What the first public buses in Montreal looked like over 100 years ago (PHOTOS)

You’ve taken hundreds of STM trips across Montreal but how much do you know about the city’s century-old public transit history of buses?

There are currently 220 daytime bus routes operated by the Société de transport de Montréal along with 23 night-service routes across the island.

And do you know when it all started?

This bad boy, in 1919.

Initially, the Montreal Tramways Company (MTC) preferred tramways over buses because the latter was less comfortable and could not carry as many passengers.

Because the company needed to replace several parts of the rail crossing on Saint-Étienne Street (now Bridge Street) and given the significant costs involved, the MTC opted to replace the tramway with buses.

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According to the STM, two white trucks were converted into buses at the company’s Youville repair shops and a new service was launched on November 22, 1919.

By 1921, two more trucks were converted into buses and were assigned to shuttle between Berri Street and St. Helen’s Island.

After the first two were deemed successful, the MTC chose to expand its bus network across the island. By 1925, the company had created a bus division and had three new routes (Lachine-Montreal-West, Lachine-LaSalle, and down Sherbrooke Street).

The MTC stopped converting its own buses by 1926 and was instead importing them from American suppliers. New routes were quickly created on Saint-Hubert Street, in Outremont, Verdun, and between the Bordeaux and Cartierville areas. The number of buses increased from 24 to 55 and the company opened its first bus garage in Saint-Henri, which had a capacity of 85 vehicles.

By 1931, the network had grown exponentially and added service to Longueuil and St. Helen’s Island via the new Havre Bridge (now the Jacques-Cartier Bridge). By the early 1930s, the bus division had 155 buses carrying over 20 million passengers yearly.

As buses started to replace tramways in the late-1930s, several British-built trolleybuses were put into service on Beaubien Street.

They became the first modern trolleybus service in Canada after unsuccessful tests in Toronto and Windsor.

Over the next 10 years, the MTC received another 40 trolleybuses and had 105 across the city by 1952 until they were abandoned in 1966.

In 1951, the MTC acquired 1,300 buses which led to all the tramways being replaced.

By the end of the decade, the first express bus service was launched on Saint-Denis Street and the city welcomed in a completely new model of bus, the “New Look” from General Motors.

In 1970, the MTC became the Commission de transport de la Communauté urbaine de Montréal (CTCUM). The first Métrobus service was launched on Newman Boulevard in LaSalle in 1974 and that same year, exact-fare payment was implemented aboard buses.

Buses were pained white and blue, which become synonymous with Montreal and public transit, also sharing its colours with the newly built metro system.

In the 1980s, the CTCUM received the mandate to serve 61 of Montreal’s urban municipalities, which became the basis of the STM’s service lines.

The Commission became the Société de transport de la Communauté urbaine de Montréal (STCUM) in 1985 and introduced its first night-time bus network in 1988.

The first reserved lanes for buses were created on Pie-IX Boulevard in 1990. Other reserved lanes were added that same year on Du Parc Avenue, René-Lévesque Boulevard West, and Chemin de la Côte-des-Neiges.

In 1992, customer information was enhanced with the regular distribution of PlaniBus timetables and the company launched its first website in 1997.

A major milestone in universal accessibility was reached in 1996 with the introduction of the first low-floor bus (LFB). The first three wheelchair-accessible routes were launched in 1998.

In 2002, the STCUM became what we know today as the STM. In 2005, the company replaced fare boxes aboard buses and, in 2008, introduced the OPUS smart card.

The STM deployed its first biodiesel-electric hybrid-drive buses in 2008 and its first articulated buses in 2009.

In 2011, the STM launched several new routes, including the 747 express between downtown and Montreal-Trudeau Airport.

How’s that for a crash course on the bus history of Montreal? At least now you have something to talk about on the bus…

 

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