Metro Music

by Sheryl Halpern

I've always liked Montreal's Metro, or subway system.

The Metro cars are clean (really), and equipped with electronic news and weather signboards. They come by pretty much on schedule, and when they start off, they don't rumble--they play the first three notes of Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man"--da da DAA! (How appropriate can you get?)

Empty of muddy passengers, they seem to smell of vanilla--but maybe that's my imagination. Each station is decorated with more-or-less vandal-proof artwork, like the Paris Metro, and one station (McGill) used to have a library. It's culture and CAM fare for the common man.