Tranzit

Saw that Desjardins green and white advertising wrap on 26-068, route 15 at Papineau Metro today at 13:30.

Boy, I bet you must have some real knock-out brawls with yer old man! Probably with your teachers or bosses, as well. Anyway, I have yet to see some old lady or man pick a fight with a driver over a fare dispute, technology, etc. Actually, the new technology makes their lives simpler, so they embrace it. Would they rather fumble with coins and bills, or use a Smart Card? What I do see, though, is some old person (almost always a woman) deliberately try to stand in front of the line waiting for the bus. This happens worldwide. Hmmm...must be some weird disease translated from Latin no doubt into "I deserve to get on first, since I'm special".

Yes, of course, I too have held up a just-expired transfer yet the flexible driver usually graciously allows me to board whereas others have not, so the variables are enormous. Certainly I can understand drivers looking forward to relinquishing their responsibility in checking transfers by letting the validator do the "dirty work". Yet technical issues are occuring as we speak. Indeed, today on the 69 eastbound, a lady's ticket/transfer was swallowed by the validator, and she stood by the driver for several blocks until the issue was resolved. The driver called on the radio and presumably was told to press the green and C button, yet, in the end, the lady's transfer remained in the "belly of the beast", and the driver handed her some kind of receipt and notification regarding his bus number, etc. I thought of interjecting regarding what I myself had experienced regarding the necessary buttons to press, but decided to mind my own business. Anyway, the lady and her husband seemed to take it all in stride. Nevertheless, this sort of incident can very easily turn into an ugly situation, depending, of course, on who the "victim" is, as I can see some "thug dude" loosing his cool and punching the driver, etc.

First time experience today. Was riding route 55 southbound when it pulled over to the curb just before Jarry. An STM inspector/maintenance car (or whatever it's called) is parked halfway up onto the sidewalk. The guy from the car gets on the bus, yanks the transfer machine from its bracket, and replaces it with a new one--displacing the keyboard and its bracket in the process, of course. The inspector/maintenance guy lugs out the old transfer machine, drops it into the back of his car, opens it, and plugs it into a power source for testing. From where I'm sitting I can see the huge cardboard roll and mechanism within. The bus, with its new transfer box installed, then pulls away and we continue south. Hmmm...I wonder what will become of those trusty old bus transfer boxes? "Ker-chunk"! I think that sound will be ingrained within me forever--just like the old Metro turnstile's "clunk".

It is not yet clear to me how validators will "know" which transfers will be allowable; that is, which will be considered as "allez-retour", or otherwise ineligible for one reason or another. I refer here, of course, to the new red, white, and blue combo ticket/transfers which will soon replace the original and soon-to-be-replaced arrangement. It is a stretch to assume that every such eligible and ineligible combination will be programmed into the central computer. I won't go into specifics here, as they are countless, but simply consider every instance where your transfer was denied by a driver--fairly or unfairly--and extrapolate it over to the new system. I say it's a stretch because its designer will have to have considered every single gray area--a daunting task indeed! Where one driver will currently allow you to board with the old transfer, presumably the validators will not be as flexible. I still say that all of this can easily be resolved by making the 2-hour grace-period the ONLY criteria by which one can travel--no matter the direction, whether it be "allez-retour" or from a Metro station from which a passenger has disembarked. There are too many ifs, buts, and maybes. I also say that it is not the STM's business if a passenger must travel in the opposite direction or transfer from Metro to Metro, as there may be a very good reason he or she has to do this--not to mention the fact that monthly CAM holders have never been restricted in this manner. Indeed, it has already been mentioned in this forum that other cities are more flexible when it comes to "transfer rules". I will close with the following scenario: You have only one ticket remaining on your 6-ticket card. You have a 2-hour transfer grace-period with that ticket. You board a bus with the intent of utilizing that transfer, however the validator (presumably) searches through its massive computer bank and comes up with the response that your transfer is ineligible. What happens now? Can you justifiably argue with the driver, pointing out that this is undeniably your last ticket and still within the grace period? Can the driver allow you on board under such circumstances? I'm sure we will all soon find out.

Makes you wonder why this station was ever built at its present location in the first place. I assume whoever was responsible for drafting the blueprints for the Orange Line was thinking of a source of user traffic that never came to pass in reality. Such errors have occurred in other cities, of course, where there are certain subway lines with closed ("ghost") stations and even trackage which has long since been abandoned and re-routed. I suppose we could even have some fun right here in this forum and try to predict which of our Metro stations will eventually be closed for good. It may take decades for this to happen, but I have no doubt that it will for one reason or another. Anyone care to make a prediction right now?

Your pretty much save to add any routes east of downtown.. there all filled with trash for the most part.. Now, now...even the riff ra...uh, working class have to get to their jobs cleaning toilets. Somebody's gotta do it. And anyway, I refer mostly to the ugly and decrepit buildings beside which these routes run.

Finally...Montreal's first "ghost station"! It should be weird trundling non-stop through this for the next little while. All that'll be missing will be the East German border guards!

16-004 with STM.info on 97 Mont-Royal today. 94 D'Iberville did not have extra frequency on it and this line is pure trash with obese unwashed people taking this route... definitely low class/no class area it serves, how surprising could it be! Oh, so? I'll have to add this to my "grunge route" list, which thus far includes the 18, 125, 193, and 121.

Exactly, so it would be foolish for me to waste a ticket for that purpose--particularly since we can currently only load "6 jetons" (6 tokens! ) into the OPUS card until further notice. I would only go out there today if I could load a CAM's worth, monthly amount. Until then, I will use up my remaining "jetons" sparingly. Clearly, the STM is being wisely cautious and ramping it up step by step in order to catch any potential technical issues--which I am sure are lurking right around the corner.

Hey, man, you should apply for a job at the STM as their Metropolitan Maintenance Investigator. Seriously, you'd wake up a lot of people over there. One of my pet beefs: why do they remove the outdated bus schedules from bus stops but not replace many of them with the new ones right then and there at the same time, instead of leaving the frame empty often for weeks and months? How dumb is that? Would this happen at airports or train stations? Ha!

Every station has working OPUS pass readers and new card readers... That's very thoughtful of them, except we OPUS card-holders are, as of this moment, only able to load our cards at the aforementioned east-end Green Line Metro stations where the vending machines are plugged in, which means we have to go out of our way to do so if we don't live nearby. I can only assume that STM employees have access to such vending machines in their work places. They might have considered powering up machines at termini like Angrignon, Snowdon, and Longueuil. Hello, Mr. Rotrand...do you read this forum?

That's what I thought. I do remember seeing those painted diamonds a couple of years back, but from where I was sitting I couldn't see if they'd been re-painted since last winter probably wore them off--as commonly happens. Wise-guy car drivers (and there are lots of those, right?) can then obviously claim they were unaware of the lane being only for busses and taxis--not to mention our faded crosswalks as well, where you take your life in your hands. As an aside, I love shouting at drivers who go through stop signs! Some dumb &%$#& woman almost ran me down at a shopping centre the other day, totally ignoring the stop sign, and when I yelled at her, she gives me the usual "Who, me? Hey, I'm special.", look. Wish I could have pulled her out of the car and drawn a crowd of likewise infuriated pedestrians to give her a resounding blast, and then hold her for the cops to deal with it. I would imagine a citizen's arrest would be applicable in such cases. And the city wants to allow "right on red"! Dumbest idea ever!

Why doesn't the media report this on the TV news, shaming those who perpetrate these outrages? Have Barry Wilson lambast them as well. Offer rewards for turning these cretins in--just like those morons in the hockey game riot--and when caught, publish their sorry faces in the media as well, like they do in the U.K.

I'm beginning to notice some passenger confusion and impatience when some of them either don't know how to insert their new ticket/transfer into the validator, or perhaps their tickets are misread or tapped out fare-wise, generating the expected grumbles from those who always seem to need to get somewhere "yesterday". Anyway, the new validators are popping up in more and more stations--even beyond the original east end Green line ones. Only problem is, I have yet to see a working vending machine anywhere other than in those east end stations--Joliette to H-Beaugrand. The new validators seem to be working out okay so far. For the uninitiated, there are three types of validators in use worldwide with which I am familiar, anyway: our type, which swallows the entire ticket and spits it out through a different slot; then there's the type in other cities which also gulp the ticket but spit it out from the same slot you stuck it in; and finally, there's my favourite type in which you insert your ticket in part way, and the validator verifies it and spits it out with a ding or bleep for "yay, you're valid", or "brzzap", hey, buddy, you ain't goin' no place! At least with that type, your ticket is always visible and doesn't get digested out of reach forever (Boo-hoo-hoo! Not fair!). As far as the ticket design is concerned, who wants to bet the STM will later begin offering different, more arty designs just as with the CAM cards? Quite frankly, these blue and red ones are kinda boring, but they're probably just being trialed for the initial start-up period.

Rode route 175 from end to end today for the first time (on a Classic), starting at 15:00 from the Bois de Liesse Park (very nice, peaceful place) and arriving du College Metro at 15:35. The bus filled up with passengers as we went along through this mostly industrial park route. Made good speed with just the usual trailer-truck traffic until we reached that stinking Cote de Liesse from Dalton Road where the usual eastbound bumper-to-bumper mess began. Arrgh! This must be the worst street in town to work if you need to get in and out in a hurry. Forget it! Hasn't changed in 50 effin years, either! If only they'd connect that blasted Cavendish Blvd.! What a huge difference it would make! Those #$%@&* politicians! Didn't they make the Cote de Liesse inside lane a diamond lane exclusively for busses a few years back? I swear they did. Maybe the paint wore off! At any rate, we finally turned off onto Authier away from that nonsense and on to the Metro. Wheee! The only incident was a near miss when some stupid driver of a Canada Post truck nearly backed right into us from a driveway onto St . François. The lady bus driver gave him a long horn blast!

The troubled Ridgewood line off Côte-des-Neiges Road will be improved and the service schedule for the #11 line that runs across the mountain will be extended until the park closes at midnight. This is one and the same route. Not sure what they plan to do here, unless they're referring to the width of the road or the pavement. Ridgewood must be one of the very last holdouts when it comes to running bus routes to dead-end streets. I've already suggested in this forum that they extend route 11 to the Cote des Neiges Metro to accumulate more passengers and make it more convenient for them--including tourists, of course--to access the mountain, not only from the existing Mont Royal Metro in the east, but also from the CDN Metro in the west. By the way, regarding route 53, it takes approximately 5 minutes to run from the Henri Bourassa Metro to Chabanel-- hardly a significant trek. Once they get more busses on the road, hopefully they'll eliminate that tiny route and re-instate route 55 all the way to Henri-Bourassa Metro, and, with some foresight run it south right to the Old Port where it would be very beneficial. By the way, I don't make these suggestions for selfish reasons, since I seldom use these routes myself. They simply seem the obvious thing to do for those who want improved service. As for bicycles on the front of busses, I've already said they should only do this on specific, awkward-to-reach locations such as across bridges and through tunnels, but with the exception of route 169 over the JC Bridge, this doesn't come under the jurisdiction of the STM anyway. Regarding the aforementioned meeting, considering that they apparently didn't allow everyone to voice their opinions, one wonders how seriously they want input. I think Rotrand has made his mind up for the most part anyway.

Haha! Somebody at Yahoo switched the pic from what looked like a French Eurostar high-speed train to an old steam loco. Too bad. I sure would have liked to board that Eurostar from Montreal to Toronto--a 30-minute ride, no doubt! We should live so long to see that, eh?

Saw it again today at 16:03 heading east on the Metropolitain near Papineau. I presume this New Look will be up for grabs by restoration-minded fan groups should it become available at some future point?

this means that you probably listen to Neil Diamond... Not my taste, actually! Not that I dislike the guy or anything. As a matter of fact, I just got off listening to John Fogerty, The Plimsouls, and Jan Hammer...but that would only scratch the surface of what I enjoy. Anyway...we have indeed gotten off topic.

What's with the Neil Diamond ad? Does he or his record label now "sponsor" the CPTDB? Do I assume that any member can post his or her favourite star, company, institution, or whatever? If so, how about worthwhile causes such as the SPCA, Red Cross, Sun Youth, etc.

How about making students hand over all their writing utensils before boarding busses? This may seem impossible, but anyone who complains or refuses should be noted down and considered as suspects. Schools could also offer rewards to those who anonymously report violators. An "info-crime"-type service. Strange that there aren't students carrying hidden cameras. Further to this, glass cutters should only be sold to those in the glass industry, for which written proof must first be obtained. Nobody else needs a glass cutter! This would cut down considerably on abuse. Same with paint spray-cans. Certainly there are ways around such restrictions, but it would make it that much more difficult. More importantly, why aren't there "social responsibilty" classes given in school, reinforcing a sense of respect for property. Turn on the guilt factor.

At 15:42 today I saw that white New Look with the "graffiti" on its side going westbound on Henri Bourassa passing in front of the Metro station. Couldn't catch the number. I assume it must be that "Rego-bus" or whatever it's called: the same one I've seen parked on the Legendre garage property, which I presume is where it is serviced. I know nothing about this bus, and seeing as many of you are New Look enthusiasts, what's the lowdown on it?

Ha! They should not have been surprised if it was the cops. What idiot blasts music at such an early hour and doesn't expect to be bothering neighbours with the potential complaints to the cops to investigate the disturbing of the peace. Fools like that deserve to be busted, or, at the very least, evicted. They either have a death wish, or their hearing has been so damaged that what is truly loud to the majority of us is, to them, a "reasonable" volume. A quick check to their ear doctor would doubtless reveal a serious deficiency. Amazingly, there is always that segment of a concert audience which insists on standing right up against the PA speakers. You would have to be crazy to do that and not expect problems later.

This topic has, of course, been discussed before in this forum and elsewhere. I seem to remember laws and even signs on our busses informing passengers not to play loud music, nor to eat and drink, nor to spit on the floor, nor to talk to the driver, etc. Depending upon what city you are in, I rarely see such signs anymore. Why is this? I do remember some idiot recently on route 58 blasting a boom box which was attached to his belt. The jerk sits in the back and couldn't care less about the passengers around him, made worse with the foul garbage, rap lyrics. Drivers should be authorized to tell these fools to turn it down or get off. Imagine living in a building where such people live: sitting on their balconies blasting away! Would you like to be forced to hear that crap all day?