Tag Archives: metro

Do it for Oscar

Because they have nothing better to do, Mike Citrome’s band of history-rewriters are to descend on the Sud-Ouest borough council meeting tonight to demand they change the name of Lionel-Groulx metro to Oscar Peterson, a campaign that has already gained national attention because it’s being organized on (gasp) Facebook.

Date: Tuesday, March 4
Time: 6:30pm
Location: Sud-Ouest borough hall
815 rue Bel-Air, about three blocks west of the station

And if you can’t come up with an opinion on your own, feel free to check out what other random uninformed people think.

No word yet on whether there will be a counter-protest from the anti-name-change group.

Previously: Oscar Peterson metro won’t be easy to accomplish

Oscar Peterson metro won’t be easy to accomplish

The local media have been all over plagiarizing The Gazette reporting on a Facebook group that advocates renaming the Lionel-Groulx metro station after Oscar Peterson. Groulx was a racist, the suggestion goes, and Peterson would be much more befitting of a metro station name.

The group has exploded in popularity, due to both the media coverage and regular word-of-mouth. It has over 1,000 members now.

The idea isn’t new, actually. It’s been going around for quite some time. Other proposed new names for Lionel-Groulx include Yitzhak-Rabin and Gabrielle-Roy.

Unfortunately, it’s somewhat of a non-starter for two reasons:

  1. The Lionel-Groulx metro, like most metro stations, is actually named after a street nearby, namely Lionel-Groulx Ave.
  2. The STM currently has a moratorium in place against station renaming, thanks to the rather unpopular Longueuil-Université-de-Sherbrooke mess.

And that doesn’t get into the whole mess about renaming something from a francophone name to an anglophone one.

Personally, I think it should be renamed The-Jackal.

UPDATE (Feb. 28): The inevitable backlash group has already been formed.

UPDATE: Elsewhere in the blogosphere:

STM’s service improvements are actually service reductions

18 Beaubien at Beaubien metro
You’ll actually be waiting more, not less, for the 18 bus outside of rush hour.

The STM is trumpeting huge, noticeable improvements to bus and metro service that finally came into effect on Monday. The additions come in two parts:

More metro trains, less wait time

The STM is adding 145 new departures every week to all but the yellow line. The goal is to reduce waiting times and get more people using the metro.

The change is most visible outside of rush hour. That means the very early morning, during the day, late evenings, at night and on the weekend. On weekdays outside of rush hour, the waiting times will all be reduced by at least a minute and a half – a rather noticeable change.

Going out today, I decided to time the intervals between metro trains. Sure enough, for orange line trains going through downtown at 6:45pm, the trains were just under six minutes apart on average, which the STM says is an improvement on the previous eight minutes.

Though the wait times during rush hour (when almost all trains are already in service) won’t come down much, this move might serve to eventually lighten that load a bit. An extended rush hour means that fewer travellers will organize their schedules around rush hour to take advantage of the short waits.

I can’t be the only one who prefers to travel during peak hours because of how much faster it is. Extending rush hour will spread this tendency out a bit and hopefully make it spike a bit less as the whistle blows at 5pm.

More bus service means less bus service?

The other part to this service improvement is the more interesting one: the STM has announced additional buses being added to three popular lines: 18 Beaubien, 24 Sherbrooke and 121 Sauvé/Côte-Vertu. It’s also making the 54 Charland/Chabanel a rush-hour-plus-between-rush-hours service, which is becoming more and more popular (but to me only seems frustrating because the service stops by 7pm).

Today I went to the Beaubien metro bus stop for the 18 bus and observed as buses passed to pick up passengers headed east for the evening rush hour. Most of the buses had their seats filled, but none were so packed that nobody else could get on. They were running on intervals of about 3-4 minutes during rush hour’s peak (5:30pm), and 6-7 minutes just after rush hour (6:30pm).

This, despite complaints from the employees’ union that there’s a bus shortage affecting service.

Here’s the problem: The schedule itself hasn’t improved. If anything, service is being reduced on these three lines.

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There was a suicide on the metro today

Low on fruits and veggies, I headed to the Jean-Talon market today to replenish. Since my legs have been mostly vegetables themselves from lack of exercise, I decided to walk the 2 km, enviro-green shopping bin in hand.

I was disappointed to find that my standard fruit store, Sami Fruits, was empty. Not closed, but empty. All I could see inside was a forklift. No worries, though, the market proper had more than enough to satisfy me (though I managed to snatch the last bag of seedless red grapes at $2/lb).

As I walked back to the metro (I’m not walking 2km with 20 lbs of fruit in tow), I noticed police cars and ambulances parked outside, and an unusually long line waiting for the 31 St. Denis. There’s only one reason these things would happen: Someone has died, or gotten seriously injured, in the metro.

The “incident” (as the police described it to curious onlookers) happened about 5:30pm today on the Côte-Vertu-bound platform of the orange line at Jean-Talon. By 6pm the entire station had been evacuated and passengers flooded adjoining streets, looking for cabs, calling friends for lifts and trying to get on buses that were woefully unprepared to take on the traffic of multiple metro trains.

At about 6:15, the station was partially re-opened, allowing people access to the blue line platforms. Service was cut completely between Berri-UQAM and Montmorency. Police officers standing guard in front of orange tape were instructing people on how best to get to their destination, repeating the situation to everyone who walked by: “Only the blue line is open.”

As I stood outside the ticket booth, I could get a narrow glimpse of the platform, where a train had stopped about halfway in the station. The nature of the “incident” became obvious: Someone had either thrown themselves or been pushed in front of the train at the end of the platform (where the front of the train would be travelling at its fastest relative to the platform), the train ran the person over and took about 75 metres to come to a complete stop.

When a fatality occurs in such a way, it’s not a simple matter to deal with (though the police sadly have had a lot of practice). First aiders have to intervene, the train has to be evacuated, the station has to be evacuated, police have to take photos and compile a report, the train itself has to be taken out of service, the driver has to be treated for shock, and the area needs to be cleaned up.

Finally, at 6:35, the orange line platforms were partially reopened (the far sides still being cleaned), and it was announced that the orange line was back in service. That turned out to be a bit premature, as there were still workers on the tracks. The next announcement clarified that service was delayed but not stopped. It wasn’t until 6:50 that the first trains, packed pretty tight, entered and left the station and service began to return to normal.

This kind of story isn’t one you’ll hear often in the media. Journalists don’t talk about them, for fear that reporting on them will encourage other, more extravagant suicide attempts. It’s a sensible policy, and no part of this is particularly newsworthy (beyond “metro shut down for an hour”).

I don’t know whose blood now sits between the rails at Jean-Talon, and I don’t particularly care to know the name of the person who decided to end his or her life in such a selfish way.

But I was delayed for an hour today, half of that standing in the cold. Just what did that accomplish?

Nothing. That’s sad.

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.

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.

McGill metro evacuated after structural fears

It’s not just overpasses. The McGill metro was evacuated this afternoon after work on the de Maisonneuve bike path apparently caused a leak into The Bay next door and that led to the discovery of a large crack in the ceiling.

(The media is describing this as everything from a “crack” to a “depression” to a “cave-in”, but have settled on “crack” and “threat of collapse”)

Service on the green line is shut down between Berri and Atwater Lionel-Groulx. Alternative bus service is being setup (Eastbound on Ste. Catherine, Westbound on René-Lévesque), but during rush-hour with a major artery closed it’s probably faster to walk across downtown. Trains have been added to the Orange Line to help compensate.

The metro is expected to reopen on Monday if there’s no risk of collapse of the tunnel.

Blork was there. LCN has a video report.

Take your bikes outside – the metro doesn’t want them

A letter in today’s Gazette complains about bikes being rejected in the metro. Normally, bikes are allowed outside of rush hours on the first car of every train.

Normally.

Unfortunately, there are plenty of exceptions. Days when there is, to use an STMism, an “achalandage important” which prevents bikes from being used safely. And looking at the list on their website, it looks like it’s just about every day this summer.

The STM is maybe being a bit over-cautious about safety, but not as much as people may think. On Wednesday, as I took the train to see the fireworks, the human traffic was insane. Tens of thousands boarded trains (some had to be added to handle the extra load), crammed in tighter than during the peak of rush-hour, all headed to Papineau to either get on the Jacques-Cartier Bridge or the parking lot underneath it. All the escalators were set in the up direction (those going down had to use the stairs), and police were called in to handle the crowds.

Imagine having to take a bike on that.

The other concern is that allowing one person to take a bike on the train means you have to allow everyone to take their bike on the train. So events that involve bikes, like the Tour de l’Ile mean they have to ban bikes on those days too, even though other traffic is pretty close to normal. (The STM has since relented slightly on the Tour de l’Ile, allowing some stations to accept bikes but not others).

Consult the list for exact times, but as a rule of thumb don’t count on using the metro during the evening or pretty well at all on weekends until the summer festival season is over.

Kitty Metrovese

For those of you following the buck-passing on metro security passing the buck, we’re getting some interesting and, of course, contradictory reports from all sides. The STM says it never ordered anyone to stand by and laugh do nothing while some guy beats up on his girlfriend. The security workers union spokesperson says the police told them not to intervene while calling it “absurd”. And the public safety minister wants an investigation.

A few comments from the peanut gallery here. First, why is nobody talking about the report that the employee in the ticket booth refused to call 911? That doesn’t require putting anyone in danger, yet for some reason it was apparently refused. It’s unclear if that led even in part to delaying police arrival (they came 17 minutes later), but if it did I would expect that to be an even more serious story.

Second, why didn’t anyone do anything? There were plenty of ordinary people around who had plenty of time to bark at the metro employees. Why did they not intervene? The guy didn’t have a weapon. You could argue that putting people in harm’s way like that is dangerous, but if so why are these metro employees who don’t have arresting power, don’t carry firearms and are not supposed to intervene in these cases expected to do so?

Finally, with over a hundred police officers patrolling the metro, why were none in the system’s busiest station? Or the library or bus station next door? Why did it take police 17 minutes to get there?

UPDATE (Sept. 6): An “error in judgment” but no disciplinary action.

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.