Comments on: A Map for MontrÃ©al’s frequent service

By: Zoomable Team

Zoomable Team — Sat, 11 Aug 2018 20:31:27 +0000

Impressive! Here’s the link to the zoomable version if you are interested: https://srv2.zoomable.ca/viewer.php?i=img2edc9b55c10fed3f_MontrealFrequentService600

By: Norman Bates

Norman Bates — Fri, 04 May 2018 14:39:19 +0000

Somewhat similar to your “fantasy map”, how conveniently forgotten is the once-proposed Metro map of 1976 (and later in 1978) as outlined in the official publication “The Montreal Metro” published by the Communaute Urbain de Montreal and registered in the Montreal Library as Catalogue No. 388.42 C734meL.

Subsequent editions of “The Montreal Metro” omit the aforementioned plan.

Notice that this map (see attachment), among others, includes a western extension of the Blue Line from Snowdon to additional proposed Metro stations named Cote St. Luc, Cavendish, Montreal West, and Lafleur.

Utilizing a magnifying glass, a rudimentary analysis of this extension seems to indicate that the Cote St. Luc Metro would have been located approximately near the corner of Cote St. Luc Road and Girouard, the Cavendish Metro at the northwest corner of Monkland Avenue and Cavendish Boulevard (Benny Park), the Montreal West Metro on the ideal empty lot (a property presumably owned by the City of Montreal) just to the east of the Elmhurst bus depot and conveniently adjacent to the Montreal West AMT railway station, and finally the Lafleur Metro which appears to be located near the corner of St. Jacques and Richmond where the Lafleur fast food restaurant exists (was that someone’s idea of an inside joke?).

Other ideas would presumably have extended the Blue Line even further west into Lachine at LaSalle Park at the corner of Victoria and 10th Avenue thereby serving another large and growing residential population.

I suspect that all of above would likely have been some bureaucrat’s or politician’s election issue teaser which was doomed from the beginning anyway to come to naught. Needless to say, subsequent provincial PQ separatist governments put an end to such “foolish speculation”; their funding of which would clearly have benefitted the large Anglo population in that sector of the island–never mind that Francophones live there as well.

Incomprehensibly, City Counsellor Marvin Rotrand–himself a long-time resident of N.D.G. no less–has consistently been opposed to any western extension of the Blue Line which would serve “his” district and beyond: a line which has steadily become more vital with the increasingly high bus passenger volumes on route 51 to and from the Snowdon Metro station and along the 105 bus route to and from the Vendome Metro station.

It is all very well that an eastern extension of the Blue Line to Anjou is long-overdue and necessary and now evidently imminent (as officially announced in April 2018), but a western extension is definitely needed. How much longer will it take? Another 20 years or more?

To add the the “humour” of all of this, the very same 1976-78 map was published in living colour on page 129 of the “Encyclopedia of North American Railroads” Bison Books, 1985 edition–ISBN 0 86124 207 6

Google Image Search link below:

https://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1600&bih=769&ei=2mzsWqnPDKy3ggfgiKDACA&q=montreal+metro+blue+line+extension&oq=montreal+metro+blue+line+&gs_l=img.1.0.0l3j0i24k1l2.1036.6983.0.8938.29.15.2.12.13.0.115.1051.11j4.15.0….0…1ac.1.64.img..0.28.1350…0i8i30k1j0i10i24k1.0.mRN_JSOjwd4#imgrc=oKzuVBP1ax43EM:

By: WhiteFeather

WhiteFeather — Mon, 11 Nov 2013 05:54:12 +0000

Fantastic map! Just one thing: Montmorency is spelled wrong. 😉

By: ant6n

ant6n — Sun, 22 May 2011 17:02:31 +0000

Thanks for all the feedback!

It’s actually pretty difficult to make a map with lines all along a 0,30,60,90 degree grid, while showing all the features and keeping relative locations – on a single sheet of paper, and without having lines cross across labels.

The West Island got completely crushed in the process. The reason the 470 looks funky is because it runs on St Jean, which is also where the Cedar Park commuter rail is. I am thinking about crushing the East a bit more to make the West more ‘accurate’.

One could include buses from other areas – but I could only really think of the Southshore 45 that actually runs frequent all day. With only one extra line, which also has a different fare, this might be a bit messy. At least now everything is STM fare, except the 745, for which the fare is labelled (which takes a lot of space…)

I’m looking into the 171 issue as you mentioned.

By: Cody Griffin

Cody Griffin — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 19:29:34 +0000

Thank you! This map is both beautiful and stunningly simple. I do have some food for thought though: some routes run VERY frequently during rush hours in certain directions (infamous example being the 460, which can run as often as every 2 or 3 minutes in one direction, and every half hour in the other), but while incorporating that would technically show more service, it might clutter up the map too much; so I suggest to keep it in mind, but take it with a grain of salt.

Now that that’s out of the way, I have some suggestions: one feature that would make this even better is if there were another map similar in nature, but naming the bus stops that, although do not transfer to a train or a metro, are very important for the bus route. (e.g., CÃ´te-Vertu/Sainte-Croix for the 121 and 171, Loyola Campus along Sherbrooke West for the 105, CÃ´te-des-Neiges/Van Horne for the 161 and 165, etc.)

Another feature might be to further highlight routes that also run every 10 minutes on weekends between 9am and 5pm (or maybe a more appropriate time frame for Sunday, but with the same concept in mind).

And for those that live and work off-island, to add in bus routes that would theoretically be a part of the 10-minute network but aren’t a part of the STM would be a big bonus, because it would give a more comprehensive network for the entire Greater Montreal Area and add even more legitimacy to your map than there already is. An example could be the RTL’s 45 Express Panamaâ€”Centre-Ville, which runs at least every 10 minutes on weekdays in both directions (except from Terminus Panama to downtown between 6:00-6:30am, where it has two buses instead of three, from downtown to Panama between 6:07-6:52am which has four buses instead of five or six, and a 12-minute gap from Panama at 7:00pm; but those are the only discrepancies I noticed, so it might slide, as do some of the STM’s routes that have small gaps here and there as well).

Now for a little thing that irks me: the schema that’s given to the 470 is quite deceiving. While, yes, it saves space, it gives the impression that it runs towards the southern shore of the West Island when it actually runs along the northern shore; it often gets confusing trying to use it as a guide, and it can get pretty annoying to make sense of it, speaking both as an amateur urban planner and as an off-island commuter that often drives to Fairview to get to where I need to go by bus. All I suggest is to make some more space between the 470 and the 211 so that it seems that the 470 is actually going west of the Deux-Montagnes train line along Pierrefonds instead of through some strange, inexistent road; a suggestion might be to put the legend between this gap so that you can save space on the bottom of the map, just in case there are other routes from other transit corporations (such as the RTL’s 45 if the “good-enough clause” is enacted).

And an actual error now: the 171 runs frequently in the direction opposite of what you have labeled. In the morning, it runs at least every 10 minutes FROM Henri-Bourassa towards CÃ´te-Vertu; and in the afternoon, it runs frequently TOWARDS Henri-Bourassa.

If this message seems long-winded, it’s only because I have confidence in your abilities and your map, and I wish to help improve it so that it could potentially even be used as a visual indicator for different organizations to improve their services. I love the map: keep it up, you’ve made something great 😀

By: Paul Evans

Paul Evans — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 05:42:04 +0000

Thank you!
My search was for an svg tube map for a beginning point to use in inkscape. I want to make a map of x-country ski trails for our local club. Merci!

By: Susie

Susie — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 16:54:54 +0000

Thank you, this is a beautiful and useful map!

By: Eugene Wong

Eugene Wong — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 15:25:51 +0000

Excellent. Thank you.

I see a bright future for public transit, now that there are open standards, and things like Creative Commons.

By: ant6n

ant6n — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 16:15:34 +0000

I used Inkscape. The svg can be loaded with it.

Good luck.

By: Eugene Wong

Eugene Wong — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 07:40:11 +0000

Hi.

Good job.

I’d like to make a map, as well, for transit users in Metro Vancouver. Which software did you use?

—
Eugene