#122 Metro Announcement FrustraShawn

A little over a year ago, the STM removed all the garbage and recycling receptacles from the platform level of all the metro stations in the city. They added a few extra at the entrances, street level. 

This was done to make the riders of the Metro more responsible at disposing of their rubbish... by moving the garbage ans recycling cans FARTHER from the people! Admittedly things are a little less messy than they were at the beginning, but then when this change took place people were just dropping their papers etc anywhere and everywhere.

Now, I've bitched about the over excessive announcements in the Metro about slowdowns and broken doors etc and these go on ad nauseum throughout the day, every day. 

But *now* they have added an announcement, literally, *every five minutes* thanking people to use the waste receptacles when leaving the Metro. These announcements have the same warning tone at the beginning as interruption announcements, which just makes them that much more annoying.

And in the past 2 weeks, I've noticed an increase of people leaving their papers in the metro cars. LOL!  Well played STM, well played!

Stop the insanity! Stop all the pointless announcements!

#111 Monday Morning Police IntervenShawns

I was awoken early this morning (3:20am) to what I thought was some random police show the TV.  But both the TV in the living room and the bedroom were off. There was no radio on... what was I hearing? Was I having a dream that did not want to release me? Was I hallucinating?  No...

...what woke me up was a Police intervention a block away from the condo, and some asshat being arrested at gun-point. There were 3 or 4 cop cars and someone was shouting orders (via megaphone) to said asshat. 

Very annoying that it was so loud, but fortunately I was able to watch everything go down, from the comfort of my bed... I didn't even have to raise my head off the pillows.

Took me about 30 minutes to get back to sleep and even then it was rather restless.

Jump ahead 4.5 hours and I'm now in the very, very slowly moving Metro. Not bad enough that the Buses and Metro are running on Holiday Schedule - but an "Emergency Intervention" shut down the Green line of the Metro (between Berri and Angrignon), directly cutting me off, en route to the office.  I was lucky to switch at Berri and get back on track, but the delays continued.

As the Metro passed the Lionel-Groulx Metro station there was plenty of that yellow "DO NOT CROSS - POLICE" tape  and a good 20+ police and metro security on the green line side of the platform, along with a train 1/2 out of the station.

So already a little sleep deprived, and with the added delays in the metro, my 50 minute morning commute because a very unpleasant 95 minute commute.

Of course we all know the reason why this happened. One cannot simply enjoy a long weekend without something to balance it out on Monday Morning.

Fingers crossed that the commute home is a little less 'exciting'...

#077 Metro Commuter NotificaShawn

If you're standing more than 5 feet from the edge of the platform during rush hour, you have no right or reason, and I mean ZERO, to yell at someone for walking in front of you to stand next to the yellow tiles to wait for the next train. 

BUT, if you're gonna yell at me, then you really ought to yell at the 6 other people that walked in front of you, just side glanced at you and smiled at me. 

Also, my shit eating grin was *mandatory* when you finally entered the metro car when it arrived and there were no seats left.

I don't make up the rules, I just follow them.

#023 TransportaShawn FrustraShawn II

Nothing annoys me more than stupid and rude.  Put that into the Metro and I lose. My. Mind. 

If you stand in front of the opening doors of the Metro or an Elevator, at the top or bottom of an escalator or moving walkway or just inside or outside of doors to a building and I can neither enter or exit because you're too busy talking to someone, or you all of the sudden have lost your mind and don't know where you are or where you’re going, if are not aware that these are not acceptable locations to loiter or are picking your nose etc. I will push you. If you fall and break a limb, I will laugh my ass off. And if I have to, I will walk over and/or on you to get on my way. It's that simple.

And don’t think that mouthing off will deter me, because I swear, as god is my witness, I will throw back twice what you give.You have no one to blame but yourself.

The correct thing to do if you’re not aware, is STEP TO THE SIDE or just KEEP ON WALKING.

A few extra points of procedure if I might…

- Elevator and metro doors are only open mere seconds at a time so moving in quick and orderly fashion is not only preferred, it is MANDATORY.

- Also with regards to elevators and metro cars.  The order is as follows (with NO EXCEPTIONS)

1) People get OFF

Then and only then...

2) People get ON

- Escalators and moving walkways move… NON-STOP. It's what they do. It's who they are. There is no ‘Pause’ for idiots like you that can’t think of what to do after getting to the end of them. If you can’t remember where to go next, step off and to the side. There ARE people behind you that are not able to stop moving forward… they must go THROUGH you.

- Also with escalators and moving walkways, the standard accepted protocol is if you are just going to STAND there and not walk, MOVE TO THE RIGHT, ensuring you leave space on the left for those of us that don’t want to Age, doing nothing but wasting oxygen, looking like a bump on a log.

If all that’s too complicated for you then might I suggest you simply find a rock, crawl under it, curl up and die.

This has been a public service announcement from a person that has reached the limit.

#014 TransportaShawn FrustraShawn

If you live in Montreal, and you take public transit with any regularity, you know.

What you know is that with a painful almost clockwork precision there are slowdowns and shut-downs.

About a year and a half ago they pumped a lot of money into upgrading their notification system, by adding notices to their Facebook page, opening a Twitter account for each Metro line, placing multiple flat screen TV monitors in most stations,  and more frequent announcements on the PA system.

So instead of just accepting that the Metro is slow, we now hear that there is a slow-down because of a blocked door, every 10 minutes, pretty much every day. 

Or, like with today with an "emergency intervention" on the Orange Line. They were very good to keep announcing that there was a shut-down between 3 Metro stations and that service would be restored in 15 minutes. And then 5 minutes later that the shut-down was now 4 stations and the service would return in 15 minutes.  And then 5 minutes later that the shut-down was now 5 stations and the service would return in 15 minutes. And then 5 minutes later that the shut-down was still 5 stations and the service would return in 15 minutes. You get the idea... And that 15 minutes quickly has become 30+ minutes.

Here's an idea, accept that you know that an "emergency intervention" is likely going to take more than 10 - 15 minutes and that you're better off saying service will be down for 30 minutes (which is generally the bare minimum) Then if, god-forbid, the service comes back up on line sooner then you actually expected, it makes you look like you were really keen to fix the situation. But no, keep on with your constantly saying it will return in 15 minutes, and then adding 5 minutes to that over and over again until you loose track of the fact that 15 minutes had doubled or tripled in time. It just makes the packed metro cars and stations full of frustrated commuters that much more unhappy and agitated. 

It gets old. Really quick. Quicker in fact than the non-stop announcements that you question if they contain any actual, valuable, reliable information. People were impressed for the first few weeks or so. Then they realized that you hear the same damn pre-recorded  announcements, non-stop. Seemingly when there's nothing even actually wrong. 

Time to start actually improving the damn Metro lines and cars instead of just telling us it's always broke.