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In Montreal a generation of Metro subway cars electric motors were tuned to perfect fifths, coincidentally the first three notes of Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man". The tones were even part of a TV ad campaign when the line was opened.

Technical Explanation PDF (in French.)

However the Montreal Metro offers another treat to the senses: Smell.

We've had a similar system for a while in Montreal (run by the STM) called Tous Azimuts (meaning "All Azimuths").

It doesn't use AJAX, nor does it have a satellite map built in, but it will tell you exactly how to get where you're going using public transit.

Montreal's transport service has also put up a site on how to get there which allows you to plan your route, the results specify walking distance, alternate routes, let you select what time of day, and to minimize walking distance or take into account that you have a train pass, etc.

I wonder how Google will improve? Perhaps by providing the same interface for all transit systems, it will be easier for tourists to plan routes, as they won't have to search for what transit system (i.e. outsiders wouldn't know what STCUM is but it is the name of the MTL transport system and the name of the site you must access) or learn a new interface, or even have to learn bus/subway route numbers to figure out which routes they need to look at schedules for.

Sounds good to me at any rate. The interface for the STCUM web site is not the greatest, so hopefully Google will give them something to aim for at least, and it could do the same for your city.

Montreal's transport service has also put up a site on how to get there which allows you to plan your route, the results specify walking distance, alternate routes, let you select what time of day, and to minimize walking distance or take into account that you have a train pass, etc.

I wonder how Google will improve? Perhaps by providing the same interface for all transit systems, it will be easier for tourists to plan routes, as they won't have to search for what transit system (i.e. outsiders wouldn't know what STCUM is but it is the name of the MTL transport system and the name of the site you must access) or learn a new interface, or even have to learn bus/subway route numbers to figure out which routes they need to look at schedules for.

Sounds good to me at any rate. The interface for the STCUM web site is not the greatest, so hopefully Google will give them something to aim for at least, and it could do the same for your city.

seriously where i live i already have sufficient information on how my public transit system works. is it not the same for other cities? not to mention..google seems to be trying to do everything, aren't they worried they gonna spread themselves too thin.

The site and the explanation is here: BioBus

The "concept of Québec" is not any more of a joke that "the concept of Illinois" is. Both exist, and maybe one or the other may not be respectable in your little world, but they are to just about everyone else on Plaent Earth.

If the only place in Montréal that looked clean to you was the "English part" then you haven't seen 75% of the city. I could equally go to your city and massively generalise about the entire state populace from the slummy areas too. Where are you from Anonymous Coward, Detroit?

"where people congragate with cigarette butts, and generally turning your town into a piece of Africa" I imagine you mean that to be derogatory. Too bad you've probably never seen most of Africa, which is a beautiful place

"I read somewhere that old-school racist English used to have the saying "Africa begins at Caleigh" but I never understood it until I saw Montreal." So now you agree with these Old School Racists? Forget what state, what century are you from? And it's spelled "Calais"

No, the subway is not "run by the English" if in fact one can even meaningfully distinguish between anglophones and francophones. Most people in Montréal are bilingual, and many have been brought up in both languages so that they speak each equally fluently, with no accent on either. And ethnically, most are from non-British and non-French backgrounds, but speak both. So while civil employees of the Société de transport de Montréal work in french, your distinction of "the English" or "the French" running it is a meaningless distinction common to those that don't understand the way cultures & languages work.

"though this cutie did hit on me in a pancake house [...] Would all my daughters be whores, all my sons never have a job, smoke away all the money I give them on cigarettes and die of aids from having their fudge packed by rich Americans?" Ego, derision... Ohhh, and people wonder why many people in other countries have a bad opinion of American tourists...