Tag Archives: STM

| Montreal, Opinion, Public transit

Time for new blood on the STM’s board of directors

Brenda Paris

Brenda Paris

Mayor Gérald Tremblay got yet more bad news when he found out that the president of his party, Brenda Paris, has defected to rival Vision Montreal to run as a borough mayor.

In addition to her various roles with government and non-profit organizations in the city, Paris is a member of the Société de Transport de Montréal’s board of directors. There, she serves as the “transit users’ representative”, which means she represents regular people like us who take the bus and metro to work every day.

It’s one of two seats on the board set aside for this purpose. The other is for a paratransit users’ representative, and is currently held by Marie Turcotte. Both Paris and Turcotte have served since 2001, making for quite a long tenure.

All the other seats on the STM’s board are held by municipal politicians. Borough mayors, city councillors, or representatives of on-island suburbs. Now, having declared herself as a candidate, Paris has become one of them. (One might argue she was already one of them being president of a political party.)

I’m pretty sure that when the “transit users’ representative” was added to the STM’s board, this wasn’t what they had in mind for it. There are already far too many politicians on the board, and far too few people from the community.

I don’t know Brenda Paris, and I have no reason to believe that she’s anything other than an outstanding person. But after eight years on the STM’s board, I think it’s clear that she has more connections to municipal politicians and civil servants than she does regular transit users. It’s not a personal fault, it’s just the natural progression after eight years and being so involved in politics.

The STM has done a lot for transparency, and is continuing to improve (putting documentation online, for example, and releasing annual reports with useful statistics), but there are serious deficiencies, starting with the board of directors itself. While the agendas for meetings are published in advance, the items are vaguely described, and there is no supporting documentation available. Reference could be made to a new bus route in the agenda, but a description, map or schedule of that route isn’t available before or at the meeting to interested users.

At the meetings themselves, time is set aside for questions from the public (which usually comes in the form of complaints about individual cases of inconvenience from people who clearly have nothing better to do with their time), but when it gets down to business, there is never any discussion of the millions of dollars of projects approved unanimously. The actual meeting, with a dozen items on the agenda, lasts for less than 10 minutes, with the secretary noting only who was present and who moved and seconded various motions.

It’s time for a new transit users’ representative on the STM’s board. Perhaps even one selected by the transit users themselves instead of by political appointment. (I focus on Paris and not Turcotte here, though if a paratransit user was willing to serve on the STM’s board I would suggest change there as well.) And I think some consideration should be given to term limits for these positions.

I don’t know if Mayor Tremblay has the power to remove Paris from the STM’s board because she defected from his party (or whether he’d be so petty as to remove her strictly for that reason), but even if that doesn’t happen, I think she should recognize it’s inappropriate for her to continue serving on this board in this capacity.

I’m sure Brenda Paris is an asset to the STM, and would even suggest that she be appointed to one of the political seats on the board in the event she wins in November’s election. But she’s taking up a seat that needs to be filled by someone with new ideas and a better perspective on the issues that transit users face every day, someone whose votes won’t be clouded by the worry of how they might be seen on the campaign trail.

For that reason, I respectfully suggest that she resign.

| Montreal, Public transit, Technology

STM offers bus schedules by text message

There’s been no press release yet, but the STM has quietly launched two new systems to get bus schedules on mobile devices, and recently unveiled it to employees, Fagstein has learned.

UPDATE (July 14): The STM launched both services today as a six-month pilot project.

Text LA-STM

The first is by text message. Send a message to 52786 (which works out to “LA-STM”) with the bus route number followed by the stop code and you’ll get one back with the next three departure times for that bus. So, for example, to find out the times for the next 80 bus northbound at the Place des Arts metro station (stop #52552), text “8052552”, and you’ll get a message like this:

Stop 52552 (07/03/09) Line 80: 21:52, 21:59, 22:06.

The first time you use the service, it will ask you whether you want it in English or French by texting “E” or “F”.

m.stm.info

m.stm.info

m.stm.info

The second method is through a new mobile website at m.stm.info. A simply-designed page asks you to input a stop code and route number (or just the route number so you can search for the code), and spits out the time of the next three arrivals. There are also bare-bones pages with fare information and metro closing times.

This isn’t the first time that someone thought to make it easier for mobile users to get bus times (outside of the AUTOBUS voice-menu system). There’s the STM Mobile iPhone application, busmob.com mobile-friendly site and this site which mashes up with Google Maps. There’s also, of course, Google Maps itself, which has had Montreal-area bus schedule information since October. The STM told The Gazette’s Roberto Rocha in August that it was planning something similar “in the fall”, but it seems they’ve been a bit behind schedule.

UPDATE (July 5): Some linklove from Rue Frontenac and a citation from Agence QMI. Amusingly, both invent new examples to use, QMI’s in the more francophone area of the Joliette metro. The QMI piece is also on Page 3 of 24 Heures of July 6:

24 Heures, July 6, 2009, Page 3

24 Heures, July 6, 2009, Page 3

UPDATE (July 14): More coverage from The Gazette, Metro, Technaute and Canoe (again) after the system was officially announced.

| Montreal, Public transit

515 colour plan only adds confusion

As the city does work on Metcalfe St. that forces the 515 bus into a detour at its western terminus, the STM decided that they’d take another crack at solving the confusion problem that hits people (locals and tourists alike) when they want to take this bus: because it’s a circular route, there’s no East, no West, and no terminus. Both directions will bring you where you want to go eventually.

The solution? Colours!

Blue 515 stop

Yellow 515 stop

Isn’t it obvious? The blue sign is for the bus that takes the clockwide route, toward Berri and then down to Old Montreal. The yellow sign is for the counter-clockwise route that goes through Old Montreal and then up to Berri. This is consistent with the schedules which have a yellow route and a blue route on them, unless they’re copied in black and white, in which case they only have one direction visible.

So now not only has the STM invented a new colour for the 515 (recycled from a failed experiment), they’ve invented another one too! A light blue that’s just different enough from the standard dark blue to be both confusingly similar and confusingly different.

Of course, this won’t solve the confusion inherent in the route’s design, and will just create more. This is the first time the STM is using colours on stop signs to indicate direction, and it’s a break from the standard. If transit users need anything, it’s a standard framework from which to understand how things run. This idea laughs in the face of that.

The STM should do as I suggested and drop the part of the route between Berri and Peel, which is redundant to not one but two metro lines (and the 150 and 15 buses) and therefore the least-used part of a little-used line. Then they can have proper East/West designations and the confusion will be gone.

No parking on Peel

Of course, what’s really going to piss people off is that in order to fit these two stops, the city had to remove 10 parking spaces along Peel (not that the bright red bags with no parking signs on them stopped drivers from parking there anyway, as you can see).

| Montreal, Opinion, Public transit

CAM stop the music

OPUS mug shot

The word came down a few weeks ago: May 2009 would be the last month that regular monthly passes would be given out at the STM. From June 1, everyone, including me, would have to switch to Opus.

I had resisted for months for various reasons. First of all, they cost more. I could pay $68.50 for a regular pass or $72 for a regular pass on an Opus card. I chose the cheaper option. Since Opus cards have expiry dates on them, mine will now last longer than those who jumped on board right away.

Furthermore, despite being used by thousands of commuters, the system wasn’t fully tested yet. There were still flaws, enough to give The Gazette’s Max Harrold an almost endless supply of Squeaky Wheels columns.

Specifically:

  • The cards are slow compared to the magnetic passes. Like those single-use magnetic cards that are littering our streets and metro stations, there is a delay as the computer reads them. It takes about two seconds from the point you put a card on a reader to the point where it’s recognized. Multiply that by all the passengers getting on a bus, and everything becomes slower.
  • There is no way for a human being to verify an Opus card. If the computer system breaks down or a reader doesn’t work, a bus driver or booth attendant can’t simply look at the card and see that it has a pass on it. So they’re trained to simply let you through when problems like this occur.
  • Some smaller transit agencies haven’t yet installed Opus readers on all their buses, including CITSO, which serves Châteauguay.
  • One of the primary advantages of Opus to consumers was supposed to be that they could register their cards and get replacements (with their fares intact) in case the cards get lost. Unfortunately, this system isn’t running yet for regular users. Instead, they say forms will be available “in 2009.” The STM blames the other transit agencies because they all need to be on the same page for this to launch.
  • Though the Opus card machines all look the same, you can’t buy all the different kinds of fares at all the stations.
  • Though users are encouraged to have different types of fares from different agencies on the cards, you can’t put STM tickets and AMT TRAM tickets on the same card, because readers on STM buses don’t know which one to deduct. The workaround is to use two cards, but that causes problems for seniors and students using reduced-fare cards ($13.50 each since a photo is required).
Opus machines run on Windows

Opus machines run on Windows - Floppy disk fail!

And, of course, the machines have a habit of breaking down.

Because I’m an uninteresting transit user (one STM monthly pass), I haven’t experienced any problems yet. And most others made the transition smoothly as well. Others saw long lines as they tried to get cards.

A selection of monthly passes I've used over 16 years

A selection of monthly passes I've used over 16 years

YES WE CAM

Even if the various problems are eventually solved, I’m going to miss those plastic monthly passes and their magnetic strips, called CAM for “carte autobus-métro”. Each month had a new design (designed top secret to discourage counterfeiting) and since January 2008 had pictures of metro stations on them.

I’ve had monthly passes since I started high school in September of 1993 (you can see that pass in the foreground above), and bought a pass every month since September 1996. First a reduced fare card, then the AMT’s intermediate fare until I was 22, then back to reduced fare under the Carte Privilège, and finally an adult fare as of November 2005 when my last student pass expired. That’s 183 monthly passes, ranging in price from $17.50 to $68.50.

And I’ll miss the sounds of those mechanical turnstiles and the two-tone access-granted sound they issue. Instead, all we get is a soulless beep.

What’s next

The process of conversion is still ongoing. Here’s what’s in store over the coming months:

July 1:

  • The weekly CAM Hebdo stops being sold, with some exceptions
  • Seniors and students 6-11 will be forced to switch to photo ID Opus cards as reduced-fare CAMs won’t be sold (Students 12+ were forced to switch in the fall since ID cards were only issued in Opus form)
  • Single-use tickets will no longer be sold in reduced fare – they can only be loaded onto Opus cards
  • Students 12-17 will no longer be able to pay cash for bus trips (seniors and children will still be able to for now)
  • The AMT stops selling magnetic-stripe TRAM passes for zones 1-3, forcing those users to switch to Opus.

Sept. 1:

  • Old-style tickets will no longer be accepted for fares (those with tickets left can get them exchanged)
  • The STM begins its proof-of-payment system, so everyone on a bus or metro train will be required to keep proof of payment on them at all times and can be fined if they’re found without it

Jan. 1:

  • As all remaining transit agencies complete their Opus system installation, the magnetic-stripe TRAM card will no longer be sold
  • Unless there’s another extension, the “discount” on Opus cards ends, and their price climbs from $3.50 to $7.
Old-style tickets and transfers from a decomissioned turnstile are swept into a pile with dust to be thrown away.

Old-style tickets and transfers from a decomissioned turnstile are swept into a pile with dust to be thrown away. The tickets are no longer sold and will not be accepted as of Sept. 1.

Maybe I’m just afraid of change.

UPDATE: Another ode to the CAM at Hors des lieux communs.

| Montreal, Public transit, West Island

New summer bus schedules

The STM has released summer schedules for its bus network. Among the notable changes that take effect June 22:

  • 70 Bois-Franc gets a significant boost in service to complete its schedule. Service now extends to midnight, seven days a week (before it ended about 7pm), and intervals during rush hour drop from 30 to 15 minutes in both directions.
  • 119 Rockland adds Sunday service in both directions. Previously it was a Monday-to-Saturday bus.
  • 164 Dudemaine‘s western terminus is extended by two blocks, ending at Steinberg St. instead of Bois-Franc, to serve an area the STM considered to have inadequate service.
  • 174 Côte-Vertu Ouest gets midday service on weekdays at half-hour intervals, as well as four new departures in the evening, extending its service from 6pm to 8pm.
  • 209 Des Sources now stops at the Trudeau Airport via the Dorval train station.
  • 210 John Abbott adds a stop inside the Kirkland shopping centre that includes the Colisée, for all the John Abbott students who want to watch a movie after school (or instead of?). The STM cites safety as a reason for this stop, which replaces one at Jean-Yves and the service road.
  • 219 Chemin Sainte-Marie gets the same modification, but only in the westbound direction.
  • 361 Saint-Denis moves to a summer schedule with more departures, particularly on Sunday nights when intervals drop from 45 minutes to 30.
  • 515 Vieux-Montréal-Vieux-Port takes on a summer schedule, which reduces wait times from 20 minutes, seven days a week to 13 minutes on weekdays and 10 minutes on weekends.

UPDATE: The Gazette has a story on the changes based off the STM press releases. Both misspell “Bois-Franc”.

Meanwhile, the AMT is reducing service on the new schedule for its Nuns’ Island express bus, increasing intervals from 20 minutes to 30. Mitigating this news somewhat is that the STM has just approved a new bus route, probably to take effect in the fall, connecting Nuns’ Island with the LaSalle metro station.

| Montreal, Public transit, Web design

The STM’s new brand

stm.info

stm.info

For those who haven’t noticed yet, the STM has redesigned its website to bring it into the 21st century. The previous version, while functional, wasn’t very pretty and looked quite dated.

The new version fixes that, with all the current design clichés:

  • Rounded corners
  • Gradients
  • The colours blue and grey
  • Flash-based Cycling series of main images
  • JavaScript-based collapsible menus
  • Helvetica and/or Arial, mostly in all caps

Fortunately, the design change is cosmetic. Most of the content is the same and even the URLs don’t change, so links aren’t broken.

The redesign fits in with the STM’s “Society in motion” brand, with a yellow and blue chevron forming a green one (it’s not clear what this represents exactly), and an increased emphasis on the environmental benefits of using public transit. The INFO STM page in Metro has also been redesigned with this new design.

They also launched Version 4 of Tous Azimuts, the trip planning application that uses the STM’s database of bus, train and metro departures. The new version is faster, easier to use and shows a map of trips, in addition to allowing smart searches of departure and arrival locations. If that’s not good enough for you, the STM also gives people the choice of using Google Transit, which has had access to departure schedules since October.

| Montreal, Opinion, Public transit

About those escalator pictograms

The Laval police department is stubbornly standing by its officers who arrested and ticketed a woman for not holding an escalator handrail and having the gall to protest when they demanded she do so. This action caused outrage that is still giving Patrick Lagacé column ideas.

The argument for the police isn’t logically wrong. The STM’s bylaws require people to obey pictograms and there is a pictogram telling people to hold handrails. The fine issued wasn’t excessive legally.

But there’s a reason why courts are run by human judges: laws must be interpreted through the filter of common sense.

For example, if we posit that escalator pictograms must be always followed to the letter, what to make of this:

Pictograms on the moving carpet at Beaudry metro

Pictograms on the moving carpet at Beaudry metro

So strollers have to be held in front of you.

But strollers are prohibited.

Perhaps this is why the STM doesn’t ticket people routinely for ignoring these warnings. Even they don’t take them seriously.

| Public transit

STM adds Saint-Michel express bus

The STM moves to its spring schedule on Monday. Here’s some of what bus users can come to expect:

Welcome to the Saint-Michel Express

The biggest change comes to the 67 Saint-Michel, the STM’s single busiest line, which like its counterparts along Côte des Neiges, Parc and Pie-IX will get a little brother. The 467 Express Saint-Michel takes the same route as the 67, but with only 15 stops. The STM estimates this will cut 10% off travel times (via CPTDB), thanks to the help of two McGill urban planners (thanks Dave). Other measures, such as a reserved bus lane (coming this summer) and priority traffic lights (coming in 2010), are designed to shave another 5-20% off.

The route will have 126 departures from 6am to 7pm in both directions, Monday to Friday.

The 467’s stops are:

  • Henri-Bourassa
  • Fleury
  • Sauvé
  • De Louvain
  • Émile-Journault
  • Robert
  • Jarry
  • Villeray
  • Saint-Michel metro
  • Bélanger
  • Beaubien
  • Rosemont
  • Masson
  • Saint-Joseph
  • Joliette metro

72 extended to Côte-Vertu and Fairview

The 72 Alfred-Nobel, which connects the Saint-Laurent industrial park with the Du Collège metro, is having its route extended on both sides. On the western side, the route will end at the Fairview terminus (via Hymus), and on the eastern side, continuing on Decarie up to the Côte-Vertu metro (where all the other West Island buses stop). Service intervals will also drop slightly for this route, which operates Monday to Friday from 7am to 7pm.

Other notable scheduling changes I stumbled across

  • 12 Île des Soeurs: Dramatic increase in weekday departures, which are now 23 minutes apart instead of 30 during most of the day.
  • 16 Graham: New eastbound departure at 7:20am
  • 68 Pierrefonds: Service intervals westbound on Saturdays drop from about 22 minutes to about 16 minutes in the afternoon, with more buses in the morning and afternoon going all the way to Timberlea/Anse-à-l’Orme. Eastbound Saturday mornings a departure is added at 8am. And for some odd reason, the 1:40am westbound departure on Saturday nights (half an hour later than the rest of the week, consistent with a later metro closing time) has been eliminated.
  • 150 René-Lévesque: Weekday departures are now 31 minutes apart instead of 30, in order to remove a departure from the schedule.
  • 173 Métrobus Victoria: Service intervals decreased from 20 to 15 minutes during high-traffic times (eastbound during the morning rush hour, westbound during the afternoon rush hour)
  • 201 Saint-Charles-Saint-Jean: Midday Saturday service intervals drop from about 32 minutes to about 22 minutes between departures.
  • 207 Jacques-Bizard: An annoying schedule quirk for this predictable (every half hour on the half hour) schedule has been partially removed. After 10pm, the departures in both directions would happen every hour instead of every half hour. Those who didn’t look at the schedule closely enough might get stuck wondering why the bus didn’t come. On weekdays, the departures return to being every half hour, but still every hour after 10pm on weekends.
  • 209 Des Sources: Added departure northbound at 11:39pm. Previous final departure was at 10:55pm
  • 215 Henri-Bourassa: Between 9am and 12pm Saturday mornings, time between westbound departures drops from 30 minutes to 20.
  • 480 Pointe-Nord Île-des-Soeurs: Service intervals drop from 15 minutes to 10 minutes at rush hour peak
  • 515 Vieux-Montréal-Vieux-Port: Service intervals increase from every 13 minutes to every 20 minutes during the day (it’s unclear if this reduction in service is a seasonal thing, as more people are expected to walk places in warmer weather, or if it’s a reaction to how little the bus is used)

Notice anything I haven’t seen? Comment below.

| Montreal

Public consultation on 515 bus tonight

Suggested solution to traffic problems on de la Commune St.

Suggested solution to traffic problems on de la Commune St.

The Ville-Marie borough is holding a public consultation tonight (6 p.m. at the Notre Dame Basillica, 426 Saint-Sulpice) on the STM’s 515 bus, which has the conflicting qualities of being desperately needed and yet horribly underused.

The consultation is actually about traffic measures to be taken in Old Montreal, specifically on de la Commune St. and St. Laurent Blvd., to help the bus through heavy traffic which has been slowing it down.

Currently, de la Commune is one way westbound between Berri and St. Laurent, with only buses allowed eastbound. The 515 takes this reserved lane eastbound, and westbound actually uses Notre Dame, turning left on St. Laurent toward de la Commune (as I pointed out last summer, this particular turn is a big slowdown).

Documents presented by the borough suggest that the ridership numbers are even more dire than one might have guessed. It’s measured in the hundreds, not the thousands. A survey of residents and business owners taken last fall shows that only about a quarter have ever used the bus, and more than half of those use it very infrequently. The main reason given for not using the bus is that it’s easier to walk. Still, more than 60% of respondents approve of the route and think it should stay.

A study commissioned by the borough looked at various traffic options, mainly what kind of traffic should be allowed on de la Commune, and in which direction. It came up with two recommendations:

  1. Make de la Commune one-way eastbound: This would reverse the current situation for cars, and would eliminate the traffic tieups at St. Laurent where eastbound traffic must now turn left (conversely, it would create a lesser one at Berri for westbound traffic). There would be no westbound traffic whatsoever between Berri and St. Laurent, so the 515 westbound would keep its current route along Notre Dame.
  2. Close de la Commune to non-reserved traffic: Cars would be forced off in both directions, leaving on the 515 bus (east and west), morning deliveries by truck to local businesses, and any other reserved traffic the city wants to let in. Though this one is sure to piss off more drivers (especially because St. Paul is also to be closed to traffic this summer), it would make the street very pedestrian-friendly with only the occasional buses passing by. At the same time, with no traffic at all, the buses woud travel much faster.