Commuters on Montreal’s Green line will be riding the city’s oldest metro cars full-time in 2031, as the STM prepares to swap its fleet between two of the network’s lines. When the Blue line extension opens in six years, the transit agency will move its modern Azur trains off the Green line and onto the Blue line. In exchange, the Green line will inherit the older MR-73 cars, which are currently in service on the Blue line. The STM says the Blue line’s new system will not be compatible with the MR-73 fleet, while the Green line’s infrastructure can accommodate the older trains. The MR-73s are 50 years old and are 11 per cent less reliable than the newer cars, according to the STM. As of right now, MR-73 cars only run on the Green, Blue and Yellow lines. City councillor Sarah V. Doyon, with the city’s opposition party Projet Montreal, says she expects the change will lead to more service disruptions. “[This] means less reliable service, less capacity in the trains,” said Doyon, adding that the ventilation system in the older cars is a problem as well. Doyon launched an online petition calling on the STM to increase train frequency on the Green line. The petition also called on the current administration to present a plan to replace all MR-73 trains by 2036. Doyon says the city’s current plan is to have all new metro cars in service by 2040. But she warns by then, the older fleet will have exceeded its lifespan. According to the STM, by 2036, the MR-73s would have exceeded their lifespan by 20 years, making them the oldest running cars in the world. Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada says she will raise the issue with the next provincial government in hopes of securing additional funding for the metro system. She also pushes back against Projet Montreal. “We could ask them what was done in the past eight years,” said Martinez Ferrada. “They knew that this was coming.”
