Montreal Subway: And the Wall Came Crumbling Down

In Montréal, if a supporting beam of the Olympic Stadium doesn't come crashing down, it's the roof. Then we had that under-construction over-pass that simply fell apart crushing cars passing under it. Well today a lesser accident took place, but still as worrisome. Thankfully I don’t think anyone got hurt.

When walking in the subway, Montrealers will notice that sometimes entire wall sections are missing from the infrastructure. They’ll notice that the tracks are often flooded with water and debris after heavy precipitation. But after today I’ll be left wondering if those walls were stripped or did they simply fall off? Is our subway system in such disrepair that the very safety of the subway users is in jeopardy? Should terrorists not even bother and just wait? (More on terrorists later)

Today as your intrepid Blogger was on his way to catch the subway to get to class he saw something he just couldn’t make out right away. As the escalators took me down I saw debris on the floor. “What the fuck?” was all I could find to say. A nice big rectangular chunk of wall had fallen from overhead. Immediately I take out my camera and start fiddling with the settings to take indoor pictures in low lighting but I didn’t quite make it because the subway station’s manager rudely got in my face. “What are you doing?” he asks me in French. Answering in French with my best sarcastic tone I could conjure; “Well this” pointing at the camera “looks like a camera, so I suspect I’ll be taking pictures soon”

He doesn’t find my humor funny and he’s not getting out of my face and your intrepid Blogger isn’t intimidated easily, so I don’t get out of his either, still smirking at him. But it doesn’t take more than 10 seconds before I’m surrounded by rent-a-cop-school-rejects just itching to play with their batons. “You’re not allowed to take pictures” they say. That’s a load of crap I tell them.

The confrontation soon escalates to them threatening me by declaring me suspicious and a possible security threat. Security threat? Yeah that’s right I’m now a potential terrorist, the STM (Montreak Transport Society) actually used the word. All I could do was bow my head, fingers gripping my nose ridge right between my eyes in despair. “You gotta be fucking kidding me?” I mutter to myself. I tell him “Look jackass, your walls are a security threat and yer full of shit” and I walked away before this escalated into a bloodbath. Oddly enough a very cute girl was videographing the subway in plain sight and they did NOTHING. I screamed at them “Look, look, there’s another terrorist right there,” pointing at the girl. Still they did nothing.

Article Author: David Desjardins

Dave works in the IT industry despite his better judgment. He’s an artist at heart with a critical mind. He enjoys photography more than he could ever express. Dave feels a need to tweak his brain with copious amounts of taurine to stay sharp while absorbing all kinds of media on any medium. …

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