STM to end No. 15 bus line as it revamps its network in southwest Montreal

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The city’s first horse-drawn trams appeared on Ste-Catherine St. in the 1860s.

Those morphed into electric streetcars, and later buses through the 20th century.

On Tuesday, the city’s transit agency announced it will end bus service on the downtown core’s main artery — the first time since the introduction of mass transit in Montreal.

Studies have shown street construction and pedestrianization of the street has reduced ridership to just a few hundred between Atwater and Papineau Aves. At midday, just two people boarded the bus across from the Montreal Forum.

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The bus was detoured at Guy St., as the street was closed to all but pedestrians. Ste-Catherine is also closed around McGill College, at the Quartier des Spectacles and in the Village.

As she boarded near Cabot Square, one woman, who didn’t give her name, said she was dismayed to hear the bus service would be discontinued.

“I like this bus,” she said. “I take it all the time to get around.”

Another woman, who lives downtown, was more practical, saying that if the STM determined the bus line was not worth the investment, maybe Montrealers shouldn’t keep it running.

“Symbolic or not, it costs money,” said the woman named Elizabeth, who didn’t give her last name. “Who should pay for that?”

Speaking to The Gazette, STM planning consultant Charles Dubé said that for years the No. 15 bus has been plagued with numerous detours. More service will be added to the No. 150 line along René-Lévesque Blvd. to compensate.

“There is a lot of work planned for the street for almost a decade,” Dubé said. “It’s now diverted to René-Lévesque in one direction and Ontario St. in the other, so that’s not necessarily coherent. We wanted to offer a service that was more stable and predictable.”

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The death of Line 15 was one of several changes unveiled by the STM’s top brass on Tuesday morning as part of the redesign of its bus network for the southwestern part of the city. There will be several changes to the bus network in Lachine, LaSalle, Verdun, the Sud-Ouest borough and southern Ville-Marie. It’s the first time the STM has remade the bus network for this area in 30 years, and part of a broader redesign of the bus network that began in Nuns’ Island last year, and will continue next year in the West Island with the arrival of the REM light-rail service.

Among the other changes:

• New bus lines 38 De l’Église, 114 Angrignon and 190 Norman will be added;
• Lines 37, 57, 71, 101, 107, 110, 112, 123, 195, 491, and 496 will have modified routes;
• Lines 58, 75, 78, 109, 116, 191, 406 and 491 will be retired and their service picked up by other lines;
• Lines 106, 107, 112 and 496 will become high-frequency lines.

Speaking to reporters at the announcement, STM chairperson Éric Alan Caldwell said the bus network revamp will result in more service, without any increased cost. There will be some costs associated with the change, as some bus shelters will have to be relocated or taken away. However, there isn’t expected to be any increased cost in the bus service’s annual operations.

“We’re making the network more attractive, and we’re sure that will result in more people taking the bus,” Caldwell said, adding that new patterns since the pandemic have been taken into consideration in the bus design remake.

The remake of the network will give 220,000 people access to a high-frequency bus service within 500 metres of their home, up from the current 80,000.

“This should really incite people to make the choice to use public transit,” said STM CEO Marie-Claude Léonard.

The new lines begin operation on Aug. 26. More detailed information is located at STM.info. Two public information sessions are scheduled for June 11 at CÉGEP André-Laurendeau from 5 to 8 p.m. and on June 20 at CÉDA (Comité d’éducation aux adultes de la Petite-Bourgogne et de Saint-Henri) from 6 to 9 p.m.

jmagder@postmedia.com

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