For Montrealers, waiting for a city bus these days can be a painfully long experience, with heavy traffic and endless construction leading to numerous delays.
Getting around the island of Montreal for STM bus drivers is also no easy task. They cover more than 500 square kilometers of road.
READ MORE: City councillors call on STM to offer compensation for poor service
With plans to add 300 more buses to the network within two years, the point man in charge wants the vehicles positioned in strategic areas to help bus drivers avoid congestion on busy routes.
“It’s a new strategy,” Luc Tremblay, the STM’s director general, told Global News.
“We never did that and it’s going to be a good answer to all the problems.”
In Montreal, there are 221 bus lines on the network and 9,000 stops to make. If that’s not enough, drivers also have to navigate through 2,000 construction zones on the island forcing them through a labyrinth of detours.
READ MORE: Transports Québec announces summer construction
Tremblay says he will work with the city officials to try and come up with immediate solutions for this summer — but no answers are in the offering.
“Our buses don’t fly so we need to have a strategy,” he said.
Quebec’s transport minister also promises to listen to the concerns of passengers and city officials. But for now — that’s it.
“If they have additional needs from the government as the mayor has had over the past months, she is certainly free to address those concerns to us and share her ideas on how to improve the service,” André Fortin said.
Thousands of complaints were registered with STM last year. The number of rides on buses also dropped as many passengers opted to take the congestion-free Metro instead.
READ MORE: STM admits to having a hard time keeping buses on schedule
Comments