No, Montreal does not have Better Transit than Toronto

 One thing I always hear from Torontonians who visit Montreal is how much better transit is there. While not discrediting their beliefs, this is a bit of a biased view. In this (somewhat long) piece, I will explain why comparing cities as a tourist is a problem, as well as where Montreal's public transit networks come up lacking in comparison to Toronto. Solutions for Montreal can be extrapolated from this piece.

This will focus mostly as a TTC vs. STM comparison, but some other networks will be brought up. 

Why Comparing Cities as a Tourist is Biased

Pitting cities against each other in a friendly competition seems like second nature. However, there are a number of critical factors to account for when comparing cities.

The first factor is that present situations are a direct consequence of historic conditions and decisions. This is why advocating for 'copy-paste' solutions originating in Europe or Asia will be unsuccessful if applied as-is in North America. Ignoring colonialism and race in places when making planning decisions is what has given us our current issues! Montreal has historically followed more European-centric planning practices, and so the city today is quite different than even the oldest parts of Toronto. This is why I maintain Chicago is the only fair comparison for Toronto.

The other major factor at hand is where tourists in the city go, as opposed to where they would if they lived there. Torontonians likely travel across the city, to Scarborough, Etobicoke, and even further beyond. However, when they visit Montreal, they don't really venture that far from downtown. What tourist is regularly visiting Mascouche, Beaconsfield, or St-Jean? Probably very few. Because of this, their view of Montreal and its transit is very limited in comparison to what would be experienced in Toronto. 

Also, you're going to a city because you like it... chances are you'll pick out the positives.

This comparison piece takes into account different needs. While it may compare Toronto and Montreal one-to-one, it doesn't have the goal of making Toronto or Montreal sound better, it identifies best practices that either city could look at and adopt.

Part 1: Metro/Subway

I will first start off by saying that I think the Montreal Metro is better than the TTC Subway, if only marginally. It's more reliable for sure, and feels a it more complete, especially since the extensions to Laval and Longueuil are more established than the TTC's to Vaughan, and the Blue Line links both halves of the Orange Line. That said, the Metro still has many missing gaps, notably pushing the Orange Line past Côte-Vertu, and bringing the Blue Line to Galeries d'Anjou (supposedly coming by 2030?).

Part 2: Frequent Buses

I think that Toronto's frequent bus network is significantly better than that of Montreal's.

TTC's frequent bus (and streetcar) network is named the '10-Minute Network'. Vehicles on this network operate every 10 minutes or better, every day, whenever the subway is open (approximately 1am). Although some routes have fallen out of the network by a minute or two of frequency during evenings, the list of routes is quite extensive.

STM's network is called '10 Minutes Max.' It has similar goals to TTC's but is cut back 9pm only. There is also one large caveat: some routes operate at this max headway in the peak direction, inbound in the morning and outbound in the afternoon. If you are travelling opposite the peak direction, you are likely to have a 20-minute wait on a 10 Minute Max route.

So, when comparing truly frequent networks Toronto simply has far more routes than TTC does, as shown below.

Frequent TTC Routes

7, 22, 24, 25, 29, 32, 34, 35, 36, 39, 43, 44, 45, 47, 52, 53, 54, 60, 63, 72, 76, 84, 85, 86, 87, 89, 90, 94, 95, 96, 100, 102, 116, 129, 165, 501, 504, 505, 506, 509, 510, 511, 512, 900, 927

Frequent STM Routes

18, 24, 48, 49, 51, 67, 69, 80, 105, 121, 139, 141, 165

It is much easier to get somewhere in Toronto without a schedule than it is in Montreal.

Part 3: Local Buses

For the purposes of this piece, 'local buses' are basically any route that serves all stops that isn't frequent. Generally speaking, both systems have extensive networks. Toronto's network follows the grid mostly, and tends to be more frequent, whereas Montreal's routes are a bit circuitous, with the benefit of shorter walks to bus stops. 

TTC has a standard of operating buses every 30 minutes or better, whenever the subway is open. This is kept pretty much across the board: there are only five examples where this is broken across the entire city.

STM is a different story: a bunch of local routes regularly exceed thirty minute headways. The 183 Gouin-Est operates every 69 minutes throughout the day, and many routes settle for 32-40 minute frequencies. One thing I've found is that outside of the frequent routes, very few operate more frequent than every 30 minutes. In Toronto, there are some non-frequent routes, like the 81 Thorncliffe Park, which is regularly every 10, 12 or 18 minutes. Few TTC routes are always every half an hour, whereas this is commonplace on STM. The 187 René-Levesque is always every 30-minutes, no better.

Routings of local routes in Montreal are also a bit... wonky. This is an extreme example, but the 128 Ville-St-Laurent looks like this:

Who on earth is using this route for more than a few stops without transferring? If someone got on at Stinson Garage, and got off at Montpellier, they would spend 78 minutes on the bus, versus a walk of... 7 minutes. So while people on this route have a short walk, sure, is it really helpful to spend such a long time going such a short distance?

TTC also has more routes that operate at all hours. Many STM routes are cut back on weekend, or in the evenings. The industrial area on and adjacent to Côte-Vertu west of Beaulac has no service at all on weekends. The Walmart at Bégin has no direct transit service during these times. 

Part 4: Express Routes

The first point I have to bring up here is that 'express' is often misused. Express tends to mean a route where all stops are skipped, then local service picks up, like the 986 Scarborough Express. Most of TTC's express routes are limited stops, where they serve, as the name suggests, a limited number of stops. Some combine the above two. 

Toronto's 'Express Network,' including all routes numbered in the 900-series, has been improved upon in 2016, 2018, and 2021. In each of these waves, new services were added. The Express Network focusses on the more suburban areas of the city, where wide roads allow for faster buses to bypass local vehicles.

While there are some issues with express routes, of course, they tend to work well in Toronto. Aside the 913 Progress Express and 938 Highland Creek Express (which are specialized services to post-secondary institutions), all routes operate both directions during peaks, and many outside of peaks. What this means is that the routes have good ridership in both directions. On the 924 Victoria Park Express, people who live on Victoria Park travel south to the subway, whereas many travel the other direction to get to school, or industrial areas closer to Steeles.

This is not the case in Montreal. While Montreal does have some limited stop services, like the 439 Express Pie-IX, and some point-to-point routes, like the 444 Express Cégep Marie-Victorin, the vast majority are... barely express. 

The most egregious example is the 106 Newman. This route operates between Station Angrignon and Terminus Lafleur via 90e. During peaks, the 406 Express Newman operates the exact same route, taking advantage of peak-only HOV lanes on Newman... but skips a single stop westbound. That's it. While the HOV lanes may make service faster, it's marginal at best. On a route as busy as the 106, it keeps trips slow, especially considering this is the most direct route from Angrignon to Lafleur, and most customers get off at a select handful of stops anyways.

The 406 Not-So-Express Newman

Another example is the 465 Express Côte-des-Neiges. The local 165 Côte-des-Neiges operates from Station Guy-Concordia to Laird. The 465 is extended in the south, from Guy-Concordia, through the CBD to Station St-Laurent via Réné-Levesque. It serves the exact same stops north of Guy-Concordia, and for the bulk of passengers on CdN, the trips are painfully slow. It is only express in that it has one less transfer from those downtown, otherwise, no change. I guess they hope it will relieve the Green and Orange lines, but even if the bus was full, that's a fraction of a single metro train. I would add, in my experience, everyone gets on at Guy-Concordia anyways.

My complain with STM's express network is they haven't really broken the downtown-centric commuter pattern. In the case of the 465, unless you work in the eastern part of the core, you really don't have any benefit of waiting for the 465. Especially post-pandemic, with less people in the office, is there really much purpose to even having the 465, frankly. A limited-stop service along CdN would at benefit more people than the current arrangement does. 

Part 5: Regional Services

For this section, I will start with Montreal. Montreal's regional services are operated by 'exo'. This includes five rail services, all of which are peak-only, aside the St-Jerôme line and one midday trip on the St-Hilaire line. These lines do not have bus replacements when they are not operating. exo also runs local services within suburbs, but for the sake of this piece, I will not deal with these.

About a third of the bus services operate out of Terminus Mansfield, below Bonaventure. A quick look on Google shows a wide array of termini: Chambly, La Prairie, St-Jean-sure-Richelieu, Delson. The other two-thirds run from either Terminus Angrignon or Terminus Montmorency. The key takeaway from this is that all services are Montreal-bound. 

Toronto's answer to exo is GO Transit. The GO Train lines are mostly peak-only, but they have off-peak replacement buses (for the most part). The caveat here is that these bustitutions do not stop at GO stations in Toronto, but this is a piece for another time. While some GO buses operate downtown, they provide an alternative service of either connecting more distant communities to the rail lines, like Beaverton or Innisfil, or, and more importantly, connecting suburban destinations together. While it may take a while, a trip from Hamilton to Pickering can be done on a single bus, avoiding downtown Toronto entirely. The GO bus has high ridership from students, as numerous campuses are serviced directly or nearby. GO knows this: the new 18K to Brock University is the latest addition of campuses added onto the GO network.

Toronto has better regional services in two ways. One, even if with buses, the rail lines have service at all hours. Absolutely, there are issues with the buses, but it provides a basic service. Secondly, trips in Toronto are not attached to the downtown core. One never has to follow a spoke into a hub, then back out again. This makes regional trips easier and more convenient. Doing these trips in Montreal is hard without visiting two of the three termini, and/or using the metro. 

Next Steps for Montreal

I know this article made it seem like I was hating on STM and exo. While I am a hater in general, I am not here. STM and exo do a lot of things right, and new projects like REM or SRB Pie-IX are great for the region.

STM has long been working on a plan to rework the bus network. While this is great and much needed, it seems that no routes will altered until then, no matter how needed. The only routing change in the past year and a bit was the cancellation of the very-limited 76 McArthur. New subdivisions have sprung up, like at Bois-Franc, and they remain unserved. Obviously, making big changes in one fell swoop lets old patterns be lost, but I would have hoped that STM make minor changes step-by-step in the leadup but alas. Details of the reorganization are minimal right now, but one would hope they would adapt at least a bit of Toronto's best practices, with proper express routes, mandating a 30-minute maximum headway, and making all frequent routes bidirectional at all hours (instead of just 9pm). 

In the mean time, one can imagine changes. I wanted to share my map of the 106 Newman (in blue, unchanged from now) and the new-and-improved 406 Express Newman (in purple, with stops marked), which would both operate during the daytime. This would speed up trips end-to-end, and would provide faster services for the busiest stops: Lapierre, Shevchenko, and most importantly, Dollard. I made this in about ten minutes, it really should not take decades to make improvements. 

Literally just after making this map, I found a map produced by someone named J.J. Rodriguez, who had a similar idea, but extends the 406 to Terminus Dorval via Victoria, seen below in green. He actually submitted it to STM! I think it's a great idea (and I prefer it to mine). Someone else had similar thoughts on the same forum. Results were supposed to be posted in November 2021, yet nothing has been yet. Sigh.

Oh, what could be...

If you've made it this far, thanks for reading! This piece took me a while to write but I think I got to the point of what I wished to argue.