With much fanfare and controversy, the City of Montreal opened reserved bus lanes on Céte-des-Neiges Road, and Park Avenue, connected by ones on René-Lévesque Boulevard in 1992 in an attempt to speed up the busy but very slow bus routes on these streets. Concurrent to this, the STCUM created 2 new "R-Bus" routes; routes that operate largely within reserved lanes, one of which was the rush-hour 545 R-Bus Céte-des-Neiges, which followed the routing of the existing (now off-peak) 165 route, and also operated along René-Lévesque Boulevard to and from the Berri-UQAM Métro station in the eastern part of downtown. Operational difficulties later saw the route shortened to terminate at the Champ-de-Mars Métro station in Old Montreal, and, in 1995, following the closure of the Namur Garage, the route was merged into the 535 R-Bus du Parc, and the portions of the route on René-Lévesque east of Jeanne-Mance removed, as ridership was low and the area over served, and operating the 2 routes together instead of separately made more fiscal sense. In the photo, 23-101 sits on Cote-des-Neiges south of Jean-Talon, opposite Plaza Cote-des-Neiges, while several of its patrons look on.

Image appears in:
STCUM Charter

 

Recent Site Photographs:
« Previous | Home | Next »