Louis-Philippe Véronneau: Montreal Subway Foot Traffic Data, 2025 edition
Another year of data from Société de Transport de Montréal, Montreal’s
transit agency!
A few highlights this year:
-
Although the Saint-Michel station closed for emergency
repairs in November 2024, traffic never bounced back to its
pre-closure levels and is still stuck somewhere around 2022 Q2 levels. I
wonder if this could be caused by the roadwork on Jean-Talon for the new
Blue Line stations making it harder for folks in Montreal-Nord
to reach the station by bus. -
The effects of the opening of the Royalmount shopping center has had a
durable impact on the traffic at the De la Savane station.
I reported on this last year, but it seems this wasn’t just a fad. -
With the completion of the Deux-Montagnes branch of the Réseau express
métropolitain (REM, a light-rail, above the surface transit network still in
construction), the transfer stations to the Montreal subway have seen major
traffic increases. The Édouard-Montpetit station has
nearly reached its previous all-time record of 2015 and the McGill
station has recovered from the general slump all the other stations
have had in 2025. -
The Assomption station, which used to have one of the lowest
number of riders of the subway network, has had a tremendous growth in the
past few years. This is mostly explained by the many high-rise projects that
were built around the station since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. -
Although still affected by a very high seasonality, the Jean-Drapeau
station broke its previous record of 2019, a testament of the
continued attraction power of the various summer festivals taking place on
the Sainte-Hélène et Notre-Dame islands.
More generally, it seems the Montreal subway has had a pretty bad year. Traffic
had been slowly climbing back since the COVID-19 pandemic, but this is the
first year since 2020 such a sharp decline can be witnessed. Even major
stations like Jean-Talon or Lionel-Groulx are on
a downward trend and it is pretty worrisome.
As for causes, a few things come to mind. First of all, as the number of
Montrealers commuting to work by bike continues to rise1, a modal
shift from public transit to active mobility is to be expected. As local
experts put it, this is not uncommon and has been seen in other
cities before.
Another important factor that certainly turned people away from the subway this
year has been the impacts of the continued housing crisis in Montreal. As more
and more people get kicked out of their apartments, many have been seeking
refuge in the subway stations to find shelter.
Sadly, this also brought a unprecedented wave of incivilities. As riders’ sense
of security sharply decreased, the STM eventually resorted to banning unhoused
people from sheltering in the subway. This decision did bring back
some peace to the network, but one can posit damage had already been done and
many casual riders are still avoiding the subway for this reason.
Finally, the weekslong STM worker’s strike in Q4 had an important impact on
general traffic, as it severely reduced the opening hours of the subway. As for
the previous item, once people find alternative ways to get around, it’s always
harder to bring them back.
Hopefully, my 2026 report will be a more cheerful one…
By clicking on a subway station, you’ll be redirected to a graph of the
station’s foot traffic.
