That’s it, it’s done. After almost 52 years, the last train of the model that launched the Montreal métro system — including the first cars ever built and delivered — were pulled out of service at 6:51pm on Thursday, June 21, 2018, at the Saint-Michel station on the blue line, to applause from chairperson Philippe Schnobb and a few dozen transit enthusiasts. The video above shows its last in-service stop.
The MR-63, the model number reflecting the year in which they were designed and ordered from Canadian Vickers in advance of the 1966 opening of the system, wasn’t the world’s best-designed vehicle. It had a lot of faults that were quickly rectified after the opening, most famously a problem with temperature control. Engineers greatly underestimated how hot the cars would get, and built a heating system that was never used. The driver’s cabin got so hot that a driver fainted, so the motor cars were retrofitted with an air conditioning unit replacing one of the seats in the passenger cabin. New fans were also installed in the ceiling, and one door in each car had its glass window replaced with a grill.
The deal with 24 Heures was for five years but included a five-year renewal option. It seems Métro’s offer was good enough for the STM to decline that option (or 24 Heures decided it could no longer afford the cost).
The deal also means that the Info STM page will return to Métro from 24 Heures.
The STM refuses to say how much Métro is paying it for this exclusive contract, or whether it’s more or less than what 24 Heures paid for it. (The press release notes that there were two bids.)
Comme il s’agit d’une entente de nature commerciale entre la filiale commerciale de la STM (Transgesco s.e.c.) et un partenaire privé (Transcontinental), les détails de cette entente ne sont pas de nature publique. Il en est de même pour l’entente précédente avec le journal 24 h.
— Isabelle Tremblay, STM
The deal is actually signed with Transgesco, a commercial subsidiary of the STM that deals with advertising and other commercial revenue. Though we know how much Transgesco gives to the STM each year (about $30 million), we don’t know how that breaks down in terms of revenues for the paper contract, metro and outdoor shelter advertising and other revenues.
Despite getting the metro contract for 2011-15, the Quebecor-owned free paper lagged behind its competitor in terms of readership, according to figures from NADbank (now Vividata). The latest data show Métro with 446,000 print readers for the average issue, compared with 414,000 for 24 Heures. Maybe this means the deal doesn’t mean that much, because both papers are given out by human distributors outside metro stations during the morning rush hour. Or maybe it means that readers still prefer Métro, regardless of how they get it.
In addition to the 320 stands in the metro system, Métro has about 1,000 other stands, including in AMT train stations.
The STM wants you to consider public transit if you’re going out to a New Year’s Eve party tonight. It’s promising “3700 designated drivers” to help take you home after you’ve been drinking.
Which is great. Except I can’t find any evidence that the STM is doing anything to improve service to make it easier for people to use public transit tonight.
This would seem like a perfect opportunity for the STM to run the metro all night, but it doesn’t do that. Nor is it running later than usual. Hell, they’re not even running it on a Saturday schedule, which would keep trains running an extra half hour. Instead, it’s the regular weekday schedule, which means the last trains leave Berri-UQAM just before 1am, and leave the terminuses as early as 12:30am. On the blue line, the last trains leave at 12:15. Which means to take one of them you basically have to yell “Happy New Year” as you’re walking out the door.
If you’re taking a bus to the metro, especially from somewhere like the West Island or Laval, you have to leave before midnight, which kind of defeats the purpose.
Demanding the metro run all night is a common request of STM users, and I understand why it can’t be met. Overnight is when the STM does maintenance on the tracks and in the tunnels, stuff that can’t be done while the trains are running.
But the metro has run all night before, such as during the annual Nuit Blanche event in February. Would it really be impossible to run it overnight one other night a year? Even at a reduced schedule, with trains every 20 minutes, would be far better than people waiting outside in the cold for buses.
Sure, it would cost money. Employees would have to work overtime, and because it’s Jan. 1 they’d get stat pay on top of that. But all the metro stations are open at the stroke of midnight, so metro employees are already missing the chance to drink champagne after a countdown.
Buses don’t solve the problem
The STM points to the night bus network as a way to get home after the metro is closed. And as a regular user of night buses, I can attest to their usefulness. But I can’t find any evidence that the STM is increasing service on night buses tonight, either. Instead, it’s the regular Thursday night schedule, in which most lines are running only once every 45 minutes. That’s a long wait out in the cold.
And of course the night buses don’t go everywhere. There are places in the West Island, St-Laurent borough and east end where the closest night bus stop is more than 1.5 km away. Starting from a home in Kirkland? You could be looking at a half-hour walk to the nearest stop.
Putting regular and night bus service on a Saturday schedule would be the least they could do. But they’re not. Or at least it’s not being announced, and if people don’t know the buses are coming they’re as good as useless.
This isn’t a complex problem to solve. It’s one night a year where a couple of extra hours of service would make a huge difference.
But instead, the STM is doing nothing except advertising “3700 designated drivers”, the vast majority of whom won’t be available after midnight tonight.
A week ago, the STM hiked its fares yet again, making it more expensive to take public transit in Montreal. The hikes represent about a 50% increase over a decade, well above the rate of inflation.
Politicians, social activists and regular transit users complained, as they do every year, that this is unacceptable, making it harder for those who don’t have money to get to and from work. The STM and its defenders point to the fact that public transit in Montreal is still much cheaper than Toronto and other comparable cities. The other side comes back with the argument that income and costs of living are lower in Montreal, so you can’t compare cities like that.
A few weeks ago, I started wondering whether the STM’s rate increases were truly reasonable, so I started going through its budgets and plugging numbers into a spreadsheet. I also got some numbers from Statistics Canada, such as the consumer price index in Montreal, the population of the city, the median family income.
The result is a story published in Thursday’s Gazette that tries to give a quantitative picture of the situation. The headline is that the increase in fares, at least for the years 2005-2013 (we don’t have figures for 2014 yet), corresponds to an increase in service in both métro and bus service, all going up about 30% over that period.
But is that the proper way to measure whether it’s reasonable? The increased service came with an increase in the number of users, which means more fare revenues. Should that be taken into account? What about our ability to pay?
With the help of the Gazette’s data guru Roberto Rocha, we put together an interactive chart with the story that allows you to make comparisons for yourself of how things have changed since 2005. Fare price versus total trips. Total salaries and benefits vs. total bus service. Revenue per trip versus total passes sold. Total revenue versus population.
But even that’s only a subset of the data analysis that can be done. So I invite you to do your own: Download this spreadsheet and compare numbers to write your own story.
The figures don’t all look good for the STM. Salaries and benefits are going up higher than the amount of work done to justify them. And the amount of subsidies from the Quebec government has gone up more than 200%.
But before you blame the unions or some other invented bogeyman, consider that the cost per hour worked at the STM went gone up about the same as the median family income in Montreal.
Missing numbers
There were some comparisons I wanted to make that I couldn’t. Reading the comments below the Gazette piece, people point to executive salaries. I wanted to include that, but it’s hard to quantify because of the changes in executive pay. For example, I could put in the salary for the director-general of the STM. But that salary went down significantly when Carl Desrosiers took over the position, and in the latest numbers were still lower than his predecessor (though not much).
Another is the price of oil. Including its value could easily give the impression that the fare hikes are more than reasonable. But the price of crude has plummeted in recent months, which would not be reflected on these charts because they end in 2013. So I asked Jeanine Lee, our graphic artist, to take it out of one of the charts we were using.
And there are numbers that can’t be easily calculated, like the number of overall users. Or numbers that are subjective, like customer satisfaction.
What metrics would you use to judge the STM’s performance? And what do those numbers show?
As usual, the STM was late in announcing its fares for the upcoming year. (Though there were mitigating circumstances, including the appointment of a new board after the municipal election and the delays in finding out exactly how much the agency was getting from the city.)
And as usual, there are complaints that the fares are too high (even though they’re much lower than other cities) or that the STM is wasting money (executive compensation is always a favourite target, even though it represents a very small part of the budget).
But are the fare hikes unreasonable? The STM says the fare is going up 3.2% this year, which is above the rate of inflation. On the other hand, users are getting more services as a result. There are more hours of bus service, plus large capital expenditures on new metro trains that should come by the end of 2014.
The agency also announced (probably to take some pressure off the rate hike) that the timetable for the installation of wireless infrastructure in the metro would be accelerated, and that the first downtown sections of tunnel would be part of the big four’s wireless networks by the end of 2014.
Here is some quantitative data on how fares have changed since 2008. It shows that the single fare, which remains frozen at $3 for 2014, stayed below the rate of inflation. But almost every other fare was far higher than that, with some fares increasing more than 30% since 2008.
As I have in previous years, I ask that you have some sympathy for the bus, metro or train driver, station attendant or other employee who has to work during the holidays — some on Christmas morning, some through midnight on New Year’s Eve — just so that you can get you from point A to point B in the dark, wet, snowy mess that is the last week of the year.
And with this holiday season being even more snowy than normal, consider that buses will be late or possibly not even show up at all, and plan your transit trips accordingly.
Here’s what there is to expect as far as schedule changes this week and next:
STM (Montreal, including the entire metro)
Note that from Dec. 20 to Jan. 5, the STM offers its Family Outings plan, which allows an adult to bring up to five children under 12 to ride for free with a fare-paying adult. (Normally this is allowed only during weekends and statutory holidays.) This does not apply to the 747 bus.
Monday, Dec. 23 and Tuesday, Dec. 24:
Buses and metro service will follow a regular weekday schedule.
Wednesday, Dec. 25:
Bus routes will run on a Sunday schedule.
Thursday, Dec. 26:
Bus routes will run on a Saturday or special holiday schedule.
Metro service will run on a special schedule, with additional trains added to the Orange and Green lines to accommodate rabid Boxing Day shoppers.
Dec. 27-30: Normal schedules for all services.
Tuesday, Dec. 31:
Buses, metro and taxi service will follow a regular weekday schedule.
As usual, there’s no extension of metro service despite how many people are out celebrating New Year’s Eve. Last trains of the night leave the two blue line terminuses at 12:15am, in all five directions from Berri at 1:00am and from Longueuil at 1:00am.
Wednesday, Jan. 1:
Bus routes will follow Sunday schedules..
Thursday, Jan. 2:
Bus routes and metro trains will follow a Saturday or special holiday schedule.
STM board of directors: politicians and failed politicians
When news came out that Denis Coderre planned to appoint Philippe Schnobb as chair of the STM, there was some controversy. Projet Montréal councillors objected to the fact that Schnobb, a former Radio-Canada journalist, has no experience in public transit and no experience managing a large corporation. The fact that this was a patronage appointment — Schnobb ran for Coderre, losing to Richard Bergeron — just made it worse.
But one thing that hasn’t gotten as much attention (though it was mentioned at the city council meeting) is the nature of Schnobb’s appointment as the transit users’ representative on the STM board.
The STM board has 10 members, of whom six are Montreal city councillors, one represents a demerged municipality within the STM’s territory, and three represent transit users (of them, one represents paratransit users and another, recently added, represents users under age 35).
But these three positions are not elected by the transit users. Instead, they’re appointed by the agglomeration council, with no requirement to consult transit users first. And that opens the door to political patronage.
In 2005, Brenda Paris ran for a city council seat for Gérald Tremblay’s Montreal Island Citizens’ Union party. She lost to Line Hamel of Vision Montreal. She had already been on the STM’s board as the transit users’ representative. She was kept in that position even though she was effectively a politician, eventually becoming the president of the party. In 2009, I said this was an inappropriate use of this post.
In 2009, Michel Labrecque ran for the Plateau borough mayor’s job for Tremblay’s Union Montreal with the understanding that he would continue to head the STM, a job he had for less than a year while a city councillor. He lost to Luc Ferrandez of Projet Montréal. But Tremblay kept him on anyway, making him the transit users’ representative in addition to chair of the STM board. (Paris also lost in this election, but by then she had switched parties.) Again, I wrote that this was inappropriate. I like Labrecque, and believe he actually did a good job as STM chair, but that doesn’t make it less wrong that he was taking a seat meant for someone else.
In 2013, Philippe Schnobb ran for a city council seat for Denis Coderre’s team. He lost to Richard Bergeron. But Coderre did what had been done for Brenda Paris and Michel Labrecque, using the transit users’ representative post as a loophole to get Schnobb on the STM board.
Schnobb’s appointment raises a lot of questions. Was he promised this job as a failsafe if he didn’t get elected? (Returning to journalism is hard after running in a political campaign.) What, other than loyalty to a party, convinced Coderre that Schnobb was a good choice? Is this yet another indication that Coderre has no interest in changing the way politics are run at Montreal city hall?
I don’t object to Schnobb sitting on the STM board. That board has had plenty of people with questionable qualifications and lacklustre interest in public transit. He might even do a great job. But if this position on the board is going to be filled only with failed politicians as patronage appointments, then let’s cut the bullshit and just call it the failed politicians’ representative.
The issue isn’t just a semantic one. As great as Labrecque was as a chairperson, and as patient and inviting as he was during question period at STM board meetings, or with individual users he ran into on the bus or metro, Labrecque never really comported himself as a spokesperson for transit users, or a link between them and the STM. He was the STM. He never made any formal effort to consult with the people he was supposed to be representing, outside of the same internal methods that all STM board members use. If that system was broken, there’s no way he’d ever know. His contact information was never published on the STM’s website — not even an email address. Actual transit users had no way to get in touch with him directly unless they went to a meeting or ran into him on the street.
I also believe that the nature of Labrecque’s appointment, and Paris’s before him, resulted in a lack of transparency on the STM board. In all the meetings I’ve attended, never once has anyone cast a vote opposing a motion. Never once as anyone debated a motion. Never once has a vote even been called. Everything is approved unanimously, without discussion. Everything, without exception, is rubber-stamped.
Take the last STM board meeting. After some announcements and a question period, the formal meeting begins. It lasts exactly five minutes and 45 seconds, the time it takes to read, occasionally explain, and approve 20 motions. That works out to about 17 seconds each.
This is typical of the STM board. And is a symptom of the groupthink that pervades the organization’s administration.
Another symptom is the STM’s formal transparency issues. The complete lack of discussion about motions proposed at board meetings is reflected in the list of motions that’s published sometimes only hours before a meeting, and which provide very little information. After a meeting once, I approached the secretary to ask for a document that was passed at the meeting, a change to a bus route. I was told that I had to file a formal access-to-information request. (At the time, those requests could only be filed by written letter or by fax.)
Let me repeat that: In order to find out what the STM board had just approved before me minutes before, I had to formally file an access to information request. Just to find out what the nature was of a bus route change, I had to write a letter and perhaps wait weeks for a response.
As far as I’m aware, this policy remains. None of the documents approved at the latest meeting are available on the STM website, nor are they available for reading if you go to the meetings in person.
And I can’t ask my transit users’ representative what he just voted to approve, because he’s also the chair of the STM, and politically tied to the government in power.
I honestly believe that if there was someone sitting on the STM’s board that was there to seriously represent transit users, these issues would have been resolved long ago.
Again, I think Labrecque did a good job as the STM’s chair, except on the issue of transparency. (And maybe their awful media relations, but that’s a bit of inside baseball.) And if the agglomeration of Montreal wants to replace one of those city councillor seats with an open seat they can fill with political losers, be my guest.
But giving the title “transit users’ representative” to someone who citizens didn’t even want sitting on city council, and then on top of that making that person the chair of the board despite a glaring lack of qualifications… It’s just wrong.
When Labrecque was appointed, I referred to it as a “giant ‘fuck you’ to users.” I was really tempted to use the same vulgar language here. Philippe Schnobb does not represent me any more than Marvin Rotrand or Richard Bergeron (either of whom by the way would have made much better choices for STM chair). And experience with Schnobb’s predecessors has shown me that he’s unlikely to make an effort to try to care about my interests.
It’s unfortunate that one of Coderre’s first acts as mayor has been to repeat a political manoeuvre of his predecessor, and to put the needs of his political team first, at the expense of the people he’s supposed to be serving.
To them, the reason was simple: politics. The PQ is more interested in francophone voters in St-Léonard than anglophones in the West Island, they argue, and so the West Island will never get improved transit service as long as the PQ is in power.
The problem is that the logic doesn’t hold up.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of politics involved in high-cost consumer-oriented projects like this. And there’s plenty of politics involved in this particular announcement. But let’s set a few things straight before we come to incorrect conclusions:
When I was younger, considering my options for a future career, I thought of being a bus driver. I enjoy public transit, and thought it would be fun to spend the day driving such a big vehicle around town, meeting a bunch of people, turning that giant horizontal wheel.
And having people spit in my face.
I didn’t imagine that last part, and thankfully it doesn’t happen too often, but there seems to be this mentality in this city that bus drivers and other employees of our mass transit system are scum of the earth, seen with disdain by the blowhards that seem to make themselves heard the loudest in our media (social or traditional).
For left-wing activists, there’s the expression “ACAB”, which stands for “all cops are bastards”. For the soccer moms and dads out there, it seems like “all bus drivers are bastards” is the common refrain.
It’s not just that this is a generalization based on an exaggeration, but the actions it’s based on are often simply the drivers doing exactly what they’re supposed to.
It’s easy to get frustrated when the metro goes down. We’re always rushing to get somewhere, and we don’t have lots of free time, especially during the morning rush hour.
And between the computer system that seems to be constantly failing and the 40-year-old trains that always seem to be breaking down, it’s easy to think that incompetent mismanagement on the part of the STM itself is responsible for these problems.
The statistics show that’s not really the case. According to the STM’s activity report for 2011, about half of all disruptions (defined as stoppages in service for more than five minutes) happened because of the actions of passengers. This includes people being on the tracks, people doing improper things with moving or fixed equipment, medical emergencies by people who happen to be in the metro, and, unfortunately, metro suicides.
Of the remaining half, 43% were because of failures of trains, stationary equipment or the systems that control them, and the rest were for “external causes” or “miscellaneous”.
A partial shutdown of the green line that happened on the morning of April 19 fell into the first category of disruptions caused by passengers. A medical emergency at the Verdun station, someone caught under a train. Considered a case of suicide, the media usually leave the issue there and don’t report more on it, for fear of encouraging similar acts.
But, as it turns out, this wasn’t what happened. An investigation showed that the victim, a young woman who had turned 20 years old only four days earlier, had fallen between two metro cars, apparently not paying attention because she was using her phone.
It’s tragic, and perhaps a lesson in the dangers of walking around when you don’t see where you’re going. But what’s even more so is that nobody noticed, and the train left the station. It wasn’t until two stations later that the train was stopped, and then only after passengers noticed traces of blood (the story doesn’t specify where that blood was found).
There are questions to be asked about the safety of metro cars (it’s been mentioned that the new trains coming in 2014 won’t have these gaps between them), about the safety of using cellphones while walking, and about how someone could fall between metro cars during rush hour without anyone noticing or sounding an alarm.
Sadly, there’s no easy way to prevent all injury when you’re dealing with heavy equipment. Only ways to reduce them.
But we could start by understanding that disruptions to service happen, because comments like these seem a bit heartless in hindsight:
The STM gave us a bit of a surprise last month, announcing a new loyalty program (in addition to the 12th month free offered by the government and discounts on Bixi and Communauto) that had a small number of very interesting perks. For people who have subscribed to Opus à l’année or Opus & Cie. for more than a year, the STM offers the Maestro card, which allows users to bring a friend for free (outside of business hours) and ride for free when visiting Quebec City.
As a subscriber to the program myself, I got an email within a few days announcing my eligibility. Even though it’s rare that I go to Quebec City, and I don’t have any friends, I was curious about the process, and it was free, so I decided to get one.
How to get it
The email, which explains the program, includes your Opus card number and a reference number. Print the email out and bring it, a photo ID and your existing Opus card to one of the STM’s service centres, at Côte-Vertu, Honoré-Beaugrand, Jean-Talon or Lionel-Groulx metro stations, or the Fairview bus terminus. Or, like me, you can go to the main service centre at Berri-UQAM, which is open on weekends:
It might seem like a long wait, but I learned quickly that not all the people sitting in the waiting room are waiting to be served. My wait was maybe 10 minutes.
After showing your documents and filling out some paperwork, you’re asked to step back to get your photo taken:
Not exactly a top-of-the-line camera, but it gets the job done. Which makes me wonder why all photo ID Opus cards can’t be done from this location.
The new card, which includes a name and photo, replaces your existing one, which they keep.
How it works
Normally, the card functions the same as any other Opus card, with a few exceptions. The most noticeable, besides the photo printed on it, is that it sets off a different beep on the readers. Instead of the single-beep green light, it sets off the double-beep orange light, just like reduced-fare passes do. The message on the reader is the same, and so far nobody has asked to see the photo on it. Nevertheless, the pass is tied to its owner, and you can’t pass it to a friend to use for a day.
The documentation tells me that the card cannot be loaded with other fares valid on the STM network (passes, tickets, or AMT TRAM passes). Tickets not valid on the STM network, like STL and RTL passes, are accepted. I’m not sure about AMT train tickets. The FAQ suggests they wouldn’t be valid, which makes me wonder what a Maestro card user is supposed to do if they want to take the train one day.
The take-a-friend privilege is from 6pm to 4:59am weekdays, as well as all day Saturday and Sunday. It’s valid only on the STM network, with the exception of the 747 airport shuttle bus.
Another important point is that the two must travel together to the same destination. Since anyone in the network can be checked at any time, you have to be with your friend throughout his or her entire journey. This includes, for those taking the metro, walking between the platform and the turnstiles of a metro station, which is also part of the fare-controlled area. Presumably if you’re both taking a bus, you could stay on while your friend gets off.
For adapted transit users, the privilege applies when travelling on regular buses, but not on adapted transit service (unless the friend is a guide).
For the Quebec City privilege (which might expand to other systems), nothing special is required. The Quebec City Opus card readers are programmed to accept STM Maestro cards. The agreement between the two transit agencies is reciprocal, so Quebec City transit users will be able to travel on the STM network as well.
The Maestro card expires after two years, after which you have to go to the service centre and get a new one. There are no fees associated with getting the card or using the program.
As I have in previous years, I ask that you have some sympathy for the bus, metro or train driver, station attendant or other employee who has to work during the holidays – some on Christmas morning, some through midnight on New Year’s Eve – just so that you can get you from point A to point B in the dark, wet, snowy mess that is the last week of the year.
Here’s what there is to expect as far as schedule changes this weekend and next:
STM (Montreal, including the entire metro)
Note that from Dec. 22 to Jan. 6, the STM offers its Family Outings plan, which allows an adult to bring up to five children under 12 to ride for free with a fare-paying adult. (Normally this is allowed only during weekends and statutory holidays.) This does not apply to the 747 bus.
Monday, Dec. 24:
Buses and metro service will follow a regular Monday schedule.
Tuesday, Dec. 25:
Most bus routes will run on a Sunday schedule.
Metro trains will pass about every 10-12 minutes on the green line and every 10 minutes on the other lines.
Wednesday, Dec. 26:
Most bus routes will run on a Saturday schedule.
Metro service will run on a special schedule, with additional trains added to the Orange and Green lines to accommodate rabid Boxing Day shoppers.
Monday to Friday shared taxi service will not be in operation.
Dec. 27-30: Normal schedules for all services.
Monday, Dec. 31:
Buses, metro and taxi service will follow a regular Saturday schedule.
As usual, there’s no extension of metro service despite how many people are out celebrating New Year’s Eve. Last trains of the night leave the two blue line terminuses at 12:15am, in all five directions from Berri at 1:00am and from Longueuil at 1:00am.
Tuesday, Jan. 1:
Most bus routes will follow Sunday schedules..
Metro trains will pass about every 10-12 minutes on the green line and every 10 minutes on the other lines.
Wednesday, Jan. 2:
Most bus routes and metro trains will follow a Saturday schedule.
Note that Opus cards can be recharged at any point after Dec. 20.
At its meeting Wednesday night, the STM’s board of directors approved something I found a bit odd: a new fare designed specifically for the westbound 747 bus.
The 747 already has a special fare. Now they’re going to have different fares for different directions?
Not exactly. Carl Desrosiers, the STM’s general manager, explained after the meeting that the transit agency is about to install a series of new machines along the 747’s westbound route, that will allow people to get tickets for the bus using their credit cards.
The machines will be installed at every westbound downtown stop along the 747’s route some time in the coming months, and we could see more of them on the STM’s network if the pilot project goes well.
The fare for the 747 is $8, and goes up to $9 in January (even with the reduced fare hikes announced earlier that day). Not only do the buses not accept credit or debit cards, but they don’t accept paper money either, which means people have to pay this fare with at least five coins.
So these machines will be a way for tourists and others heading for the airport to be able to pay for a fare without having to find a metro station or get lots of change from someone.
Desrosiers says the new type of fare will cost the same as the usual 747 fare.
But why only for westbound buses? Desrosiers explains that those coming from the airport can use a special vending machine just inside the terminal next to the bus stop, so there’s no need for a similar device.
Information counter and fare machine at Trudeau Airport next to the 747 stop.
As usual, the STM was late in 
