First I would like to qualify my post by saying that, in general, I love the city of Montreal. There is no other city like it, where hundreds of different cultures can coalesce into something as brilliant and unique, full of life, music and art (and counterculture too!). I almost never have a bad time in this town, except when it comes to driving. I have only driven in Montreal a handful of times, but when I do, I am universally perplexed, frustrated, and outraged. Here are my top 5 reasons why I hate driving in Montreal:
1. You people can’t drive!!!
Why can’t anyone in this fucking city drive properly!!?! It’s insane! No one, and I mean NO ONE signals for a lane change, ever. What the fuck, Montreal? Did you all get together and agree that you would just randomly skip around from lane to lane without notifying anyone around you? Where does that become a good idea? You run every yellow and a good portion of the time I see people running reds! (I have noticed the yellow lights take a lot longer than in Ottawa…gee I wonder why…) There is no respect for the proper right of way, either. People just do whatever the fuck they want and it’s up to you to not hit them. Stop signs are just recommendations. Yielding is for the weak. Apparently the best way to drive through Montreal is just to ignore all the other cars and do whatever you feel like. If you took away everyone’s licence that demonstrated this kind of erratic idiotic driving behaviour, there would be no one on the road!
2. Roads should not be an amusement park ride.
Seriously, Montreal, for all the closed routes, construction detours and forty-billion pylons everywhere, why is every fucking road an uneven, potholed piece of shit? You literally can’t go five blocks without running into a road construction project, and yet I feel like I’m on a fucking rollercoaster ride I didn’t need or want. Almost every single road I have been on is universally fucked. And can you paint the fucking lines once in a while? I have yet to see a properly delineated stop line on any road.
3. Sign, sign everywhere a sign
I don’t know who does the signage for the city of Montreal, but they are cleaning up! There are signs everywhere! Multiple stop signs are very common, with up to three at one intersection—maybe Quebecers only stop if there’s more than one stop sign? But despite having a bazillion signs, most of them contradict one another! One sign will tell you “Left turn, this lane only” but the next sign is like “No actually it’s this lane” and the sign after that (literally one block down) is like “Nah I’m just fucking with you, you can take either lane.” I already have Ontario plates, do I really need to make myself stand out more by switching lanes four hundred times a minute? And what’s up with the blue “tourist” markers? Are the numbers next to the names like distances? Exit numbers? Prayers needed to find it? Because there are several times when the number goes from like 3 to 1 to 8 in just two blocks! Make up your mind, asshole!
4. What road are we on, anyway?
Why does every road in Montreal have so many fucking names? There’s almost always two route “numbers”, then a proper name, and then the road the locals call it! “Metropolitaine” is known as highway #25 and #40? “Jean Lesage” is highway 20 and 132!? You may think it has a good reason behind it, but I think it’s fucking bullshit. There are even some instances of one road having different route numbers for different directions! Not 98-N and 98-S but like 134 going North and 38 going South! That is just stupid. Almost all directions in Google tell you to take one route number or another, but the signs never have that number! So you end up missing your turn or taking the wrong one. How does anyone get anywhere in this town? Trial and error?
5. Where the- What the- FFFFFFUUUUUUUU….
Who the fuck designed this goddamn road system, anyway? Almost every single route we take involves at least one double-back dipsee-doodle bullshit detour that’s completely unnecessary. I understand that in a city as old as Ville Marie there will be a certain amount of one-ways and odd angles but this shit is retarded! A city’s road system should be simple and straightforward, with large highways leading to main roads which lead to smaller roads. In Montreal, tiny sideroads lead to the highways, main avenues lead to twisted back alleys and almost every highway just turns around on itself! Miss a turn? No problem! Just keep going straight and eventually you’ll circle back around. I have a fucking GPS and I can’t navigate this city!
Tom Gobeil says:
Bienvenue a la belle province. The whole city was designed in the 60’s for 50’s traffic by someone on crack cocaine taking a plate of spagetti and saying “Voila! Les rues du Montreal”. No where else in North America (and I’ve driven over 600,000 miles in the last 5 years and seen most major cities)do you have on ramps and off ramps merge onto major roadways so that the through traffic gets stopped while all traffic tries to merge on and off at the same point. Arggghhh!!! All the major industries have been built up around by residential buildings but no accommodation has been made for heavy trucks. Every other road says NO Trucks, overpasses are not large enough for trucks to make safe turns without stopping traffic. Frustration abounds. But whats their response to critics? In Quebec we’re different and proud of it. Nice.
Taran Matharu says:
Absolutely true and spot on! Plus the roads are 3rd world condition like with all the shitty potholes! I love Montreal, but the road system and the roads themselves are pathetic.