Here's why some Montreal metro doors feel so damn heavy

Apr 22 2022, 8:00 pm

It’s happened to the best of us in Montreal; you’re about to ride the metro but you have to channel your inner Hercules strength just to open the damn door.

Riding the metro can already be anxiety-inducing. Along with having to double, triple, and quadruple check that you’re heading in the right direction, now you have to show the public that a measly door is no match for you.

Montreal’s metro doors tend to feel very heavy. Like you’re a superhero trying to break into your rival’s lair. And what’s weird is that it’s not related to the weather. Some days in February, the door is awkwardly heavy. Other days in July, you feel like you’re Superman, and the Villa-Maria door is made of kryptonite.

The good news? Not a single STM door is made of kryptonite.

The better news? You’re not weak. The reason Montreal metro doors are so heavy is a phenomenon called the piston effect.

Philippe DĂ©ry, the STM’s Public Relations Corporate Advisort, tells Daily Hive the piston effect is the movement of air (or wind) that we feel on the platform when a train is approaching. The effect occurs due to the trains moving at high speeds through narrow tunnels. “The displacement of the air is done exactly as in a tube or a piston,” says DĂ©ry.

Because of the effect, pulling open some metro doors can feel like they weigh more than 65 lbs.

 

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In the 1970s, DĂ©ry says the City designed “butterfly doors” — unique to Montreal’s metro line. Because the doors pivot around a central axis, the piston effect exerts equal pressure on each side as they open.

Although it is not possible to completely reduce the piston effect, the butterfly doors allow air to the outside when it’s being opened, giving off the allusion that it’s a heavy door.

 

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In 2020, opposition party Ensemble Montréal tabled a motion urging the STM to implement a program to ensure that every butterfly door in the metro system is motorized by 2024.

Déry says the STM is working on new metro door models — some of which can be opened by the push of a button to help riders with reduced mobility.

He says the new models are “just as robust, light, and easier to push.”

So, in short, no — you don’t have to alter your workout routine to keep opening metro doors in Montreal. Just give it a few years until all you have to do is push a button instead of potentially pulling a neck muscle.

 

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