MONTREAL -- Butterfly doors at metro stations across Montreal aren’t so easy to open – especially for the elderly, parents with strollers, and people with disabilities. 

“It is very, very hard,” said Linda Gauthier of RAPLIQ, an advocacy group in Montreal. “You have to ask somebody to do it for you.” 

That’s why the opposition at city hall is asking the Societe de transport de Montreal (STM) to make some changes, and to make them fast. 

Ensemble Montreal plans to table a motion at the next city council meeting later this month asking the STM to automate all doors across its network within four years. 

“Right now persons with reduced mobility, or seniors, or young families, they don’t have the services they deserve,” said Chantal Rossi, city councillor for Ovide-Clermont. 

In a statement, an STM spokesperson says the network has over 400 butterfly doors and only 57 of them are mechanical – but that number will be doubled by 2025. 

The transit agency is looking to make its entire network universally accessible by 2038, but advocates say this should have been done years ago. 

“They don’t know how to work,” Gauthier said. “They’ll do something one year, two years after they’ll do the door – but (they) go together.” 

Watch Andrew Brennan’s report above.