Perhaps it's just the rage talking, but when did the Montreal public transportation system go sour? Did it coincide with construction season, i.e. Summer? In any case, my disappointment is becoming more and more of a burden for me. It's not really something I would imagine to be a source of stress.I take public transportation every day. I live in Laval, which is a ways away from downtown to begin with. First, I walk about 7 minutes to my bus stop. Next, I wait for it to arrive (which is usually longer than I should). Next is the bus ride to Cote-Vertu metro. It takes about 30 minutes on a good day to get there in the first place. I'll also note that's it's faster getting downtown going from Laval to the city of Saint-Laurent, than to Montmorency metro because the bus comes more often in that direction. Laval buses come maybe twice an hour, maximum. So my options are already severely constrained.
Then when I get to Cote-Vertu, I go on a twenty-minute ride to Lionel-Groulx, followed by a
ten-minute ride to Peel, where I then walk 5 minutes to Bronfman. There goes at least an hour and 20 minutes including waiting in my day, in one go. I spend almost three hours a day on public transportation! Doesn't this seem a bit much?And today, what a disaster. The orange line went down right when I got to Lionel-Groulx to go to Cote-Vertu. It was right after my OP exam and I couldn't wait to go home. But because of an "incident" on the orange line, I was stranded there for half an hour. I can get to Cote-Vertu in 30 minutes! I missed my bus!!!
Finally, I decided to take the green line back to Guy-Concordia. I took a bus to TMR, near where my boyfriend lives. From that terminus, I took another bus to Cegep Saint-Laurent, which was near Cote-Vertu metro. I walked 10 minutes to the metro and finally got to my bus stop towards Laval. The bus was only going to come in 15 minutes. I was going to strangle something.
SO. One metro ride, three different buses, and three goddamn hours later, I finally got home. I was fuming. I sat down on a couch and just stayed there for a while. At almost 3 o'clock in the afternoon, I was starving, so I ate a late lunch. Nothing was able to make the disappointment go away though.
Even talking about it now gets me so mad. Lately I haven't been able to rely on public transportation. Just yesterday, I had to go into school to get a book, and I waited for my bus for 20 minutes. It never came at the time advertised. The bus across the street, which went to Montmorency, never came either. TWO buses did not come at their advertised times. In addition to this mess, the times posted online do not coincide with those posted on the plaques at the bus stops. How do they figure people can get their buses on time? How many people have been late for work or school or whatever in the last little while? Why can't they respect their clients?
There should be some kind of guarantee, like if the bus is more than 10 minutes late, clients get a ride for free. I don't pay $89 a month to get access to Laval and Montreal public transit to be left with no way to get around. I really think this would get bus drivers and the companies to better respect the times...people need to get places, and it's bad enough the time to get to these places is amplified through transit in the first place.
Let's look at the advantages of public transit though. According to the Montreal Transit Society, taking the metro cuts polluting agents by half. The Montreal metro is 100% electric, and there is technically no traffic. Taking the bus is like carpooling; the gas is seperated among some 30 people when the bus is packed; carbon footprints thus are reduced.
But then my time spent in buses or metros is ridiculous, isn't it? I pay $90 a month for my pass. Let's say, $90/ 4 weeks = approximately $24 a week. You fill up a car what, once every week and a half? Let's say, $40 every fill-up. That's $40 twice (making up 3 weeks in the month), then let's say half a tank to finish a month, so about $110. It would cost $20 more to get from point A to point B in probably half the time. It's a far more attractive option, is it not? It doesn't offer the same benefits as public transit does. For example, I like taking the bus and metro sometimes because I'm doing something good for the environment, I feel like a city girl, etc. But if I drove to school every day (if I had a car, which is also a problem), I could sleep in! I wouldn't have to budget 2 hours to get somewhere...I wouldn't be dependent on lazy bus companies. I wouldn't have to sit next to the drunk dude on the metro at 4 pm. I think it's something to mull over, because I really am getting sick of the back and forth. It's stressing me out because I never know if sometihng will be on time or not. I really hope this trend mulls over soon...
Want to know more?
http://www.wisebread.com/7-reasons-to-take-the-bus
http://www.metrodemontreal.com/faq/index.html
http://www.stm.info/english/info/a-offensiveverte.htm
All images are from Google.
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