) $155 ($153 +1.3%) $178 ($174 +2.3%)
TRAM (reduced fare) $48.50 ($47.50 +2.1%) $56.50 ($55.50 +1.8%) $66.50 ($65.50 +1.5%) $72.50 ($71.50 +1.4%) $84 ($83 +1.2%) $101 ($99 +2.0%) $116 ($115 +0.9%) $133 ($131 +1.5%)
TRAIN only (regular) N/A N/A N/A $111 ($109 +1.8%) $119 ($117 +1.7%) $143 ($140 +2.1%) $165 ($162 +1.9%) N/A
TRAIN only (intermediate) N/A N/A N/A $89 ($87 +2.3%) $95 ($93.50 +1.6%) $114 ($112 +1.8%) $132 ($130 +1.5%) N/A
TRAIN only (reduced) N/A N/A N/A $66.50 ($65.50 +1.5%) $71.50 ($70 +2.1%) $86 ($84 +2.4%) $99 ($97 +2.1%) N/A
Six tickets (regular) $16 (no change) $19 ($18.50 +2.7%) $22 (no change) $24 (no change) $28 ($27.50 +1.8%) $33.50 ($33 +1.5%) $39 ($38 +2.6%) N/A
Six tickets (reduced) $9.50 (no change) $11.50 ($11 + 4.5%) $13 (no change) $14.50 (no change) $17 ($16.50 +3.0%) $20 (no change) $23.50 ($23 +2.2%) N/A

*Hudson and Rigaud are technically in Zone 6, but the AMT is extending its “reduction tarifiaire” so people who use those stations need only a Zone 5 pass.

The released table doesn’t list prices for single fares, I guess because there won’t be any of those anymore. Which is a shame.

| Montreal, Public transit

Transit agencies aren’t giving enough notice of fare increases

Late November has always been transit fare increase season, as the various agencies rush to approve fare hikes in time to give users the requisite 30-day notice.

But in the past couple of years, the transit agencies have been lazy, pushing late November into early December, giving people only a few weeks to prepare.

Now, this may seem trivial. In the past, the only real effect of cutting it this close has been printing monthly passes without prices on them (AA$ and BB$) for January and February. But it seems just another disrespect of users for these transit agencies to not follow their own rules.

La Presse points out that the STM and RTL haven’t yet given notice of their fares for 2009, the STL didn’t respond to say whether or not it had, and the AMT has apparently given notice to the government but not its users about fares for 2010.

The 30 days notice comes from Quebec’s law concerning public transit corporations, section 90:

Titres de transport.

90. Une société établit, par règlement, différents titres de transport et en fixe les tarifs selon les modalités et pour les catégories d’usagers qu’elle détermine.

Tarifs.

Le secrétaire publie ces tarifs dans un journal diffusé dans le territoire de la société et les affiche dans les véhicules de la société. Ils entrent en vigueur le trentième jour qui suit cette publication ou à toute autre date ultérieure qui y est fixée.

Entrée en vigueur accélérée.

Cependant, lorsque la société est d’avis que des circonstances exceptionnelles le justifient, les tarifs peuvent entrer en vigueur à compter du dixième jour de leur publication pourvu qu’elle publie également les motifs de sa décision.

2001, c. 23, a. 90.

It’s unclear if the transit agencies are ignoring the law, if this law somehow doesn’t apply to them (or maybe I’ve read it wrong) or they’re using that “exceptional circumstances” rule.

One thing is clear, as far as public notice goes, this is becoming a habit. Last year, the RTL, STL and AMT all announced fare schedules less than 30 days before Jan. 1. Only the STM announced its fares in November.

There are no exceptional circumstances. We should have fare tables by now.

| Montreal, Opinion, Public transit

Tremblay perpetuates STM’s giant “fuck you” to users

Michel Labrecque

Michel Labrecque

Back in August, during the municipal election campaign, I opined about the fact that Brenda Paris, a candidate for the Vision Montreal party, sat on the board of directors of the Société de transport de Montréal, in a seat reserved for transit users. Of the nine seats on the board, six are filled by city councillors, one by a politician from on-island suburbs, one by a representative of transit users and one by a representative of paratransit users.

I suggested that, since Paris has essentially become a politician, she should give up her seat so that the board could have a representative who wasn’t a politician. It’s nothing against Paris, and if she was elected to city council I would have welcomed her appointment to the board, but filling a seat designed specifically not to be filled by a politician seemed improper.

Brenda Paris lost her bid for election to city council. She came in third in the race for Côte-des-Neiges/NDG borough mayor, behind Union Montreal’s Michael Applebaum and Projet’s Carole Dupuis. Since she was no longer part of the party in power (she was president of the Union Montreal party when reappointed last year, before jumping to the opposition), her days on the board were clearly limited.

Today, Mayor Gérald Tremblay announced the new makeup on the board of the STM. And the new person to fill the seat reserved for transit users? Michel Labrecque, another politician. Labrecque lost his bid for mayor of the Plateau, coming in third (notice a pattern here?) behind Projet’s Luc Ferrandez and Vision’s Guillaume Vaillancourt.

Among the other changes, two new faces are being added: Jocelyn-Ann Campbell, city councillor in Ahuntsic-Cartierville, and Monica Ricourt, borough councillor in Montreal North. They replace Marcel Tremblay (the mayor’s brother, who lost the race for Villeray mayor) and Monique Worth, borough mayor for Pierrefonds-Roxboro (cutting down West Island representation on the board). Remaining incumbents are Marvin Rotrand (STM vice-president, city councillor for CDN/NDG), Dominic Perri (city councillor for St. Leonard), Bernard Blanchet (city councillor for Lachine) and Marie Turcotte, representative for paratransit users. A final seat will be filled by the suburbs, and since Westmount Mayor Karin Marks has retired, it will probably be a new face.

It goes without saying that all of the politicians on the STM board are Union Montreal members. Vision Montreal even sent out a press release complaining that Paris was being replaced by Labrecque, and saying it would “leave transit users without an independent and fair representation”. Apparently, they believe that it’s more important to have an “independent and fair” representative of the opposition party than of transit users.

Like with Paris, I have nothing against Michel Labrecque personally. In fact, I think he’ll be a very good chair for the STM. But, like Paris, he’s a politician (one who failed spectacularly at a run for office), one loyal to the mayor’s party, taking a seat reserved, at least in spirit, for non-politicians. Unlike Nathalie Collard, I don’t think this is a “justified” exception.

This is the kind of stuff I expect (and have seen) from student politicians: reserving seats on committees for the general public and then filling them with their politician friends (or failed politician friends) under the argument that politicians are people too.

Mayor Tremblay found a loophole to appoint one of his friends on the STM’s board. It’s good for Labrecque, and may even improve the functioning of the transit agency. But it comes at the expense of democracy and silences the voices of humdreds of thousands of transit users.

It’s time to either change how this seat is appointed (so that transit users choose their own representative) or end this farce of democracy and admit the city and the STM don’t give a rat’s ass about hearing from the public.

| In the news, Montreal, Public transit

Status quo at AMT

File photo of a train for illustration win!

File photo of a train for illustration win!

At midnight Friday night, CN locomotive engineers went on strike, following their 72-hour notice that sent everyone in a panic because two AMT train lines (Deux-Montagnes and Mont-Saint-Hilaire) are run by those engineers and would have been disrupted or even shut down if there was a strike.

Fortunately, late Friday night the union agreed (or was forced to through an AMT injunction) to keep service on the AMT trains running as normal through the strike.

As you can expect from the AMT’s deficient customer service, there’s no mention of this late-night, last-minute change – or even of the strike itself – on their website’s homepage, despite all the media attention it has been getting. Even under “avis aux voyageurs”, there’s no mention of the potentially crippling strike, and users get the very unhelpful “aucune information disponible” for the status of all five train lines. You have to know to go to the AMT’s corporate website to find a press release saying service won’t be affected.

Contrast that with VIA Rail, which has its own engineers and so wasn’t going to be affected in the first place. Nevertheless, there’s a section of its homepage for travel advisories, and it says very clearly that service won’t be affected by the CN strike. (VIA has some experience with this, going through a strike of its own this summer.)

At GO Transit in Toronto, it’s not as clear if there will be disruptions (and there’s nothing on the homepage), but the status page (updated regularly even on weekend afternoons) makes it clear the service is still running normally.

As for CN itself, the homepage makes it look like nothing’s wrong at first, but under “news releases” there’s mention of the strike, and the “state of the railroad” page has a few details about what’s going on.

I realize nobody likes to work weekends, and those who do can’t change the elaborate web page design that the boss’s nephew was paid lots of money to put together, but when engineers go on strike, we don’t care about your new train cars or how you’re fighting for the environment. We want to know what’s going on.

| Montreal, Public transit

New deadline for Opus renewal: Nov. 15

The AMT and STM have decided to give reduced-fare Opus users a one-time grace period to renew their ID cards (probably since many of them – including my little brother – didn’t know they had to renew their cards, thinking they were good for two years).

Students now have until Nov. 15 (which I guess means they can buy their November passes but they can’t use them past that date?)

The STM says it is buying ads on Facebook to reach many of those students and remind them of this weird new policy.

| Montreal, Public transit

Opus renewals running smoothly, surprisingly

People get information from workers outside SPEQ Photo at McGill

People get information from workers outside SPEQ Photo at McGill

In early September, when students had to line up for hours to get photo ID Opus cards to take the bus and metro to school, the STM suffered the wrath of users and the media, and appear to be committed to not repeating this problem.

In order to handle increased demand as students renew their Opus photo ID cards, they have setup new temporary locations at Berri-UQAM, Côte-Vertu, Lionel-Groulx, Honoré-Beaugrand and Jean-Talon metro stations, as well as the Fairview bus terminus in Pointe-Claire.

But, as if they were trying to make this whole thing as complicated as possible, there’s one set of locations for renewing cards, and an entirely different set for replacing cards. And they all have different opening hours (and days).

Continue reading →

| Montreal, Photos, Public transit

Recycling bottles in the metro

Yellow "contenants" bin accepts plastic bottles for recycling

Yellow "contenants" bin accepts plastic bottles for recycling

I noticed as I passed by the Mont-Royal metro today that a new bin has been installed next to the paper recycling. A yellow bin marked “contenants” is the STM’s first which accepts plastic and glass bottles, milk/juice cartons and aluminum cans.

Though the main issue in the metro for the past decade has been the free Metro newspaper, it’s always been a bit silly that non-paper recyclable materials couldn’t be collected in the metro system.

Hopefully installation of these bins throughout the network will come fast, and the amount of unrecyclable garbage that goes out will get greatly reduced.

Recycling bin

UPDATE (Oct. 27): The STM has begun a three-month pilot project with such bins in “islands” (together with trash and paper recycling bins) at Mont-Royal, Champ de Mars and Snowdon. Once the project is finished in mid-January, the bins will be expanded throughout the network.

| Montreal, Opinion, Public transit

STM needs real-time metro status online

Metro system failures need to be better reported.

Metro system failures need to be better reported.

Last week, the metro went down. This kind of thing happened, but this system interruption seemed more serious than most. First of all, it affected more than one line. In fact, more than half the metro system was non-functional because of a power failure, which also forced some trains to stop in mid-tunnel and people to be evacuated along the tracks.

I was on online duty at the Gazette when this happened, so along with reporter Jan Ravensbergen I kept the story updated, scouring social media (particularly Twitter) for updates, pictures and testimonials. That’s how I learned about the in-tunnel evacuations. One thing I couldn’t do was just check out the STM’s website, because though the interruption knocked out dozens of stations on three lines and lasted for longer than an hour, there was nothing posted there about it.

The STM has been doing some fun things with technology, like delivering schedules by text message. But one thing it’s seriously lacking is a real-time update system about the status of the metro.

One commenter suggested using Twitter. It certainly couldn’t hurt. The delivery system isn’t too important. What matters is that when someone presses the button that creates an automated message relayed to passengers through the public-address system, that computer should also update the website, post a Twitter message, add a notice to an RSS feed, or all of the above, noting the problem.

Without this, journalists have no choice but to bug the STM’s PR people every 10 minutes to check the status of the system, and regular people have no way of knowing. That seems like an awful waste of everyone’s time.

Surely some simple solution to this problem can be found.