It's Time for STM to Truly Commit to Fixing the 121
Hey besties!
As many of you know, I spent the week in Montreal. This is the first of two posts that explore some observations I made on my trip.
On my trip, I took the 121 Sauvé/Côte-Vertu route from de l'Acadie to Station Côte-Vertu. This trip was slow, overcrowded, and was far from an acceptable service. This blog will speak about some of the issues with the route, what STM plans to do to improve service, and why I think this plan is lacking.
Current 121 Sauvé/Côte-Vertu map, courtesy of Moovit.
The Issues
The big issue at hand, quite simply, is the route is obscenely busy. Despite headways of up to every six minutes during peaks, buses are regularly packed. This 121 is:
- The furthest north route connecting the east and west sides of Ligne Orange;
- Lined with high-density housing and important shopping destinations;
- The most frequent service west of Décarie.
On my specific trip, I noted a few things. Firstly, the headway is assuming that all buses are articulated, 60-foot vehicles. However, my trip was a 40-foot vehicle, meaning that capacity was reduced with no additional compensation. We were closely followed by another vehicle, showing that bunching is an issue. Service is also very local, with many people boarding and alighting at every stop. This, along with the fact that some stops are way too close together, keeps service moving at a crawl.
One other thing that cannot be missed is on the road itself. In the middle of the road is a large fence preventing people from jaywalking. This makes accessing bus stops difficult, meaning that the close spacing is even less functional! Below is a picture of the fence.
Ah, what a lovely pedestrian realm.
The last problem is not visible to most, but is an issue with scheduling. An eastbound trip in morning rush hour from Beaulac to St-Michel takes 55 minutes. At around 11 kilometres, this means the average speed scheduled is 12km/h. While this is not necessarily unheard of, it is unacceptably slow. Even the notorious 29 Dufferin bus in Toronto is scheduled at 15km/h, which is lower than in reality as buses take long layovers: the average speed is closer to 20km/h. A lot of the extra time is scheduled as a 'worst-case-scenario' between two stops. For example, from Meilleur to the next stop, de l'Acadie, 3 minutes are scheduled. While this may happen on some trips, it is not a given always. 3 minutes are also given between Lebeau and Jules-Poitras, with a single stop in between. This is unacceptable!
STM's Plan
In 2021 and 2022, STM plans to improve the route by adding limited BRT features on the busiest section of the route, as can be seen in the map below, for a total of 4.7 kilometres.
As can be seen, curbside bus lanes will be added in segments throughout (the blue line), with some transit priority traffic signals and lights at key intersections. The plan will speed trips up by 10 percent to 20 percent.
While I am glad that STM is making some changes to improve the route, I think this a band-aid solution to some serious issues. It doesn't provide continuity of transit priority throughout, it does not remove some excessive stops, and it doesn't see the benefit of providing service further east or west, which can reduce delays for customers in the central portion. The website states that reduced impact for vehicle traffic was prioritized, which is exactly the problem: planning for cars should always come last.
My trip had some of these features already in place: while the bus signal at Montpellier got us ahead of cars, we were still travelling slower overall, dwelling at stops for a long time.
My Plan
My plan would be a busway in the middle of the street, similar to VIVA in York Region. I think this solution is the best for a few reasons:
- Keeps stops close together, supporting very local travel patterns on this corridor (as opposed to a subway);
- Allows for other routes that share part of the corridor, such as the 171 Henri-Bourassa, 177 Thimens, and 196 Parc-Industriel-Lachine, to merge onto the busway and also be improved;
- A central busway allows for the fence to be removed, which reduces crossing distances by splitting the crossing into two stages.
VIVA Purple in York Region, which would be a good model for the 121 BRT plan to emulate.
For me, the most benefit would be seen if bus lanes ran from Cavendish in the west to Lajeunesse in the east. Sauvé narrows to a single lane east of here, so the lanes would be used for the buses to get ahead of traffic before merging. Sauvé is also a bit narrow between Meilleur and Lajeunesse, but I think that some creative solutions could be found for this stretch.
Map of my BRT proposal. The stop in orange connect to the Metro, the stops in green connect to EXO commuter rail/REM, and the blue stop connects to both.
In total, there would be 7 kilometres of BRT, 50% more than STM's plan. A total of 17 stops would exist on this stretch, at an average spacing of 412 metres. This is compared to the present 26 stops, with average spacing of 269 metres between stops. Obviously, there will be pushback towards removing stops, and the final list of stops may change based on community input. Nevertheless, the new 400-metre spacing, is far more in line with industry best practice than the status quo is. Additionally, having exits at both ends of a platform can reasonably replace two closely-placed stops.
One other option I looked at was converting the parallel EXO Mascouche line to a REM-style line. This would see stops added at Station du Collège and Montpellier (with a connection to REM). This would allow longer trips on the corridor to be moved off the bus entirely. The map below shows a rough plan, with the REM Mascouche in green, and other REM lines in black.
My last suggestion is speculatory. As I mentioned, the 121 is the last route that links both sides of Ligne Orange. If the west side of the line was extended to Bois-Franc, I would think that some ridership would move from the 121 to a service between Bois-Franc and Henri-Bourassa.
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