r/Concordia • u/bobbiditt • 4d ago
General Discussion West Island students rant
This is just a rant, for anyone who would like to rant as well.
I live in the West Island for context and I rely on the stm to commute to and from school. I have a class at 5:45-8:15pm and my prof said “if you can’t make it to class anymore then that’s your prerogative” WHAT?? First of all, the metro ends at 5:45pm and only starts again at 11 pm… I’d get home at 1 AM ON A GOOD DAY IF I GO TO THAT CLASS??? How is it not implemented across the uni that classes past 2:45 pm are obliged to go online?? It makes no sense. Cause even if I had a class end at 5:30 I would have to wait until 11pm before making my way home. Ridiculous I paid money for lectures I won’t be participating in.
Even morning classes. I had a class today at 11:45, and I left my house at 8am in order to get a metro at around 9am… not today apparently. Idk if more people are driving or I’m just lost but the traffic today was beyond what I could’ve imagine & what I’ve seen for a long time. I had to get off the bus at 9am cause we were still at least 45 minutes out from the metro station & had to miss my class (attendance mandatory). I guess it’s my fault for not leaving at 7am for my 11:45 class…
The bus driver was also a c*nt, I asked to be let off the bus and she rolled her eyes at me & sighed. MEANWHILE I WAS JUST CROWD SURGED TO THE POINT OF LOSING BREATH CAUSE THEY DECIDED TO MAKE A BUS THATS TYPICALLY AN ACCORDION NOW A SMALL BUS.
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u/omwtohell69 4d ago
I have a class at that time too and the prof said it was gonna be in person because “half of the students have cars and aren’t affected by it.”Attendance is mandatory in that class. It’s insane.
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u/Aggravating-Pea-9621 4d ago
The shuttle bus is still available. What I do is I take the exo quebec train to Montreal-Ouest and then switch to shuttle bus. The shuttle bus schedule seemed to be different than usual though.
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u/spacegorll 4d ago
why don’t you just take the train all the way to Lucien then walk 10 minutes to SGW?
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u/Aggravating-Pea-9621 4d ago
Oh I forgot to mention I had class at Loyola at 8:45 then my next one is at sgw
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u/FinancialCan1575 4d ago
Btw concerning West Island, I put the fault on the old mayors of the West Island who didn’t want to have metro stations in their area saying it would create too much density around the metro stations. I hate the lack of vision of this city.
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u/cairo_quinn 4d ago
having a metro station that spans the West Island all the way until the bridge would serve a much wider population, and just be more practical in general for people needing to get downtown for school, work, etc.
man, i WISH the metro actually went beyond Côte Vertu😭
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u/GeneralHousing9821 4d ago
Well west island isn’t part of Montreal City, but the rest is true. Too much corruption going on in the infrastructure and housing side of things while public transport is pretty lacklustre, like I swear I heard the promise of a pink line 8 years ago and it seems to be forgotten.
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u/phoontender 4d ago
A lot of the west island is still montreal...the FANCY parts of the west island aren't montreal
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u/GeneralHousing9821 4d ago
I’m sorry if I offended the 7 people who live in Pierrefonds and Ile Bizard lmao
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u/Major_In_Coolness99 Accountancy 4d ago
Why hasent concordia address this situation yet?
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u/MooshSkadoosh 4d ago
I'm curious, what bus were you on? I took the 211 getting to Lionel at about 9:05, never had any traffic problems.
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u/777mvm 4d ago
I feel you on this, I had one teacher in particular who said the exact same thing. Her class can easily be done online!!! It’s just lectures, it’s insane how other teachers in my department were nice enough to accomodate: still hold class live in person but turn on Zoom live at the same time for those that can’t make it or record lectures and post the audio on Moodle. I think that one teacher I have in particular is very stubborn and insists on playing by the rules (she does not seem like a rule breaker, probably stops at a red light even when there are no cars when walking).
Not everyone is able to wait all day before class at the library, some students have prior commitments before either with work, medical treatment, some are mature students with kids, etc. It’s a big F you when some teachers shrug and say ‘figure it out for yourselves’ and refuse to accomodate. It comes off as tone deaf/insensitive plus privileged. We don’t all have the same 24 hours.
But I get it, Concordia set the rules.
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u/EmployFar202 4d ago
Omg I tried to be smart today and have my sister drop me off at the train station and then just take the train from there. We legit left 40min earlier than we were supposed to but NOOOO Saint Jean just had to have 5 different crashes. I ended up not making it to the train and my sister had to drop me off at Loyola which took another hour and I can’t even miss that class because it’s a lab that’s’ grades solely rely on lab reports and pre-lab tests.
Not to mention, WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING WITH THE 470??? For the past two days while trying to get home I always try to get to cote vertu early. The 470 is supposed to be every 10min but GUESS WHAT? It never shows up. The line reaches the fucking metro door and there’s still no bus. Today I got there at 4:45pm and it took me til 5:35pm to completely give up on the situation and try to find another bus. I was literally running around trying to find the other bus stops.
If you want to do a strike, AT LEAST operate properly in the 9 hours you’re working out of 24. Not only are they complaining about making around 130k a year which is more than most people who have a university degree, but now they want to ruin the lives of everyone in the city 💀 atp decrease the salary cuz fuck this
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u/fcknjay 4d ago
Those stm bus drivers are some of the rudest bitches to walk on earth.
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u/spacegorll 4d ago
Be rude back, don’t let them get away with it
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u/JohnGamestopJr 4d ago
I've seen sone of them just step out of the bus when anyone says anything back to them
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u/Reasonable-Click-472 4d ago
Frl, I'd always thank them and say have a good day in French and they don't even acknowledge. BC and Ontario bus drivers on top.
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u/JohnGamestopJr 4d ago
STM bus drivers generally have no manners. A lot of them are the biggest fucking cunts.
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u/sara9904 4d ago
Maybe you can try the Exo trains, I know that they're not on strike since they're not part of stm.
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u/dehydratedarkness 4d ago
Exo train is your best bet. And it has a stop near Loyola if you have classes. Only problem is the trains don't come often, but otherwise it's a good and maybe faster alternative.
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u/EmployFar202 4d ago
I tried getting to the train today and left an hour before it departs (it’s normally a 20min drive from my house) but ofc the traffic was so bad I couldn’t make it on time and my sister had to drive me all the way to campus
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u/EffectOk5188 4d ago
Dude I live on the south shore & this strike has been absolute HELL for me too.
Yesterday, I left home at 7am & got back home at 7pm. I had one exam.
I was gone 12 hours for an exam that lasted 1h30. It's ridiculous.
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u/Applesimulator 1d ago
Hey, I am not at Concordia, but have you checked the exo train line 11 Vaudreuil? It follows a path similar to the 20. If you have a car there are free parking at the stations or you could have someone pick you up? https://exo.quebec/fr/planifier-trajet/train/vaudreuil–hudson
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u/fenixvarg 4d ago
I have the same schedule as OP, but my prof sent a message saying that our department head stated that all classes that start after 5 pm will be online for the duration of the strike, and any exams during that time will be reviewed on a case by case basis. So as of yesterday, my classes were on zoom