Green Traveler: Montreal Metro

A visit to Montreal, Quebec, Canada this past summer revealed a city that works. Commuters can hop on a Bixi bike or personal bicycle and easily navigate the many interconnected bike paths, or enter the clean, modern subway stations to ride on the reliably efficient Metrorail system. In this Green Traveler series, I'll be recapping my experiences in this world-class city -- from biking to riding the Metro to hydroelectricity to recycling and more.

The Montreal Metro runs on rubber tires similar to the Paris Metro, whose design and station architecture inspired Montreal's subway system. The big rubber tires make the trains incredibly quiet. You can barely hear them whisk towards the station. The train cars are also clean and well-ventilated.

The stations themselves are clean, well-lit and easy to navigate even though all the signs are in French. Many of the stations feature mosaic murals and other works of art, moving projections on the walls, televisions and music that liven up the experience of waiting for a train. 

The Société de transport de Montréal (STM) (English: Montreal Transit Corporation) operates the subway and bus systems, which includes four Metro lines with 68 stations and over 186 bus routes. The Montreal Metro is Canada's second-busiest subway system after Toronto and the fourth-busiest in North America.

Here are more photos riding the Montreal Metro:



And here is a video montage of Montreal Metro trains arriving and departing: