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Société de transport de Montréal

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 74.111.160.107 (talk) at 02:51, 5 October 2007 (→History: grammar; revised wording). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Top: Lionel-Groulx metro station. Second row: Honoré-Beaugrand metro station, a 1996 NovaBus LFS "167 Le Casino" leaving the Montreal Biosphère and heading to the Montreal Casino. Third row: Georges-Vanier metro station, Berri-UQAM metro station. Bottom: Montreal's first two mayors, Jacques Viger and Peter McGill, in stained glass in the McGill Station of the Montreal Metro.

History

STM was created in 2002 and replaced the STCUM, Société de transport de la communauté urbaine de Montréal (Montreal Urban Community Transit Corporation/MUCTC), which provided public transit service to the 28 municipalities on the Island of Montreal. In practice, the STM is the same entity as the STCUM. All that changed was the name. The name change occurred to reflect the fact that the 28 municipalities on the Island of Montreal were merged with the central city of Montreal. Several of these municipalities have since seceded from the new city ("de-merged") and are restored as independent towns. They will continue to contract with the STM to provide transit service. To fund the contracted service, the de-merged municipalities will continue to pay taxes to what remains of the mega-city of Montreal. In 2005, 361 million people used the STM for transport on the Island of Montreal.

Timeline of transit service in the Montreal area:

Vehicles

A 2004 NovaBus LFS owned by the STM on route 55 Saint Lawrence Boulevard

STM operates over 1,600 buses in its fleet; below is the all-time fleet list:

Currently the only buses in service are the Motor Coach Industries/NovaBus TC40102N and the Nova LFS. As of now, almost all the fleet is equipped with a GFI Oddysey farebox replacing the old Cleveland fareboxes starting in December 2005.

Bus route numbers

File:Cam-may-2005.jpg
A monthly transit pass, giving access to STM services on the island of Montreal. This monthly pass is from May 2005.
  • Regular and rush hour services: Routes 10 to 268
  • Express and reserved bus lanes: Routes 410 to 535 and 935
  • Night routes: Routes 350 to 382

The STM bus network consists of 168 daytime and 20 nighttime service routes.

Routes served by NovaBus LFS are accessible (identified with Disabled access)

Bus route Trivia

  • Longest bus routes (not including night routes): 69, 211, 221, 410, 430, 460, 535.
  • Shortest route on the island: 46.
  • Shortest route in the network: 167.
  • Busiest route: 211/221: Workday - 200 211 busses; 60 221 busses. Roughly 13,000 passengers use the route every single day, or roughly 4.74 million a year.
  • Shortest distance between bus termini on the same route: 201 (The termini are across the street from each other).
  • Bus line with the longest distance between stops: 211, 221 (Inbound 17 km; outbound 16 km between Lionel-Groulx Metro and the Dorval Train Station). The next longest route is 470 with 15 km between Cote-Vertu Metro and Fairview Pointe-Claire.

Streetcars

Like many North American cities in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Montreal had streetcar service. On August 30, 1959, Montreal abandoned the last of its streetcars in favour of buses. Although there had been heavy traffic loads during the years of the Second World War, everything changed with post-war affluence. There was a huge growth in automobile ownership, which took a toll on streetcar passenger numbers. Increasing traffic congestion, especially on the narrow streets of the older sections of Montreal, made it increasingly difficult to provide good service by a "railway" type operation. The streetcar network also needed much rehabilitation work after heavy usage during the war years. The private Montreal Tramways Company's 30-year contract with the city was also coming to an end in 1948. For all of these reasons, the company was reluctant to spend money on expansion and modernization. In 1950, legislation was passed to create the city-owned Montreal Transportation Commission, which would be charged with taking over the assets of the Montreal Tramways Company. They officially did so in June, 1951. The Commission decided to convert all streetcar lines to buses within 10 years. To relieve traffic congestion, they decided to convert the inner city routes first. Many of Montreal's streetcar routes included running on a portion of St-Catherine Street downtown. On some downtown sections of this street, there was a headway of 10 seconds or less between streetcars! By the end of August 1956, St-Catherine Street was without streetcars. Many of the outlying routes, especially those running on private rights-of-way, lasted the longest. When the last streetcar ran in August 1959, the Commission had succeeded in replacing the streetcar system with buses in eight short years instead of 10.

  • Horsecar service 1861–1894
  • Electric streetcar service 1894–1959

Since 1906, the system included a set of two (later four) special open-topped steetcars locally known as Golden Chariots. Ostensibly for tourists, they were probably always more popular with Montrealers looking for a breezy ride during the hot and humid summers of Montreal. Seating was arranged in an ascending configuration (like a theatre's tiered seats) toward the rear to provide a commanding view of the sights. They operated on a 10-mile (16-km) counter-clockwise circuit around the twin summits of Mount Royal via Bleury, Park, Laurier, Cote St-Catherine, Bellingham, Maplewood, Decelles, Queen Mary, private right-of-way between Queen Mary and Cote St. Luc, Girouard, Sherbrooke, Greene, St-Catherine to Bleury. A second Golden Chariot route was established in the late 1940s. That followed a counter-clockwise route along St. Catherine, Delormier, Mount Royal, Park, Laurier, Cote St-Catherine, Bellingham, Maplewood, Decelles, Queen Mary, Cote des Neiges,and back to St-Catherine. This second route lasted only a few years being discontinued when streetcar service ended on Cote des Neiges in 1955. Contrary to popular belief, the Golden Chariots never operated in regular service over the mountain on the private right-of-way that later became the Camilien Houde Parkway for automobiles. It was found that if passengers stood in some areas of the upper tiers of the Golden Chariots, there was insufficient safety clearance in the tunnel on that line. Therefore the Company decided against ever using the Golden Chariots in regular service on the spectacular mountain right-of-way except for an occasional charter trip. Service was normally provided by the regular cars of the 11-Mountain and 93-Remembrance routes. Those cars were equipped with a variety of special safety devices for operation on this steep, sharply-curved line. Both of these routes were summer-only services. By 1956, the Golden Chariot route had to be adjusted as streetcar trackage was reduced. When streetcar service ended on Sherbrooke and St-Catherine in the late summer of 1956, cars were rerouted. Instead of turning east from Girouard to Sherbrooke, they continued south on Girouard to Upper Lachine Road, then St. Antoine to Park. They last ran in regular service in the summer of 1957 although they could still be chartered in the summer of 1958. By then however, the streetcar track network had really shrunk. Existing examples of these unique vehicles can be seen in streetcar or railway museums.

There were a number of other unique cars on the system especially in the earlier years. The Tramways company's predecessors operated a smaller two-axle version of the Golden Chariots. It was used as a rolling stage for the company's employee band. There was also a prison car that would take miscreants between the downtown courthouse and the outlying Bordeaux Prison. There were also two funeral cars, which saw heavy use during the influenza epidemic of the early 20th century. They were used to carry caskets to the outlying Hawthorn-dale Cemetery, which was beyond the reach of good roads at the time. The cars only carried caskets; mourners had to make their own way there.

Montreal also used trolleybuses. Introduced in 1937, they were seen as having some advantages over streetcars. Unlike streetcars, they could load and unload at the curb instead of stopping traffic in the middle of the street. They were still however, dependant on overhead trolley wires. Their passenger capacity was also less than the larger streetcars. Although all streetcar lines had been converted to buses by 1959, traffic congestion had not gotten better as hoped. City traffic engineers came up with a plan to turn many major streets into one-way thoroughfares, which would affect several trolleybus routes. Trolleybuses by this time had fallen out of favour with transit companies and new North American equipment was harder to get. Montreal's Brill trolleybuses were quickly approaching the end of their economic service lives. As a result of all of these factors, the Commission decided to end trolleybus service in June 1966. Montreal's new subway, the Metro, would open just four months later in October. Here are just some of the vehicles that served in Montreal:

Horsecars

Electric cars

In February 2006, Montreal mayor Gérald Tremblay suggested the city look into a return of the streetcar into the heart of the city, following a visit to Paris, where new service is also in the planning stages.

Connections

STM is connected to surrounding transit agencies such as:

Metro

Main article: Montreal Metro
Current map of the Montreal Metro

The Montreal Metro was introduced in 1966 in preparation for Canada's 100th birthday and Expo 67 in Montreal, the second such system in Canada. Instead of traditional steel-wheeled trains, it is a rubber-tired metro, based on technology developed for the Paris Métro; Montreal's system was the first in the world to be entirely rubber-tired.

Montreal Metro lines are as follows:

Note on Line 3: The original metro plan called for a North-South route under Mount-Royal using existing Canadian National tracks. This line would have had from nine to 17 stations. The project was shelved for two reasons:

  • Expo '67 required the more important construction of Line 4,
  • The line would have required special cars, because they were to have run outside.

Today, AMT commuter trains to Deux-Montagnes use the Mount Royal Tunnel where line 3 was once planned.

Bus Rapid Transit

Main article: Montreal bus rapid transit

From June 1990 to June 2002, the MUCTC operated a Bus Rapid Transit line along Pie-IX Boulevard. This was indefinitely suspended after two fatalities. The buses on this line flowed against the flow of traffic during rush hours in the direction of the majority of traffic.

Paratransit

The STM operates paratransit services for handicapped passengers. Regular STM fares apply.

Taxibus

The STM also operates seven taxibus lines where the creation of bus service was not feasible. Regular STM fares apply, except that no cash is accepted. [2]

Taxibus lines:

1- Rush-hour service

2- Synchronised with rush-hour trains

3- Mid to late morning and late night service

4- Limited late night service Sunday through Thursday

All lines except for the Centre de distribution Aldo and the Parc industriel Lachine / Gare Dorval (during the night) require a reservation at least one hour in advance by telephone. Otherwise, one can simply wait at a stop. It's a very unique service.

Regional Service

The STM was formerly involved in the operation of regional transit services. The first such service was a set of bus routes inherited from the October 1980 expropriation of a private bus company called Metropolitan Provincial (1967) Inc. These regional bus routes operated from downtown Montreal to the western part of the Island of Montreal, as well as to off-island points located west, south-west, and north east of the Island of Montreal. By the end of 1985, the STM (then known by the initials CTCUM) had exited the regional bus business to focus on its core territory (the Island of Montreal). Most of the regional bus routes were passed to private operators who provided services under contract to newly formed intermunicipal transit councils.

The second regional service involved the management of two commuter train lines. On July 1, 1982, the CTCUM and Canadian National Railway (CN) entered into an agreement to integrate the Montreal-Deux Montagnes commuter train line into the regular CTCUM bus and metro network. The CTCUM paid CN to staff, run, and maintain the trains, while it set the fares and schedules. Passengers travelling within the CTCUM operating territory were able to transfer between the trains and the bus or metro, although a small fare supplement was required to make a bus/metro to train transfer. On October 1, 1982, a similar agreement with Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) went into effect and CP's Montreal-Rigaud commuter train line was integrated into the CTCUM network.

On January 1, 1996, responsibility for the commuter trains was transferred to the AMT, a Quebec provincial government agency formed to coordinate all public transportation in the metropolitan Montreal region.

See also

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