Being surrounded by water is a mixed blessing for any large city and Montreal Canada is a case in point. Over four million people call the Montreal metropolis home, and that population is spread over two large islands and the surrounding northern and southern shores of the Saint Lawrence River. Despite multiple bridges and tunnels traffic is challenging to say the least. Say hello to SRB, the new form of mass transit between mega cost subways and light rail on one end and slow local bus routes on the other.

Montreal is an old and dense (by North American standards) city and therefore the case for and use of mass transit has always been strong. While a substantial subway system serves several main arterial routes it is not viable to build endless miles of massively expensive subway lines to serve all areas of the city. Several years ago, the city decided on a strategy of “SRB” (a French acronym for Rapid Bus Service) as a new “in-between” transit service. The SRB network will consist of high-capacity express bus-trains running on committed median lanes on existing large thoroughfares.

The first project in this strategy was the Pie-IX SRB line, providing rapid north-south transit for the eastern portion of the city. Construction for this $500 million line began in 2019 and service started in 2021. This eight-mile route incorporates twenty stations (known as “Abribus”) that are built primarily inside an expanded median of this pre-existing broad boulevard.