Getting There By Air:Montréal – Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (YUL) Tel: (514) 394 7377 or 1 800 465 1213.
Website:
www.admtl.com Montréal-Trudeau is located 25km (15 miles) west of the city center. It handles around 10 million passengers annually on national and international flights.
Airport facilities: Facilities include bureaux de change, ATMs, restaurants, cafés, bars, newsagents, duty-free and other shops and tourist information.
A valet parking service is also available. Car hire is provided by
Alamo, Avis, Budget, Dollar, Enterprise, Hertz, National and
Thrifty.
Transport to the city: L’Aérobus airport shuttle service (tel: (514) 842 2281) links Montréal-Trudeau Airport with the Montreal Bus Central Station. From the central bus station, passengers can take the complimentary shuttle service (tel: (514) 843 4938) to major downtown hotels. Taxis and limousines are also available.
Approximate flight times to Montreal: From London is 6 hours; from New York is 1 hour 20 minutes; from Los Angeles is 5 hours; from Toronto is 1 hour 10 minutes and from Sydney is 20 hours 25 minutes.
Getting There By Road:Montreal is well served by a network of
autoroutes (motorways), which are normally two-digit numbers identified by red and blue signs, as well as main (100-199) and secondary (200-399) highways, which have green signs. Traffic drives on the right. Road signs are international but are usually in French. Maximum speed limits are 100kph (62mph) on motorways, 80kph (50mph) on rural highways and 50kph (31mph) in built-up areas. It is illegal to turn right at a red light on the island of Montreal; however, these turns are legal elsewhere in the province (unless posted otherwise).
The minimum driving age is 16 years. An International Driving Permit is recommended, although it is not legally required for visits of less than six months. Proof of insurance (minimum C$50,000 third-party liability) must be carried. Non-residents may be covered for compensation under the province’s no-fault insurance if driving a vehicle registered in Quebec or a province or US state with a reciprocal arrangement. The
Société de l’Assurance Automobile du Québec (SAAQ) (tel: (514) 873 7620; website:
www.saaq.gouv.qc.ca) provides further information. There are often road checks for intoxicated drivers; the maximum legal alcohol to blood ratio for driving is 0.08%. Seatbelts are compulsory for all passengers. Radar detection devices are strictly prohibited and may not be carried in automobiles. Snow tires are a necessity in winter.
Information on road conditions is available from the
Ministère des Transports (tel: 1 888 355 0511; website:
www.mtq.gouv.qc.ca).
CAA-Québec (part of the
Canadian Automobile Association) offers travel planning, insurance and other services to motorists (tel: (514) 861 7575; website:
www.caaquebec.com).
Emergency breakdown services: CAA-Québec (514) 861 1313 (Montreal area only)
CAA/AAA 1 800 222 4357
or *222 from most mobile phones
Routes to the city: Highways 20 and 40 (the Trans-Canada Highway) are the main east-west routes through the city, arriving from Quebec City to the east and Toronto (via Highway 401) and Ottawa (via Highway 417) from the west. US I-87 from New York City becomes Highway 15 at the border, south of Montreal.
Coach services: All buses depart from the Station Centrale d’Autobus Montréal (Montreal Bus Central Station), 505 boulevard de Maisonneuve East (tel: (514) 842 2281; schedules and fares for all coach companies). Facilities include ATMs, a bureau de change, bars and restaurants, car hire, Internet access, left-luggage and coach passes.
Orléans Express (tel: 1 888 999 3977; website:
www.orleansexpress.com) is the main coach company within the province of Quebec.
Greyhound Canada (tel: 1 800 661 8747; website:
www.greyhound.ca) runs services from Canadian destinations west of Ottawa as well as the United States. Other coach services include
Adirondack Trailways (tel: 1 800 776 7548; website:
www.trailwaysny.com) from New York City and
Coach Canada (tel: 1 800 461 7661; website:
www.coachcanada.com) from Toronto.
Getting There By Rail:VIA Rail (tel: (514) 989 2626
or 1 888 842 7245; website:
www.viarail.ca) is Canada’s national rail service provider. Services from the USA are operated by
Amtrak (tel: 1 800 872 7245; website:
www.amtrak.com). Montreal’s Gare Centrale (Central Station) is located at 895 rue de la Gauchetière West. It has several restaurants and is directly linked to the Underground City’s network of shops and hotels. Trains arriving from the west also stop at the basic Dorval Station, near the airport.
Rail services: Montreal is located along the Quebec City-Windsor corridor, which accounts for 85% of Canada’s passenger rail traffic. Both economy and first class (VIA 1) cars are available on corridor trains, which link Montreal with Quebec City to the east, and Ottawa and Toronto to the west. The carriages are clean and quiet, with large windows that confer a sense of the country’s vastness as the train passes acres of farmland and mixed conifer and deciduous forests; VIA 1 fares include a surprisingly good meal and complimentary Canadian wines. Eastern transcontinental services are the daily
Ocean from Halifax and the thrice-weekly
Chaleur from Gaspé, both with economy and sleeper classes.
Amtrak runs daily trains from New York and Washington, DC.
Getting Around:
Public TransportMontreal is served by a
métro system, an extensive
bus network and commuter
rail services. Public transport services for the whole of the island of Montreal are run by the
Société de Transport de Montréal (STM) (tel: (514) 786 4636; website:
www.stm.info). Commuter rail and off-island bus services are co-ordinated by the
Agence Métropolitaine de Transport (website:
www.amt.qc.ca).
The clean and efficient
métro has four lines and 65 stations, 10 of which are linked to the Underground City. It is integrated with the STM
bus routes that crisscross the island; each bus stop has a unique telephone number for up-to-date schedule information for the buses at that stop. The métro and buses run approximately 0600-0100 and are supplemented by a limited system of 20
night bus routes. The métro and bus routes also link to the five commuter
rail lines, connecting Montreal with the outer suburbs.
Tickets for STM services are cheaper if you buy a carnet of six tickets. It is possible to transfer between the métro and bus at no extra cost, provided a transfer slip is obtained. The same applies to commuter rail within zone one; higher fares apply for outer zones. Off-island buses have separate fare structures. The
Carte Touristique (Tourist Card) is a pass designed specifically for visitors to Montreal and provides unlimited use of bus and métro systems, for one or three days. Weekly passes
(CAM Hebdo) are a good deal but are valid Monday to Sunday.
TaxisTaxis are available from taxi ranks, at major hotels and at the airports or they can easily be hailed on the street in Downtown and in areas where bars and restaurants are clustered.
Taxis can also be ordered by telephone:
Taxi Diamond (tel: (514) 273 6331) and
Taxi Co-op (tel: (514) 725 2667) are the best known of the many firms in the city. A tip of 15% is customary.
Driving in the CityThe large
autoroutes that cross Montreal are both a blessing and a curse – with light traffic, they make it easy to get across the island; for most of the day, however, they are heavily congested. Visitors will also be surprised at how little notice is given of impending exits (which are on the left as well as the right on some motorways), especially on the east-west Autoroute Métropolitaine (Highway 40). Highway 20, the other main east-west route, becomes the Autoroute Ville-Marie when it tunnels under Downtown. The worst traffic bottlenecks, though, are the north-south Autoroute Décarie (Highway 15) and the tunnel and bridges to the South Shore.
Street numbers increase as one travels north from the St Lawrence River. The east-west divide is boulevard St-Laurent. Montrealers tend to translate
‘arrêt’ signs as ‘slow down’ rather than ‘stop’ and can be fairly aggressive drivers. Motorists are required to yield to city buses if they are signalling that they are moving into the main traffic lane.
Both parking lots and metered parking are abundant. Deciphering street parking signs can be difficult, even for those who speak French fluently – often there are multiple signs restricting parking on various days, times and even months of the year.
Car HireIn general, drivers must be at least 21 years old and possess a national driving license and credit card. An International Driving Permit is not required. Insurance is mandatory and drivers should carry proof of this.
Central branches of major car hire firms in Montreal include
Avis, 1225 rue Metcalfe (tel: (514) 866 2847
or 1 800 321 3652; website:
www.avis.com),
Discount, 607 boulevard de Maisonneuve West (tel: (514) 286 1929; website:
www.discountcar.com),
Hertz, 1073 rue Drummond (tel: (514) 938 1717; website:
www.hertz.com),
Thrifty, place Dupuis, 855 rue Ste-Catherine East (tel: (514) 845 5954; website:
www.thrifty.com), and
Via Route, 1255 rue Mackay (tel: (514) 871 1166; website:
www.viaroute.com).
Bicycle HireMontreal has an extensive network of cycle routes, notably along the Lachine Canal. Roadside bike lanes can be dangerous where motorists do not have a clear line of vision. Sharing bike paths with pedestrians and/or rollerbladers can also cause problems.
The
Maison des Cyclistes, 1251 rue Rachel (tel: (514) 521 8356; website:
www.velo.qc.ca) is an excellent resource for cycling information, and also organizes tours in the province and further afield. Outside the city, the P’tit Train du Nord is a 200km (124-mile) linear park through the Laurentians on an abandoned rail bed, part of
La Route Verte (website:
www.routeverte.com), a province-wide network of over 3,600km (over 1,800 miles) of cycle paths. The world’s largest bicycle race, the 45km (28 miles)
Tour de l’Ile, attracts tens of thousands of participants in early June.
Cycle hire is available near the major cycle routes.
Vélo Aventure, on quai des Convoyeurs in the Old Port (tel: (514) 288 8356), is near the Lachine Canal; they also hire rollerblades and offer group tours. On the Plateau,
Cycle Pop, 1000 rue Rachel East (tel: (514) 526 2525; website:
www.cyclepop.ca) is at the northwest corner of Parc Lafontaine. The
Maison des Cyclistes (see above) also rents out bikes as well as selling maps of bike paths.
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