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78K views 278 replies 32 participants last post by  noikia2010 
#1 ·
I'd like to put all article or comments related to public transportation in this thread. I'll try to make it sticky!

Taken from The Montreal Gazette this morning!


More cars for busiest train line
DAVID JOHNSTON, The Gazette

The Montreal area's busiest commuter-rail line will get double-decker cars thanks to $120 million in new provincial money for suburban-train infrastructure.

The introduction of double-decker service on the Montreal/Deux Montagnes line tops the priority list for the new three-year capital-spending plan of the Metropolitan Transit Agency.

The plan is to be made public in the next two weeks.

It will boost the number of double-decker cars in the MTA's 200-car fleet well above the current 22 - which are used on commuter lines to Rigaud and Blainville-St. Jérôme. The combined ridership on these new lines is barely two-thirds of the 31,000 carried daily on the Deux Montagnes line.

By comparison, all 415 GO trains in the metropolitan Toronto commuter-rail network have double-decker cars.

Renewal of the train fleet will put double-decker trains where they are needed most - on the busiest lines, and during rush-hour periods, MTA official Mélanie Nadeau said yesterday.

Rush-hour trains on the Deux Montagnes line run well above 100-per-cent capacity now. Crowding is a sore point with users.

The line carries 31,000 people a day. It runs from Central Station through St. Laurent, the West Island and Laval and into the St. Eustache-Deux Montagnes area.

djohnston@thegazette.canwest.com




© The Gazette (Montreal) 2007
 
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#2 ·
Another article taken from the Gazette. This is great news for people who use the metro outside peak rush hour hours(students mostly)!



Métro service to be cranked up in new year

More departures, shorter waits. Transit agency looking for ways to lure new commuters to subway system
LINDA GYULAI, The Gazette

Métro users can expect to wait less time for a train next year.

The Montreal Transit Corp. is planning to increase métro service by as much as 20 per cent outside rush-hour periods, beginning in January, sources say.

An announcement is expected in the coming weeks.

The increase would mean a métro rider who now waits 10 minutes for a train would catch one in eight minutes, for example.

The average increase in service would be 15 to 17 per cent, the sources said.

The highest increase in service would occur just before and just after the morning and afternoon rush-hours, the sources said. Farther away from peak times, the service increases would be less, they said.

The transit corporation has a financial incentive to boost service and try to lure new riders.

The Quebec government last year set a target for transit authorities in the province to achieve an eight-per-cent increase in ridership by 2012, and promised a total of $130 million in new funding for their operations if they reach it.

An estimated $100 million of the provincial funding would be available to Montreal's transit agency, based on its share of ridership in the province.

Transit users would welcome better métro service, said Normand Parisien, of the transit lobby group Transport 2000. They've been subjected to fare hikes at double the inflation rate over the past five years without seeing much improvement in the system, he said. "Finally, there's some good news."

Transit officials briefed his group about the plans to increase service, Parisien said.

The MTC, however, has a long way to go to catch up to the level of métro service it offered in the 1990s, Parisien said. That's when Mayor Pierre Bourque's administration oversaw deep cuts in service that resulted from the Quebec government's withdrawal of all funding for transit operations in the province.

Mayor Gérald Tremblay's administration has raised fares by 40 per cent since 2002, but has restored only about one-quarter of the service that was cut in the '90s, Parisien noted.

The métro provided 56.8 million kilometres of passenger service in 1998, down from 65.7 million kilometres in 1994, old MTC budgets show. And the forecast for 2007 is for 60 million kilometres of service, still almost 10 per cent below the 1994 level.

While riders today wait eight to 12 minutes for a métro train on the Orange Line and seven to 12 minutes on the Green Line during off-peak hours, they waited 6.5 to 10 minutes during off-peak hours on both lines in 1998, after service cuts were made.

The Tremblay administration is contributing $278 million to the MTC this fiscal year.

City executive committee chairperson Frank Zampino announced last week the city will raise its contribution to the MTC in the 2008 municipal budget, to be tabled in a few weeks. He did not say how much the amount will be.

The transit agency's strategy of increasing métro service just before and just after rush hours is meant to improve passenger comfort during peak times, when riders complain of being crammed on métro cars.

lgyulai@thegazette.canwest.com




© The Gazette (Montreal) 2007
 
#3 ·
That is great news! Mass transit should account for 95% of travels.

It would be great to see more metros in our system. I really hate taking the metro in the morning because it gets so packed at times. Hopefully that won’t happen often after New Year.
 
#5 ·
I had to go downtown on Monday I used the bus and the metro I never take my car downtown ,I found the metro really dirty and one place I was standing smelled like piss the train windows are all scratched with graffiti its really disgusting I was surprised with how dirty it was. :eek:hno:
 
#6 ·
today I got into a metro car that was painted all in blue. It had picture of old building on the windows, and music. The music was very weird: Bird chirping, felt like you were in the jungle. I think the STCUM has too much money now.
 
#10 ·
Montreal subway stations where always very pleasant, open, spacious, and elaborate.............although they should give venicular trains to get you down there. My god, if they dug even 10 feet lower on some of those station you'd be in China.

This said I never thought much of the service. The trains didn't come near as frequently as the TTC subway and were smaller to boot. I really hope they increase frequencies to Toronto levels someday. I remember waiting quite a while for a train which is something you never do in Toronto's subway or Vancouver's SkyTrain.
 
#12 ·
By the photo appearing in yesterday's addition of Metro (newspaper), it seems that two gauges of double-decker commuter train cars will make up the forthcoming 160 new wagons announced a couple of days ago.

In addition, l'AMT informed me earlier this afternoon that their PTI-2008-2009-2010 might be published (released) some day next month; the agent says that the actual date's not yet firmed up.

Therefore, watch out for any update regarding Project B-15 that was announced in the Agency's 13-month-old triennial report, which concerns tunneling a link feeding into CN's Mount-Royal Tunnel. This would be far too pricy a project, when the possibility exists to re-establish the chord that's been replaced by some Home Depot car park near the intersection of Acadie and Sauve Boulevards in the north end. B-15 would overcome having to snake the Laval trains around the mountain by slipping them under it instead.....
 
#14 · (Edited)
#15 ·
It seems l`AMT`s released their 2008-2009-2010, as follows (correct me I be wrong here coz I haven`t read it yet):

http://www.amt.qc.ca/corpo/documents/budget/budget2008/pdf/Budget_AMT_2008_PTI.pdf
Having just glanced at l`AMT`s latest version (above-linked), the docket number to rerouting Laval-area trains to pass under the mountain is B-24, with which I have a problem: How come the authorities want to bore through rock when they might just as well ask the Home Depot outlet near the intersection of Acadie and Sauvé Blvds erect a multi-storey car park so as to refree the terrain, which had a chord linking the CN and CP lines (single-tracked, mind you) sometime between now and 1960? (I`ve yet to read about this project.)

However, I like their looking into electrification of the commuter network here, i.e., B-53
 
#16 ·
Sneaky, huh? L'AMT're claiming in Projet B-49in their most recent report that half of the tunnelling-out of the new junction with McGill station was accomplished before accommodating the Pl Mtl Trust tower block, which opened about 20 years ago, right? cheesh....
 
#22 ·
Did any of you chance to see the hoky picture (rendering, really) in past Saturday's The Gazette of the chord linking Gares Centrale and Lucien L'Allier, all in the airport's interest to be linked by rail right underneath the city's centre? Plus, the drawn 600-metre-long viaduct appeared single-tracked!
 
#24 ·
all in the airport's interest to be linked by rail right underneath the city's centre? Plus, the drawn 600-metre-long viaduct appeared single-tracked!
It's not a tunnel but an elevated train line. Look carefully, and you'll see. Let's not forget that the Ville Marie Expressway is directly beneath this proposed rail line!

I'm not too worried of ever seeing this thing get built. There are too many condo towers in ths area(existing and soon to be built, hopefully!?) Not to mention this would eat up alot of Prime real estate right smack in the middle of downtown!

I tried showing the link to the Gazette website, but All i get is some small paragraph.

In case any of you have saturday's Gazette, it's in the Extra section. Page B-7
 
#26 ·
^^ Yeah, I agree about its being elevated.

Local English-language radio news past Sunday announced the all-night-long opening of the metro Saturday night due to the snow storm. Did anybody here chance to ride it? If so, could you tell if any effort had been made to relate its being open all night long to the public, e.g., was an especial sign hung up outside the station entrance, was its ongoing service broadcast over radio that night? Thanking you in advance, coz the station master at my stop gently shooed those of us getting off the 'last' train of the day.
 
#29 ·
It's difficult to find information on this subject. If you have any links it would be appreciated.

How do you track revenue passengers when most people use a pass? You have to swipe on the métro but not on the bus.

The STM is responsible for public transit on the island only. Laval and the South Shore have their own systems. AMT is the regional commuter train agency which covers the entire area.
 
#37 ·
This was posted on Spacing Montréal today. I think it's interesting to note that most of the areas served by the métro are low car usage areas. More métro please!!


March 19th, 2008
A smorgasbord of Montreal transportation stats
Posted by Alanah Heffez



A recent Stats Can report on Canadians’ transportation habits entitles Montrealers to some bragging rights: car usage in Montreal’s metro area was the lowest in the nation in 2006, with only 65% of the residents making all trips by car, either as a driver or passenger.

Still, this hardly makes us a “ville verte par excellence” as reported by Le Devoir. After all, 65% of the people in this city are still getting behind the wheel for everything from the daily commute to work to the emergency dep-run (dep-drive?).

Zooming in on the city center, alternative means of transportation like public transit, walking and cycling, fare a little better. The proportion of central neighbourhood residents who traveled everywhere by car was 29% in Montreal, compared with 43% in Toronto, 56% in Vancouver and 66% in Calgary. The study credits Montreal’s lead to the fact that the city is older and many parts of it were developed before the “built for drivers” mentality became so pervasive.

On a similar note, the Plateau Mont-Royal published a press release last month tooting the high use of alternate transportation by local residents and blaming traffic in that neighbourhood on visitors from surrounding boroughs (their data was from a 2003 AMT study).

A few years ago, I became closely acquainted with the same AMT data and I thought I’d share this map I made showing the percentages of trips make by of active transportation (walking, cycling, skateboarding etc) in the Montreal area:




While more people get around on their feet and bikes in the central neighbourhoods, it’s neat to note that there are pockets of active transportation in the older towns surrounding Montreal like Saint-Jerome (101), Sainte-Therese (96) and Saint-Jean-sur-le-Richelieu (61). The AMT’s survey is supposed to be updated in 2008, so expect to see comparisons here whenever they get around to publishing the data.
 
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