ARTM demands deep cuts in transit
The ARTM is demanding deep cuts in transit through the whole urban area – Montreal, but also Laval, Longueuil and cuts to Exo service. (You’ll notice the REM is not mentioned. I suppose it isn’t subject to the ARTM.) The STM and the STL (Laval) have already said no, and they’re right to do so.
Denis Coderre cut back STM bus services in 2014. Till that year ridership had been growing, but afterwards it fell off amid a chorus of complaints. If public transit becomes too sparse to be convenient, it’s bound to nudge people into buying their own cars, and if there’s anything we do not need on this island, it’s a trend that supports more individual vehicles.
Michael Black 08:54 on 2020-08-25 Permalink
More important, there are people who don’t drive and people who can’t afford to drive.
If public transit is reduced, then it will be way more inconvenient for them than for people who can buy a car.
Kate 09:02 on 2020-08-25 Permalink
That’s also true, Michael Black. But the people who have no choice but to take transit will necessarily go on using it, adapting themselves around its limitations. The problem is that once a user stops using the system, they may do so forever. Some of the people being nudged in this way are young, and if they get a car now, that’s a possible 50 to 60 years of car use, after one too many cold waits on a street corner for a bus that doesn’t come.
There are a lot of people who feel they’re too good for the bus. We don’t want to add to their number.
Bill Binns 10:17 on 2020-08-25 Permalink
I will soon reach the 20th anniversary of selling the last automobile I owned and let me be clear…. I am too good for the bus.
Last year the STM had an event where you could take a tour around town on an antique (early 70’s) Montreal bus. My wife and I went and I was shocked by how much better the old bus was in pretty much every conceivable way to what we have now. Why on Earth did we ever do away with the classic bus layout of two rows of forward facing seats that hold two people each?? Even if you have to lose the first couple of benches to provide a spot for wheelchair bound Elijah (who is totally going to show up some day), it’s still a vastly superior layout. You are guaranteed to be mashed up against no more than one person. You can actually see where the bus is and where it’s going rather than being forced to stare into the dead soulless eyes of the passenger sitting opposite you. Get this… the seats had 4 inches of padding AND springs and felt like Lazy Boy recliners compared to the hard plastic seats with a little bit of felt glued to them we currently luxuriate in (assuming you are one of the lucky few that is allowed to sit at all on a Montreal bus). I mean, if you were an evil person looking for ways to make the bus experience worse, what more could be done? Maybe they could turn the heat on in the summer and remove the windows in winter.
Hopefully, one of the positives that may come out of the whole Covid mess is the realization that you cannot safely pack human beings into a container like farm animals being sent to slaughter.
MarcG 10:51 on 2020-08-25 Permalink
Those padded seats always had rips in them and the springs would break. The new seats seem much less likely to have those problems, or harbour bedbugs. A lot of people, myself included, actually prefer a firm seat, as well. And people with wheelchairs use the buses (just because you haven’t seen it yourself doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist; why is that such a problem for conservatives to understand?).
Blork 12:08 on 2020-08-25 Permalink
Aside from the “conservatives” crack (where TF did that come from?) I agree with MarcG. The hard seats might be less comfortable, but they are easier to maintain and less likely to spread bedbugs.
That said, I will now take this chance to rail once again on the overall discomfort of the goddamn Nova buses. I don’t know if it’s because of the low center of gravity or something else, but those are the jerkiest buses I have ever been on. When the driver pulls away from a stop there’s a jerk, and when the bus comes to a stop it jerks. While driving, any accelleration or decelleration always comes with jerks. It’s like being in a small Toyota with a driver who doesn’t know how to use the clutch. WTF IS WITH ALL THE JERKS!!!? (I mean the physical motion jerks; the other kind of jerks just come with the territory.)
I used to have great “sea legs.” I took great pleasure in riding the Metro while standing and not holding on to anything. What a sailor! But as I got older (and gained a significant neuropathy in my legs) that went away and I will 100% fall down if I try stand in the Metro now without holding something. Nova bus? I have to hold on to TWO things if I’m standing on a Nova bus. While it’s driving along I only need to hold one, but any slowing down or speeding up is so jerky it will literally knock me over if I’m not holding on with both hands. The older buses were not like that!
MarcG 12:34 on 2020-08-25 Permalink
It came from the fact that Bill, who is obviously a right-leaning conservative person, said that because he had never seen someone in a wheelchair using a bus that it never happened, in the same way that other people with similar views say that Covid-19 doesn’t exist because they don’t know anyone who’s had it, or climate change isn’t real because it’s cold sometimes. I saw it as all part of the same difficulty with a certain type of logic from the same type of person and decided to point it out.
PatrickC 13:03 on 2020-08-25 Permalink
In addition to the disabled, let’s not forget parents with strollers, shoppers with grocery hand carts, and I’m sure I’m forgetting some other categories of people who need a wide corridor in the bus.
Kate 14:30 on 2020-08-25 Permalink
When I was a kid you couldn’t board the bus with a stroller or a handcart. I think it’s chiefly because wheelchairs had to be allowed that the other items began to be accepted on board.
Bill Binns: I’ve ridden the bus enough that I’ve seen wheelchair users come aboard from time to time. Seldom if ever in winter, because by and large, wheelchair users can’t get around on snow and ice, but otherwise, yes. I will email the STM and ask if they have any figures on wheelchair usage on standard buses.
MarcG: A tendency to hang onto received ideas in the face of actual evidence. Yep.
Blork 15:13 on 2020-08-25 Permalink
The thing is, the old fashioned configuration that Bill talks about is fine for longer runs, like between cities or even long commuter runs on express buses. But for buses chugging along the city streets where people are getting on and off every block or so, it’s not good at all. Too much shuffling around and squeezing through just to get a seat or to get up and get out.
Kate 17:38 on 2020-08-25 Permalink
Blork, I can’t tell whether it’s the Nova bus at fault, or driver training. The last time I was on the 55 bus the driver was accelerating and braking so hard, turning the bus in to the stops so abruptly, that everyone was slewing around. I thought of taking down the time and the bus number and sending in a complaint, and now I think I should’ve done.