STM brings back loitering ban after seeing positive results
Posted June 18, 2025 6:23 pm.
Last Updated June 18, 2025 6:25 pm.
The STM is bringing back a ban on loitering in metro stations after it says a review of the order implemented earlier this year showed it had positive results on safety.
The temporary measure that prevented people from loitering was established in mid-March and expired on April 30.
It was designed to help reduce increased feelings of insecurity among transit users.
Metro users were no longer permitted to sleep on platforms and benches, and several common areas in the metro where people would gather were closed.
The STM instructed its security agents to force some people to move out of stations.
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The transit authority says it reviewed its data on safety over the month-and-a-half since the measure was halted, and it’s now bringing the order back.
They say the measure led directly to service disruptions and assaults on STM employees going down, as well as an increase in the overall sense of safety on the metro – from 39 per cent in March to 47 per cent in April.
Éric Alan Caldwell, chair of the STM board of directors, says reintroducing the “move-along” order will improve the metro atmosphere.
“We recognize the issue. We’re in action. Things will get better,” Caldwell said during a press conference on Wednesday.
According to a survey conducted by the STM from mid-February to mid-March — before the measures were implemented — riders, many of them young, said they avoided taking the metro because they felt unsafe.
Twenty-one per cent of those surveyed said they considered cancelling at least one trip due to lack of safety.
The STM estimates it lost $1.2 million in monthly customer revenue because of safety issues.
“When we had that move-along instruction this spring, things got better. That’s why we’re coming back with it,” Caldwell said.
“Talk to us when you have safety issues. Use your iPhone to send us a comment. We want to document, to gather data on how we can get better so the metro gets more secure. … And it’s according to that data that we collected this spring that we’re coming back with this measure.”
