Hopping the metro meets parkour

Jesara wrote the other day about how to hop the metro. This post received some attention from Steve Faguy. But this video is about something above and beyond what Jesara suggested.

This is a video of a unique blend of parkour and metro hopping. The transitive does not recommend that you try this on your own…but it is pretty neat to watch.

 

Have a say about your transit system!

photo by support the princess royal hospital

The STM is a public company. As such they are answerable to you. Here’s your chance to tell them exactly what you think of their system. The STM Board of Directors meets once a month for a public meeting. They are, in fact, meeting on April 9th. So, if you’d like to ask them why exactly a bus caught fire or what they’re doing to maintain our public transit, then head on down and be heard.

 

The rules of transit

Photo by strph
When I was in high school chemistry the rules of electron placement on a valence shell was explained to me in terms of finding a place to sit on the bus. The rules of where to sit on the bus had never been explained to any of us, but instinctively heads in the classroom began to nod.

You know how it works. You know the score. Bus rules closely resemble those of urinals. But just in case you’re forgotten, here are the top three quick and easy.

1. Never sit next to someone when there is an empty two seat available.
2. Sit next to someone rather than facing them. You save yourself some awkward staring.
3. In a bank of seats, try to leave one seat between you and someone else.

These rules are subject to exceptions.

 

busking without a permit

Video by dicamils.

Unlike other parts of the city, busking in the metro doesn’t require a permit. In the designated areas, performers arrive in the morning to sign up for the spot.

I think that’s great – it gives everyone equal opportunity – regardless of financial ability, experience and training – to busk in quite frequented spots.

Through time I’ve taken public transit in Montreal, there have been a few musicians I’ve noticed again and again, some in different spots each time and some in the same. Many are quite skilled and many have their own CDs.

As I’ve mentioned before, I love buskers in the metro. It’s nice to listen to music in a public space that’s not coming out of my (or someone else’s) headphones, and Montreal often has a talented assortment of public performers.

 

More than one person loves the metro

 photo by aaaminicabs’

I was playing around on Google the other day when lo, and behold, I found a friend! It would seem that we’re not the only transit appreciators in Montreal.

Montreal by Metro focuses on the joys of our underground trains. It even has a easy to follow guide to all of the different art that can be found in the metro. So go on by and learn about all of the artist who have worked to make our metros #8.

 

We’re #8

Photo by temp13rec.
Montreal was voted eighth best underground transit system from a total of 11 by Virgin vacations. We edged out such cities as Beijing, Hong Kong and San Paolo.
This seems like a pretty nice honour, but it prompts me to ask the question “If we’re number 8, how many systems are there in the world? Our walls are crumbling. Our roofs are leaking. But “we’re number 8!”

 

How to hop the metro

Photo by Nika.

DISCLAIMER: The information posted below relates to activities that go against STM rules and regulations. Following the advice may land you with a hefty ticket. I do not formally condone hopping the metro. I do not formally admit to having ever tested any of these myself.

There are many reasons to choose not to pay for the metro or bus, ranging from political opposition to paying for public transit to not having exact change.

Over the two years I’ve lived in Montreal, I’ve uncovered a few ways to slip through the bars, so to speak.

The Metro:

• The easiest way is to pull the bar of the turnstile towards yourself (the direction it would go in if someone was exiting), turn slightly sideways, and squeeze through the space it leaves.

• If you have two people, one with a metro pass, you can have them swipe you through, demonstrate frustration when their card doesn’t work a second time, and then have them claim their card was de-magnetized and get through the booth.

• Similarly, if you are with someone with a metro pass, you can often fit two people through one rotation of the turnstile.

• Some metros, like Sherbrooke, have turnstiles on both sides of the booth, but often only one side of the booth will have a clerk.

The Bus:

• If you’re near the metro, you can try hopping the metro to grab a transfer.

• Save old transfers, the bus drivers rarely look.

• The “back door express” technique, which I’ve frequently seen used in Ottawa and Vancouver, is nowhere near as easy in Montreal, but I’m sure hopping on the back door could be done on a busy route at peak times.

 

Subway surfing gets dangerous

Subway surfing, the safe way

When my friend first mentioned subway surfing to me, I shook my head and said, “yeah sure. I used to do that when I was a kid.” What I was thinking about was the light hearted game shown in the video above where you try to stay standing without holding on to anything. A lot like what Jesara describes in “How to stay standing in the metro.“

But it seems that the name has a whole new meaning. There’s a whole movement of people who cling onto the outside of subway cars and hold on for dear life. This is quite popular in New York and has been covered by the media. Personally, I think it’s a pretty efficient way to get yourself killed.

Subway surfing, the dangerous version

 

Who uses public transit?

Image taken from a report on means of travel in the City of Montreal in 2003. Click the image to make it bigger.

I’ve talked a bit with different people about how when you ride the metro from one end of the city to the other, you notice slight variations in who is riding, depending on the neighbourhood.

And it’s interesting how this map breaks down the city in the areas of who rides the metro – and who doesn’t.

It seems only natural that the downtown core has a higher percentage of metro riders, but principally the east end.

The west part of the Ville-Marie borough houses a lower percentage of public transit users than the north end of the city. Westmount is also proportionately low, but the Sud-Ouest and N-D-G both have high numbers of metro/bus users.

And then the east end is higher in metro users than the west part of the city.

There it is, the city layed out in a colour-coded breakdown.

 

If the metro took you this far…

Click the image for the full-size view. It’s a map of a metro expansion plan from 1976.

The Stride gum advertising campaigns have been luring us into a world where the metro will take us to far off places, like Florida, New York, or Halifax.

A friend of mine has been talking for ages about how we need to do some serious urban exploration in an unused metro station that was elegedly built for this line.

Asides from what he’s told me, I haven’t heard anything else about this elusive ghost station… Until this thread surfaced. But then the maintainers of Metro de Montreal appeared on the conversation, stating all the hype was simply about a trail track at the end of the line;

It’s hardly some sort of OMG SEKRIT TUNNEL; it’s just a tail track, and it’s about 790 metres long. Naturally, any extension of the blue line into NDG would pass through that tunnel. But that Wikipedia entry (presumably like the CTV interview) makes it sound like it’s like ten kilometres long and could be opened tomorrow and the mean old bureaucrats are keeping it closed out of spite, which needless to say is idiotic. I mean seriously, “a CTV investigation revealed”? A two-minute Google search would have revealed it, for heaven’s sake.

Too bad. I like dark, abandoned tunnels. Something that furthers the conversation are a few comments stating that the reason the orange line extends north, but the blue line doesn’t extend west, is because the French dollars won’t fund that direction. Note though that int he map the green line extends quite far east, into a very French neighbourhood. That extention never went through either.