Matching the Person to the Stop Before They Get Off

This is especially applicable to Laurier metro stop for some reason. I can always tell the people on the train who are going to get off at Laurier! They have more class and style than the Mile Enders (who get off at Mont Royal). They also look better off overall. Mont-Royal people are 'hipper' but a little more affected. The Laurier stop people seem confident in themselves perhaps once or twice to the point of arrogance. But the Mile-End hipster arrogance always seems stronger and more consistent across the board.

Rosemont is pretty easy to spot. Rosemont is a non-place, and the people who get off there look a little displaced as a general rule. One more stop north at Beaubien is a whole different scene. Then you are into the market going yuppy crowd, young families living in quiet french speaking neighbourhoods.

The Jean-Talon stop individual usually has some cloth bags in tow, or they might be South American. A lot of all the previous stops get off here.

Jarry usually lets off even more people than Jean-Talon though Jarry is not a hub while Jean-Talon is. I think this is the case at rush hour but I'm not sure about other times. It would make sense at Cremazie because that stop is right beside the highway 40 and a logical place to park your car.

These are the stops I know best on the orange line.

On the green line the St. Laurent, Place-des-Arts and McGill crowds are pretty easy to sort out. The first are less well off, and very few. The second are well polished well off and sometimes snobby. The third are definitely snobby, and the vast majority get off here at rush hour. The university and the financial district are the main reasons for the mass exodus at McGill.

After that on the green line you've got your regular Concordia and beyond types: very nice and generally pleasant.

I'll keep posting more as my observations on this most interesting of phenomena continue.

On Not Taking the Metro

Some days you don't take the metro. These reasons for me could be: 1. I just don't want to be on the metro, period 2. I'd rather take the bus (you can see the passing sights, or look out the window just to avoid seeing all the people around you) 3. I'd rather walk (fresh air, sunshine, taking your time).

But on some days you just can't beat the metro. It is probably the fastest way to get anywhere that is reasonably close to a metro station. It is safer than riding your bicycle or even, perhaps, walking.

The metro also has its own charms, and might be my choice of the day simply because I'm in the right mood for the specific things the underground has to offer such as a variety of architectural styles of station; a closed atmosphere good for reading; and a wide variety of people thrown together from very disparate parts of the city.

The last aspect is pretty amazing. You go so fast from station to station that within minutes you start seeing people from different neighbourhoods: rich or poor; student or professional; young or old. This last aspect is a whole new blog post in itself: how you can tell which stop a given person is getting off at.

Dodgy Metro Behaviour

One time I was sitting at a corner seat, one of those great seats that is off by itself, not near any other seated person. I had my headphones on and I was enthralled by whatever it was I was listening to. Then a strange person got on the metro. I kept the music on, watching this weird guy act all jittery, bouncing his legs up and down, acting hyper and paranoid.

He started harassing and/or questioning some other people on the metro, all women. Two women who were together seemed to engage and then fend him off. Another young single woman did the quick bolt move moving up the car and out the opposite end just as the doors were closing so nobody could follow.

At this point I was wondering what was up with this guy. He only barely glanced in my direction, and I gave him nothing to latch onto. One or two stops after that he bolted out the door, and one more stop after that, a security guy got on the train. Could the bad guy have given the authorities the slip? Or was it a coincidence? I feel someone must have called ahead about his guy, but then again, that would have been a pretty quick reaction.

Unless he had done something really bad to invoke that kind of response. I wonder what that bad guy did?

Now that I think of it, what other bad guys have been on the train with us, and we didn't even know it? Perhaps an evildoer stood in our midst, a serial killer, a child rapist, a bank robber, or an ousted dictator from an obscure country. Who knows who we've been next to?