PIERREFONDS – Basel Wehpa waited nervously in his mother’s car of news of the Deux-Montagnes train heading into Montreal.
He was depending on an AMT train to get him to Concordia University, where he is an engineering student.
And that train was already running late.
“I have a final exam at Concordia,” he said. “If I miss this one I’ll be late on my exam.”
Ridership of the Montreal area’s suburban train network, the AMT, is down by almost 200,000 riders over the past year, according to numbers recently released by the agency.
READ MORE: AMT train ridership at its lowest since 2009
The reasons why aren’t clear, but complaints from riders centre on two problems: unreliability and lack of parking at the system’s stations.
“Maybe people are fed up of having unreliable service and they’re choosing to drive in,” said Jennifer Conn, a Dorval commuter who uses the Vaudreuil-Hudson line to get to her job downtown.
“People have important deadlines they need to adhere to.”
The AMT isn’t commenting on why ridership has declined. These complaints are also occurring at a time when fees are going up.
“Recently it’s been very unreliable. It comes sometimes, it doesn’t come sometimes,” said Kim Singerman, who was waiting for her sister at Pierrefonds.
“I know my sister waited three hours for the train a few weeks ago.”
At the Pierrefonds station, users like Eric Fineberg say that if a rider doesn’t get to the parking lot by 7:30 a.m., the lot will already be full.
“I used to park in Roxboro,” he said, “to take the 9:12 train.”
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