The Société de Transports de Montréal (STM) has been a great refreshment compared to OC Transpo back in Ottawa, the buses here just seem to flow better. And without the stretch buses, there are less jackknives in the winter, but as with any vehicle, the buses still get stuck in the snow (as I found out last snow fall, had to walk 45 minutes from Lachine to Dorval).
The only thing I cannot compare to OC Transpo is the Montreal Metro System. Now some could argue I could compare the Metro to the O-Train, which is similar but quite different. The O-Train has 5 stops on one line (or did last time I took it) where as the Metro has 68 stops over 4 lines. The O-Train is above ground where the Metro is under ground. The O-Train runs on rails where the Metro runs on Tracks and rubber tires. But the base principal is the same, a multi-car train like system for the transport of people from side of the city to the other without using the streets. But even if I did compare, the Metro is still so much better, despite the fact, once again, the whole system (all 4 lines) were down again yesterday.
At 6:00 on Tuesdays I finish work, I was expecting to hop on the Metro from Atwater to Lionel-Groulx as it was quite chilly out and didn’t really wanna walk the 10 minutes down a steep hill with the wind in my face, but as I was about to leave, one of the Stage (Co-Op) Students currently placed at the Library had mentioned the metro was closed off. At this point we didn’t know if it was just the green line or not, so we were forced to take the walk to the station. Now it didn’t affect me much as I usually get off at the metro station and then switch to the bus for the last 20 minutes of highway to get home, but the student takes the train to go out of town, and with the metro out, there is no way she would make it in time.
The metro being offline caused all of the patrons to have to find alternate routes home, this caused a masive influx of passengers on regular routes. Normally when I walk from the Library to Lionel-Groulx I may pass 1 or 2 people on the way, but due to the Metro outage, there were 10 to 15 times more people on the road.
After I got home, I looked up the situation, after all anything major like this will hit the new fast. I found this article on CTV, apparently this is not the first time the Metro has system, has failed. And I hope that the system is functional on the 17 weekends I need to finish my Metro Project this summer (Details on the project can be found over at MatthewKoster.com).
Despite its quirks, I still like the STM better than OC Transpo.