It’s been a good news/bad news month for public transit in Montreal.
The good news is that a light rail transit line that will link the South Shore with central and western Montreal will include three stations within the city itself.
The bad news — news that is becoming irritatingly familiar to Montreal commuters — was a series of métro shutdowns blamed on everything from communications failures to someone throwing a cigarette butt on the tracks.
We sat down this week with STM chairman Philippe Schnobb to talk about reliability in Montreal’s transit system and whether the good news will eventually outweigh the bad.
This is what he said:
In 2009, the STM budget passed the $1-billion mark. This week, eight years later, it stands at $1.4 billion. I would suggest that there are some people out there who don’t think the offer of service by the STM has increased by nearly 40 per cent.
Since 2009, there have been big improvements in our bus service. From 2009 to 2013, bus service increased by about 25 per cent, subsidized mostly by the Quebec government. We’re continuing to improve our bus service …. And as for the métro, service will increase six per cent next year, the biggest increase in service … since the Laval métro stations opened (in 2007).
How do you quantify a six-per-cent increase in métro service?
When we opened in Laval, it was clear we’d be offering more kilometres of service because the tracks were longer. Now we’re increasing service by six per cent without expanding the métro …. At peak hours, we’ll be seeing more trains and we’ll be starting the rush hour earlier.
So instead of starting at 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. the peak hours will run from 6:30 to 10 or 10:30 a.m. in some places. If you take the métro at 9:30 a.m. right now, you’ll see a train every five or six minutes. Soon there will be a train every three minutes up to 10:30 a.m. …. That will be a big improvement, especially on the orange line because we’ll be running Azur trains … that can accommodate more people …. During the evening, if you’re going to see a show or a hockey game, sometimes you have to wait eight to nine minutes between trains. Go from the orange line to the green line and it can take you almost half an hour if you miss two connections.
Now, during the evening, the maximum interval between trains will be five minutes up until 10:30 p.m. The blue line will be closed half an hour later (at 12:45 a.m.) and the whole network will be open all night on New Year’s Eve.
Schnobb says: “We had a certain number of trains, and we used all the trains we could. With the Azurs we’ll have 14 more trains.”
People have been asking for these changes for while. Why did it take so long to adjust your service to what people want?
That’s a good question. For the métro, we had to wait for our new trains to arrive. We had a certain number of trains, and we used all the trains we could. With the Azurs we’ll have 14 more trains…. We’ve already received 10 trains, so we’re able to increase our capacity.
The ridership on the métro increased far beyond expectations when the Laval stations were opened. Has the network become a victim of that success? Are we reaching a point where service can’t keep up with demand?
I know what you mean. I take the métro every day at Sherbrooke station and have to let three trains go by before I can get in …. But the Azur trains can accommodate eight per cent more passengers. We’ll have more trains in operation …. And our Côte Vertu garage, which is a huge project, $300 million, will be by the Côte Vertu station and will be a yard for métro trains.
When the garage will be ready (in 2019), trains will be able to run from both ends of the orange line. Now they all leave from Crémazie and Henri-Bourassa (stations) and it takes longer for them to begin operating (network-wide) …. What it will mean once the garage is finished is that the interval between trains (during rush hour) will be two minutes. More trains that accommodate more passengers, a longer rush hour — that should give us a breathing space.
But you’re right: The métro has a maximum capacity … but I think that point is in the distant future. But in the meantime we have to think about other ways to transport people on the surface. Priority bus lanes are the solution for now. It can be done quickly, cheaply.
“More trains that accommodate more passengers, a longer rush hour — that should give us a breathing space,” Schnobb says.
Related
You can put all the extra buses on that you want, but if they’re stuck in traffic, how do you stop people from concluding they’d just as soon wait in their car in traffic than on a bus?
We increased service in September, we bought 25 new buses, we improved the service on a dozen lines … and we put more trains on the green line and we see results …. We saw an increase of ridership of 4.4 per cent of ridership on the bus lines that were improved in the southwest of Montreal. I presume that’s not a coincidence …. There may be car drivers who are telling themselves they don’t want to be stuck in traffic …. My line is that if you want to avoid construction, don’t go around it, go under it. And we’ll be adding more trains to the orange line and green line in January.
Reliability is essential, but lately there have been questions about the system’s reliability.
We have the oldest fleet of métro trains in the world and, basically, they’re working pretty well if you look at the big picture …. Sometimes we have trouble with the trains that (date) from the 1960s, but that happens …. The other aspect is that sometimes humans are responsible for the problems …. This week someone decided to go for a walk in a métro tunnel. We had to cut the power, wait for the police, wait for them to find the person, and wait until everyone’s back on the platform. One person does something, and the reaction is a nightmare for thousands of people.
Someone decides to put out their cigarette on a platform. That causes smoke, we had to call the firefighters. Once the firefighters are there, we lose control. We have to wait for the firefighters’ authorization to put the power back on …. We’ve decided to put more people on the platform for surveillance …. We know that just the presence of one person from the STM on the platform, and people are more cautious.
This interview has been edited for length. To hear all of our discussion with Philippe Schnobb, click on the start icon of the podcast below.
