The STM's announcements are certainly laudable, particularly as they arrive at a time individual driving costs continue to soar with no hint of slowing down. However, more still needs to be done.

For example, one of the stronger improvements is the addition of late evening hours to some neighbourhood bus schedules, such as the local 138 bus that hops on Notre-Dame-de-Grâce and goes through that borough, a section of Westmount, as well as Côte St. Luc. It is reassuring the bus now runs beyond somewhat ridiculous previous 7 p.m. last stop (it extends instead to midnight).

However, weekend schedules do not benefit from this extra time, which is a bit of a drag for anybody without a car trying to get from point A to point B past 7 p.m. In an area like the one in question, this would typically include students, many of whom can find themselves doing weekend shift work and needing the transport there and back.

Meanwhile, another improvement in the area is an extension by half an hour of the 420 express bus which also jets across Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. This one is a little less impressive though. Basically, instead of stopping at 6:30 p.m., the service will stop at 7 p.m. This means exactly two more departures. It might be helpful for the couple of people who miss the previous departure time by exactly two minutes (a frustrating experience if ever there was one), but what does it do for those who are stuck past seven? And, again, there are definitely those out there who would need this service: university students once more come to mind, but so do grocery store shoppers, or the elderly.

Speaking of the elderly, the STM announced a new row of "senior" buses that will travel between points of interest for their target users, such as senior residences, health care and community centres, etc. None of these new buses are in the West End area, but the transit authority had tried something similar last year with buses 21 and 23, which were unceremoniously discarded due to lack of popularity. They did not run often enough, did not go to a sufficient variety of places, and had schedules which were comparatively difficult to find on the STM's website. Let us hope they thought the new routes through more carefully.

It is unrealistic, of course, to expect the STM to have improvements that would satisfy everyone immediately. They have a limited budget and do need more assistance from the provincial government. As NDG/CDN councillor Marvin Rotrand, who is also vice-president of the Montreal Transit Corporation's board of directors, has frequently been heard saying he would love to offer platinum service for everybody, and simply does not have the needs.

We do not believe he and other STM officials are being disingenuous when they make those statements. Better public transit is in everyone's interests. It's just that, when the improvements do arrive, they are often so marginal they do not seem too significant.