While the efforts of private corporations to win the privilege to build an underground transit system in Montreal were unsuccessful in 1910, the next decade saw projects put forth by a number of companies. These projects — developed in the dawning of the Great War — are quite interesting, as they contain the seeds of the 1966-1967 initial network.

Were it up to the Montreal Tunnel Co., the yellow line to Longueuil would have been constructed well before 1967. On March 14, 1912, its President, Duncan Mcdonald, sent a 13-page request to the Governor General of Canada. With a flourish of arguments, he asked that the Dominion help to finance his $15-million grand project: the construction of a tunnel beginning somewhere between Longueuil and St. Lambert on the South Shore, going underneath the St. Lawrence River and St. Helen's Island, and then moving north along St. Denis St. up to Côte St. Michel Road (now Jarry St.), with a branch line going to a terminus located on Champ de Mars.

Public transit in Montreal in 1913 was provided by a single company, the Montreal Tramways Co. On November 13, its President, E.A. Robert, proposed in writing to the board and to the mayor of the city a number of solutions to improve public transit. Robert emphasized that the implementation of an underground tramway was an urgent matter. As far as we know, this written proposition contains the very first suggestion of an underground system. Robert proposed the construction of at least three metro (subway) lines, the first of which, in a north-south axis, would start on Craig, between Bleury and St. Denis.

• A few dates
• History of the Bus in Montreal
• The origins of the STM