Critique of the Montreal metro
A Substack transit writer critiques our metro, making some good points about accessibility and payment difficulties, but I’m not sure about his emphasis on the need for air conditioning, even to suggesting that station doors be removed. Makes me wonder if he’s ever been here in wintertime.
jeather 12:08 on 2025-06-16 Permalink
Maybe they could have discussed this with any Montrealers ever, because this is “I, a tourist, know what this city needs and the solutions and don’t need to discuss it with the actual regular users”.
Some are correct, eg access, but do not refer to any of the known reasons it is not being done; there are piles of explainers about why the doors are so hard to open (but often have a mobility button) and it’s just ignored entirely.
Nicholas 13:31 on 2025-06-16 Permalink
I’ve had my quibbles with Reece over the years (REM boosterism for one; he’s come around s”omewhat, as he says), and do here too, but he’s broadly right. We have a frequent, “It’s good enough, I survived it this way” attitude in the city, province and country. And we are only slightly more curious about international advances than the US is. There are lots of metros and trains in Scandinavia, Russia, northern Japan and China. Sapporo runs on rubber tires too. It is getting hotter in the world, and here, and we have more very hot summer days than decades ago. I honestly don’t mind the temperature variations that much, but I hear about it from people, and some have said they don’t want to take the metro because they’ll get sweaty going to work. And even if it’s not necessary, it’s a thing we could do to make the lives of the people who use transit better. He’s spot on when he says, “it’s very easy in technical fields like metro planning and engineering to come up with excuses as to why various things ‘aren’t possible’ when clearly it’s more of a matter of funding, but especially will.”
jeather, I agree about the mobility button, but I guarantee you Reece, who has worked in transit, has discussed this with many Montrealers who use transit regularly. He’s also discussed it with agency staff, both here and in many countries, and has visited here many times. The idea that someone who doesn’t live here can’t understand our issues or propose solutions is exactly why we’re stuck in this mindset where we don’t learn from the better systems in the rest of the world (and I love Montreal, but there are hundreds of better systems out there). If you only look to locals, you’ll mostly get people who helped create the system we currently have, and are unlikely to criticize it, especially when their careers depend on it. But if you look there are locals who do have lots of complaints and suggestions, but they’re not listened to: too much, “c’est impossible!” from people, and when you show that it’s done in dozens of cities, you get “c’est impossible ici.” Just yesterday someone told me, explaining why Lucien L’Allier was rebuilt with low, inaccessible platforms, that CN and CP do not allow trains with high doors on their network, and when I showed them a photo I took last month of two Vaudreuil trains at Vendome with high and low doors on them I didn’t get a response.
jeather 14:40 on 2025-06-16 Permalink
I am entirely sure people who don’t live here can understand our issues and, if there were political will (which there is not), help fix it.
I do not believe they can understand our issues by visiting as a tourist and opining, and if you say he’s spoken to people — fine, but it doesn’t show in that specific link.