Crappy airport service

[emdx]

Twice this week I had to go to the Dorval International Bécosse, and although I almost always walk to the airport from the train station (airport shuttle, shmuttle), I always leave by bus (although once, I cheated by taking a parking lot shuttle bus — one stop is about 150 meters from the train station).

And every time, I was astounded by the stellarly crappy bus service to the Bécosse.

I am not talking about the idiotic 30 minute interval, which is a given for the West-Island, but the general arrangement of the “transit experience” at the airport:

• There is no signage within the airport pointing to public transportation. An arriving passenger will probably be strong-armed into a taxi/limo. (I wonder if the information booth will inform the public on how to get downtown by bus)
  
• You cannot buy tickets anywhere in the airport (they oughta put a ticket machine in the airport lobby; now that they have them, there is no excuse) so you have to pay a cash-fare. This is fun if you’re off the plane with a wad of bills bought from an exchange counter, because exchange counters don’t give coins.
  Because of this, I have seen the driver wave-off three people when they had no change with “it’s okay, you’ll pay in the Métro” (and this includes the 211 bus driver)…
  
• The two bus stops (one for Fairview, the other for Dorval station) have been moved something like 10 feet apart, which is great when both directions show-up at the same time.
  
• The bus stops are in the middle-island on the lower “kiss-and-ride” lanes. Some genius decided to block the access to the bus stop, forcing one to walk a quarter of the length of the airport terminal more than when the barrier was not there. Thankfully, despite my oldering age, I was able to jump above the barrier (didn’t want to miss my bus)
  
• Bus stop signage is horribly deficient. Aside from a wrinkled full-size transit map (granted, this is fantastic for a mere stop who usually, if they are lucky, have to make do with a two-sided map), two bus schedules and the two bus stop, nothing tells prospective passengers how to get downtown. Someone has scribbled “Métro” on the relevant schedules and stop, but the bus always load slowly because the driver has to tell the same story 5-8 times to people who board the bus.
  

I understand that the Dorval International Bécosse was handed to a coterie of businessmen by the tories as a reward for many blowjobs received, and those kind of “people” (in my book, chamber of commerce goobers don’t qualify as people) do not understand “public service”, “public good” and “honesty”. No, their thing is “as much money in my pockets as possible, and for my little friends too”, so you cannot really expect that kind of oozing goo “people” to be pro-transit. After all, the mile-long lines of taxis waiting to pick-up fares are very good for their little friends who sell gas, tyres and fuzzy dice, and reward the airport “administrators” with paid-for lap-dances.

So we hear that eventually, the STM will run an express bus direct to the airport. Well, if they do so, they better get their act together to inform the public about transit from the airport… And you can trust the airport “authorities” to be uncooperative at best…

Pro-tip: If you just flew in, and are tired, and want a good ride downtown, take the 204 to Fairview, and get off at the Pine-Beach station, then take the underpass under the tracks and the 2-20. You’ll get in the 211 before the crowd does in Dorval. You’ll have to endure the nonsensical ride on Dawson (or is it Carson? I always mixe those two — those funny english names, they all sound the same) street and the extra trek through the gloomy sewer pipe under the 2-20, but may enjoy trying to recapture the past glory of flying 40 years ago as the bus weaves around Stuart Graham by the old wooden aircraft hangars (remember when flying was magic? People dressed well, you actually saw your plane as you walked on the tarmac before boarding it and the stewardesses were actually stewardesses).

[M.Wright]

Twice this week I had to go to the Dorval International Bécosse, and although I almost always walk to the airport from the train station (airport shuttle, shmuttle), I always leave by bus (although once, I cheated by taking a parking lot shuttle bus — one stop is about 150 meters from the train station).

*removed*

You would think since Montreal is about twice the size of Ottawa (actually almost exactly twice the size), one would think that you guys should have better service than us. Not to mention your airport is way larger which probably generates more traffic than ours does.

[emdx]

Ottawa is blessed by having a plethora of federal civil servants. This means that the local chamber of commerce types are less able to pull the shenanigans it can do in places that don't have a large proportion of a well-educated workforce that does not depends on the whims of private entreprise for survival.

So when the transit agency says "okay, let's give good service to the airport", the various parasitic lobby groups and little rackets that usually gravitate around the airport are much less able to prevent it from happenning (and wasn't the Ottawa airport never privatized, too? Because that would help a lot to have administrators that cannot be fired at a whim if the chamber of commerce head honcho gets a wet fart during a rimjob).

And there is the question of the NCC and the federal government who certainly doesn’t want it’s façade to be dependent upon the whims of a bunch of merchants and operators, so it keeps a tight grip at what happens at the airport — witness the Airport Parkway; such a waste of perfectly profitable real-estate would be utterly unthinkable in any other city; the peddlers would cry murder that you’d be able to go downtown from the airport without seeing a single storefront!!!

[emdx]

So tell us poor E-Towners,

What's it like to actually have public transit to use to get to/from your airport?

As I spend an inordinate amount of time in Ottawa for a monttealer, for the few times I had to go to YOW, I would say that it is great to have single-bus service to/from the airport.

[SMS]

But not Regina YQR as they have zero transit there either... makes YUL aka the Dorval backhouse in emdx terms look pretty damn good. And the joke about YQR, you'd think there were cabs waiting for you in line... no dice... they need to be dispatched by the woman manning (pun?) the tourist info desk!

YXE (Saskatoon)... we couldn't even use Saskatoontown Transit as our flight left too early Saturday morning... so yet another jacked up cab ride.

[Zouloukistan]

Hopefully, that bloody rail shuttle will someday be built.

[SMS]

For that matter I don't know if YYZ has signs pointing to the 192 or the 58 (or to MT), but there ought to be signs at YVR for the Canada line.

YUL has bus service 24 hrs a day.

All they need to do is reprogram the Balios/Luminator to say where the bus is going, or to pancarte it up. It doesn't matter because people ask questions anyway.

[emdx]

 

Hopefully, that bloody rail shuttle will someday be built.

Don't get your hopes too high. There is people in high places who don't want it. And besides, there is the bickering about CN/CP. The airport "authority" wants to go to Central Station while the AMT, for once, wants to do the right thing and go to Windsor Station.