STM to add new bus lines in southwestern Montreal

People living in Montreal's LaSalle, Lachine, Sud-Ouest and Verdun will soon have improved bus service, the STM announced Tuesday.

The Société de transport de Montréal (STM) announced that two new buses — the 38 De l'Église and the 114 Angrignon — will be on the road as of Aug. 26, and 20 other buses will have updated routes.

The 107 Verdun, 112 Airlie and 496 Express Victoria will now be high-frequency during rush hour. The STM is also getting rid of seven bus lines, including:

• 15 Ste-Catherine
• 58 Wellington
• 75 De La Commune
• 78 Laurendeau
• 109 Shevchenko
• 116 Lafleur / Norman
• 191 Broadway / Provost

The STM says customers along those routes will still be covered by other buses.

"We're trying to adapt the network to the needs of people, and the needs are changing," said Sébastien Gagné, the director of studies for the STM's bus network.

Maja Vodanovic, mayor of the Lachine borough, said the network redesign has been in the works for three years and she's happy to make the announcement.

There will be three areas in Lachine that benefit from the changes because "it would take forever" to get downtown by bus, but will now be a direct ride, she said.

Some areas, like the Saint-Pierre district, only had a bus "that was taking them to an industrial wasteland. It was ending up nowhere," Vodanovic said.

"I think there's a lot of people that are going to be very happy."

Vodanovic said the network will be optimized by getting rid of stops that haven't been used as much while creating new routes to the Lionel-Groulx Metro station — which will especially be useful for CEGEP and university students.

"There was stuff that was 15 minutes by car or an hour by bus, so that has been addressed," she said.