I was hoping the opening of REM A would finally turn the tables on the narrative about it and CDPQ would come iut of the wood with another project (taschereau), but La Presse has only intensified the negative coverage about the REM, they're really trying to convinve people that building transit in a time of climate emergency is bad.(unless it takes 20 years a 1B$/km}
And the most frusttati4part, tbis is all happening with a mayor whose mandate upon being elected is building metro lines and bike lanes, and when given an offer to do so for almost free, just didn't.
I was really inspired by the original REM. That a city in NA was building almost 70km of rapid transit within 10 years of its beginnings was crazy to me. I am really disapointed in Montreal now. I always thought that of the three big cities in Canada, it had the most potential to truly be a world-class city one in terms of transit. I’m still hopeful that it can turn this project around but I fear that NIMBY-ism has destroyed Montreal’s chances of becoming a great transit city.
It's sad to see this project struggle, especially because it has so much potential, hopefully it can turn it around and be a success story like the Elizabeth Line.
As far as I know, REM B platforms will only be able to accommodate 2-cars trains to save cost as most of the infrastructure is new unlike the REM A. More francophone inspiration would have made the project much better, as for the blue line modernization plan. Actually, Jean Drapeau, was firmly opposed to building a metro in Montreal, he changed his mind after visiting the Paris metro and hired the RATP. Valerie Plante visited Paris numerous time, but it seems she doesn’t give a sh*t… Here’s how I would improve the project:
1. Build an a city-center branch further away from the green line and with larger stations spacing (around 1.5km vs 1km in the current project), it would necessarily be tunneled as Rene Levesque is the only corridor which allows elevated.
2. Keep the northern branch ug as in the initial project and put the small Mercier section of the eastern branch ug (using cut & cover), build the rest of the line elevated.
3. Make the project future-proof: build the gare central station to allow through running to the Lucien L’Allier exo tracks in the future.
How on earth is this thing supposed to cost as much as the entire Crossrail project in London?? With a fraction of the capacity and benefits. Absolutely insane, another project killed by nimbyism :/
The Canada Line's strong ridership was really what cemented Skytrain as a successful model to keep using, and hopefully the REM opening can do the same.
Montréal did pretty amazing with the first phase of the REM and then completely screwed everything over with the later phases. Considering how I always saw the city as being the most urban friendly in North America, the cancelling of the RED'del'Est was shocking.
Montreal has been a transit basket case for several decades now. In the early 00’s when cities and regions were starting to develop progressive, long term, visions, Montreal never really fell into that groove. Making matters worse is that plans seem to get reset every time a new government comes into power. There is fair criticism to level against Ontario’s current government, but at least they largely carried on with the plans the Ontario Liberals spent a decade developing instead of ripping them all up. That continuity makes a massive difference, especially when cities are for the most part playing catch up and trying to create all new, and often massive urban transit networks.
Montreal’s transit issues run deep. Even though there are some good aspects to the current REM project, there is a lot that has been questionable since day one as well. They seem to have forgotten about EXO. There are endless metro expansions that never come. It’s no surprise that the second wave of REM proposals have been bad because how can anything good come out of such a hot mess?
When it comes to Montreal I think it’s gotten to the point where they just need to halt any further funding to avoid flushing money down the toilet until they clean house and start planning from scratch.
I am not sure would agree about EXO, but there was no plan before the REM came about really - and there has been nothing since. That's on the ARTM!
Sure the current REM like any project is imperfect, but I think it's personally hard to say it's not one of the best projects Canada has undertaken in decades on balance. I think the main reasonable criticism is that it was not mainline - but, I think its at best unclear that mainline would have been a better choice. I think I did a post about REM vs. GO RER for just this point, GO will hypothetically be a much better system long term but, theres a ton of unknowns - REM should be quite good from day one.
The biggest problem with EXO is that the system is basically GO of the 1980’s with no plans for modernization. And to a certain extent I get it. The rail network in Montreal is a mess and modernizing EXO means things like tunnels and dedicated tracks and probably some pretty expensive work to unify services into a single downtown station. And that is going to be an incredibly complex project. But the fact that even a conversation around a long term plan isn’t happening is kind of bananas.
When it comes to REM A it isn’t that project needs to be perfect. In fact there is no such thing as the perfect Canadian urban transit project (the Broadway subway might be the closest but even that isn’t a 10/10 project). The reality is that Canada is trying to figure out how to develop mass, urban transit systems to serve what are very often car oriented suburbs and that is not easy. Mistakes are going to be made because the two things are fundamentally at odds. And the REM did some things super well. Having the new Champlain bridge built with a dedicated REM right of way was a fantastic choice.
But at the end of day the REM was designed as a pension fund investment to make money on. And that meant design choices were made based on cost versus how it would actually fit into the overall transit goals today, and decades into the future. And sure the project meant a lot of stuff and kms were built and at a relatively cheap cost. But all that did was kick the can down the road. And instead of a slightly more expensive system that would have made connecting other lines into the downtown segment easier (or created better transfer points) there is an expensive mess ahead of them. That was always a day one flaw with the REM A plan.
Everyone is going to judge transit projects differently (because as you know transit people almost never fully agree on anything). But from my perspective failing to develop the project to be scalable and easily integrated into future expansions, especially when REM was being tossed around as a new model for regional transport, is a huge knock against it. And it’s a mistake that should be recognized and learned from so that other cities don’t repeat it.
I think the issue is that EXO presented no alternative model and they still haven’t- integrating all the lines shouldn’t even be that hard, will require some tunnelling though.
That being said I don’t actually agree it would be hard to scale or integrate the REM at all IF we could get costs back to reasonable levels. A project the size of the Ontario Line could create several new cross city corridors for the REM (ala Mount Royal tunnel). So you basically do three REM tunnels for four car trains, each picking up a few branches on both ends of downtown. With elevated construction over wide roads you can get the costs way down.
You are right that EXO hasn’t presented an alternative. But that is part of the larger public and political culture in Quebec at the moment. If you consider Ontario transit today (even with its imperfections) it took 14.5 years of Ontario Liberal governments creating Metrolinx and making transit a political issue and pushing and supporting large scale projects like the big move to build public support for large investments and big thinking. There are no politicians, and seemingly not much of a public groundswell, pushing agencies like EXO to do better. The only reason REM A happened is because a pension fund was involved and made the public cost minimal. If it had to be fully footed by taxpayer money who knows if it would have happened at all. And until you get charismatic people/politicians making transit an issue that a majority of people will vote for, it’s going to be a tough battle in Montreal.
As far as costs go that’s a problem any construction project faces today, whether it’s a factory or condo or transit line. When you max out your labour force and industrial capacity prices are going to increase. The government can do things like invest in expanding cement and precast factories, or home built TBMs, but it’s the labour force that is the big issue and so far no one has figured out a way to get more people into construction and the trades (at least in the way that is needed). And because that isn’t going to happen overnight transit projects have to be a lot smarter and hyper efficient in terms of their planning to make the most of what they can build. They should do that anyways but in 2020’s Canada doing that is absolutely critical.
Boy oh boy do I have a lot of Thoughts about this, and about the REM in general, and how it all goes back to the general state of affairs for transit here.
Honestly I think that there are plenty of people who for whatever reason want the project to fail. There's the obvious NIMBY angle, but I've also seen it from people on the pro-transit side, who point out, not entirely unjustifiably, that the way the project has been handled, subcontracting a regional system like this out to the private(-ish?) sector and handing over a major heavy rail trunk that had *just* been electrified for its exclusive use when it could have been further upgraded suggests a lack of long-term foresight and lack of trust in your own existing agencies. But at the same time this whole debacle and the general record of the other public-sector transit projects in the recent past have suggested that this lack of trust may be justified, and I hate it.
Ultimately if I were in charge in Quebec I'd rather have a proper Montreal RER that was more conducive to integration with interregional and intercity services given the wealth of rail corridors already in the area instead of building an entirely new system that kind of limits what's possible in the long term and owned and operated in a weird private-but-it's-a-state-owned-enterprise way, but I find it really doubtful that the ARTM was or is interested or capable in actually going ahead and doing such a thing. Given that, I really don't think anyone can be too surprised that the Caisse came in and ate their lunch when they said hey here's a system that'd be a big upgrade over existing service (even if that existing service could have ultimately been significantly better) that we're ready to build in seven years and for not-ludicrous prices. I don't know if ARTM had plans to bring the Deux-Montagnes up to acceptable regional rail service levels, but I can't believe we have to settle for these tiny incremental improvements instead of just going ahead and upgrading all the infrastructure on it and all the Exo lines. Even if they had, which I see little evidence of them thinking that they would, it seems even less likely that we would be getting the through-running, the service to Brossard and the South Shore, or the West Island/airport services. If we want these projects to happen and not end up with either nothing or all these stupid agency turf wars, we have to demand better of our agencies.
This leads me to a wider frustration I've had, that's boiled over into obsessive rage over the last few days, with how on Earth we're going to get people to take the costs issue seriously. On the off chance this is an actual real proposal, and not some strawman that they are sandbagging to have cancelled, it shows that this is not an issue we as a country are taking seriously. Even if it is a deliberately bullshit proposal, stuff like the Blue Line extension suggest that their sincere projects aren't that much better. We are seeing this across the country. The costs in Toronto are ridiculous. Even in Vancouver, which I think is comparatively pretty well-run in terms of transit, I cannot think of a single good reason why the Surrey-Langley Skytrain will cost over double per km what the original Millennium Line cost despite it also being 100% elevated. Even with the Broadway Subway, the most obviously good transit plan in the city, we've had to make political compromises because of these cost increases. This has very real effects!
Just...who am I supposed to talk to? What am I supposed to do? I hate screaming into the void. Sorry this turned into a giant rant post, this news has just left me feeling extremely frustrated.
Before the REM was proposed, I don’t think there were any serious plans to turn the Deux-Montagnes line into a modern RER service. That would have required major upgrades to the line. The line was electrified, but I believe all of the platforms at the stations except for Gare Centrale had low platforms that required users to climb stairs to get on the train; needless to say those platforms would have had to be raised. Also, there were several at-grade crossings and single-track portions of the line that would have probably had to be grade-separated and double-tracked. Ultimately, one can make the argument that what was really most valuable about the Deux-Montagnes line was its right-of-way. And so, if it was going to be necessary to do major upgrades and basically rebuild a lot of the line anyways, you could argue that you might as well turn it into automated metro and save on operations costs in the long term.
That said, an RER system would still have probably been ideal. But considering that there were no actual plans to build an RER and that the Deux-Montagnes line’s right-of-way was useful for a project like the REM that would bring rapid transit to Brossard, the airport and many other areas, I think it ultimately made sense. The REM is obviously much better than the old Deux-Montagnes line with had trains run hourly off-peak and lacked level-boarding. And nothing (except perhaps lack of political will and freight rail ownership of the tracks) is stopping Montreal from electrifying, double-tracking, grade-separating, and raising platforms on the other commuter rail lines. Perhaps even another tunnel for mainline regional rail could be built.
The DM line is interesting because I don’t think there is a right or wrong choice in terms of whether it should have been a modernized regional rail line, or turned into an REM line. Both options have nearly equal merits and drawbacks. The big issue is how do you integrate that line into part of a larger, regional network. In other words, both could be successful if you picked a technology and then followed through to maximize its use on the network as a whole.
And it’s that follow through and long term planning that is hurting Montreal right now. A lot of EXO lines could make sense as RER. Some, like service to Dorion-Rigsud or St-Bruno should probably be conventional electrified regional rail. But they just need a long term vision so that when they are working on really expensive cations, like tunnels through the downtown core and under Mont-Royal, they build them with the future in mind. This way additional projects after that don’t have to deal with those costs as well.
You are not alone in that frustration. Montreal is a city that does a lot of things right, but has just been absolutely brutal on transit for the last few decades.
And part of the problem is that you can’t talk about transit planning without also talking about the political class and construction industry corruption & influence in the province, which is obviously a hugely complicated issue. It’s hard to see how any serious, long term, transit plans can actually be developed when there isn’t a single party with a long term, progressive vision, or who doesn’t get caught up in the pettiest aspects of politicking.
REM A is a 70% project. It was relatively cheap, it built many kms, it uses modern equipment. But the 30% it missed was being scalable and suitable for efficient (ie lower cost) expansion. And the decision to just go with the budget option is causing havoc now because new lines can’t just piggyback off an existing downtown segment and save a huge amount of cash off of the price tag.
And to me that is the most frustrating part. REM could have set up future expansion brilliantly. It could have really allowed for a much broader modernization campaign of regional transit to take place. But short term, budget minded decisions have really sunk that opportunity and now it’s back to square one in terms of figuring out what to do in Montreal and the surrounding region.
I would also add that they (in the broad sense of the word) have kind of positioned REM to be the future of regional transit. An EXO replacement, or at the very least what they use instead of building new commuter lines. And that is a fine strategy. If the plans are for it to be a faster, more regional metro type system or even just a one off, then sure they can do whatever they want. But right now their vision is completely unclear and confusing. And until they actually pick a vision their plans are going to continue to be bad and poorly supported by the public.
The simplest answer I can give is that it depends on what the ambitions for REM are. Obviously there is the REM de l’est line. But there have also been discussions of a branch line to Laval, extension to Chambly and St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, and branch lines at Panama heading to Longueuil or possibly to Chateauguay in the other direction.
If all of those are serious ideas, then that would be great and it would actually create an incredibly flexible, fast, semi regional network that would really change transit options for the region, especially the East Island and South Shore. But that also means there would be four branch lines on each side of central station all running through a Mont Royal tunnel. That’s a fundamentally different network than what REM A is in its current form which is essentially a metro with a few branch lines on the northern/western end of it. And while automation does help reduce headways and increase capacities, 4 branch lines on each end is going to push the limits of the shared section (primarily when it comes to ensuring smooth boarding and unboarding). So in that case you need to make sure the shared section is ready for that, and the rest of the network is designed for extensions and branches to easily be plugged into it.
Does that mean central station would have to have been done differently and at a higher cost? Yes, in particular to make sure REM de l’est could easily connect into it. But those are the kind of preliminary choices that would allow extensions to be planned and constructed in total isolation without being worried about impacts on the rest of the network. And because the only cost would be the extension you can eliminate additional price increases by not having to sort out downtown sections again and branch line connections.
As it stands right now REM A is fine for what is currently being built. And if that’s all they really want to do with the line, then they are fine. But I would also argue that would a waste of the networks potential and doesn’t really help anything in the long term. And that goes back to one of the root problems. That long term planning has been poor for decades in Montreal (regardless of the agency) and by planning lines “on the fly” instead of developing comprehensive plans all they do is make life more difficult and expensive for themselves.
For all its faults, it seemed genuinely exciting for a split second-the original proposed REM de l'Est seemed like a natural evolution of the first. And yet...politics or something has resulted in this punchline of a...I don't know what to call it, I don't want to give it the dignity of calling it a plan.
And you're right, this is a flawed concept. What I find infuriating is that no one else in relevant positions seems to have genuinely had any better ideas despite how clear what the regional system -should- be like, and it seems like their influence has only been negative, and certainly so on the REM de l'Est. I really do believe that it is critical that our public agencies develop the in-house capacity and resources needed for these kinds of project, but first they must demonstrate that they actually have a clue. I have similarly complicated feelings about the situation in California.
I actually live in Vancouver, though I grew up in Montreal and so am unusually attached to it. I think Translink does a decent job for the most part, though I'm very alarmed at the way costs have been going up steadily for each new Skytrain extension. I also suspect that the only reason they haven't been embarrassing themselves with mainline rail service like the rest of the continent is because there is basically none to speak of out here lol. That said, I like having just the one agency responsible for the entire metro area, helps prevent petty infighting.
Unfortunately REM A was always going to set up the next proposal for failure. By using the existing Deux-Montagne corridor, being able to piggyback off of the new Champlain bridge, they had advantages that most projects don’t get. Couple that with other cost saving decisions and there was no way a second project could ever come close to the same cost/km.
That said this REM B plan is literally so horribly bad that there is no way it wasn’t fuelled by a combination of incompetence, corruption, and politics. I don’t even think there is some ‘conspiracy’ that they made the project bad to sink it. It just seems like anyone involved in the plan is just really not that smart when it comes to transit planning, or the politics of selling transit expansion to the public.
Are these things perhaps also being said by relevant local academics such as at Polytechnique ? Who are the locals who can influence the discussion in the right directions?
To me what is frustrating is the land use around REM stations.
The currently opening stations under highways or in the middle of parking lots surrounded by fast food and big box stores making them less of a destination for people not in the suburbs.
I think many suburbanites who are getting a rapid transit system are unfairly getting fantastic access to the city without necessarily allowing others to access to their areas (in terms of new development or local bus/bike lines). To me this is the opposite of what we should expect areas around the REM stations to be like.
If we want to solve car congestion, affordable housing the REM alone is not enough and the NIMBYs need some education.
There's not a single day that they don't interview someone complaining about the noise on the radio or at least talk about it. I don't know why they are piling against it that much. Maybe slow news days? The rem isn't without its fault: I'll need to carry two cards to pay depending on the transit I'll be taking, it will be 40% more expensive than the bus and it will take a bit longer on most days to get to work. Unless the price skyrockets due to the private partnership of the project, I think it's definitely a step in the right direction anyway!
Ah NIMBYs. Unsophisticated American that I am, I kind of thought Quebec would be more welcoming to a great transit project than most cities here in the US, ground zero for NIMBYism and the “my-time-horizon-is-the-next-election” politicians who unsurprisingly cave to a vocal, well-organized minority. But cheer up, RM and Canadian friends, you’re still doing way better overall on new and transformative transit projects than your neighbors to the south. I have a wee bit of hope for LA, but fear NIMBYism there will screw up some important projects, like the Sepulveda line. Happy belated Canada Day.
When they rerouted away from Sherbrooke East onto Souligny, imo that was when they soft-cancelled it. There is no possible universe in which routing through a heavy commuter and industrial boulevard would piss off fewer neighbours than a freight line that has one slow short consist every day
I used to be completely dismissive of the noise problem because I lived in Vancouver for a bit and I remember SkyTrain guideways being a complete non-issue (besides I guess down under Commercial-Broadway) but then I went to check the testing phases near Peel Basin and ... they're there. I'd say actually the freight is probably less annoying than the light rail in context, but where I'm getting at is basically the point you raised about René-Lévesque in downtown:
Sherbrooke was a *much* better allignent than Souligny, and they gave it up because of a minuscule amount of pressure. If we can't run modern guideways along our stupidest, loudest, ugliest car and truck corridors, then what *can* we do.
I was hoping the opening of REM A would finally turn the tables on the narrative about it and CDPQ would come iut of the wood with another project (taschereau), but La Presse has only intensified the negative coverage about the REM, they're really trying to convinve people that building transit in a time of climate emergency is bad.(unless it takes 20 years a 1B$/km}
And the most frusttati4part, tbis is all happening with a mayor whose mandate upon being elected is building metro lines and bike lanes, and when given an offer to do so for almost free, just didn't.
The political and media environment does feel very negative on the project.
I was really inspired by the original REM. That a city in NA was building almost 70km of rapid transit within 10 years of its beginnings was crazy to me. I am really disapointed in Montreal now. I always thought that of the three big cities in Canada, it had the most potential to truly be a world-class city one in terms of transit. I’m still hopeful that it can turn this project around but I fear that NIMBY-ism has destroyed Montreal’s chances of becoming a great transit city.
It’s crazy yeah, but maybe a good reminder of how much the model matters
It's sad to see this project struggle, especially because it has so much potential, hopefully it can turn it around and be a success story like the Elizabeth Line.
I hope so, we shall see - my optimism is crushed
As far as I know, REM B platforms will only be able to accommodate 2-cars trains to save cost as most of the infrastructure is new unlike the REM A. More francophone inspiration would have made the project much better, as for the blue line modernization plan. Actually, Jean Drapeau, was firmly opposed to building a metro in Montreal, he changed his mind after visiting the Paris metro and hired the RATP. Valerie Plante visited Paris numerous time, but it seems she doesn’t give a sh*t… Here’s how I would improve the project:
1. Build an a city-center branch further away from the green line and with larger stations spacing (around 1.5km vs 1km in the current project), it would necessarily be tunneled as Rene Levesque is the only corridor which allows elevated.
2. Keep the northern branch ug as in the initial project and put the small Mercier section of the eastern branch ug (using cut & cover), build the rest of the line elevated.
3. Make the project future-proof: build the gare central station to allow through running to the Lucien L’Allier exo tracks in the future.
Sure, if it is ready for four car trains it creates more of a true “second trunk”
How on earth is this thing supposed to cost as much as the entire Crossrail project in London?? With a fraction of the capacity and benefits. Absolutely insane, another project killed by nimbyism :/
Yeah it’s truly unbelievable
The Canada Line's strong ridership was really what cemented Skytrain as a successful model to keep using, and hopefully the REM opening can do the same.
Hopefully, we shall see!
Montréal did pretty amazing with the first phase of the REM and then completely screwed everything over with the later phases. Considering how I always saw the city as being the most urban friendly in North America, the cancelling of the RED'del'Est was shocking.
Shocking is fair, it’s a big step back
The insane pricing is reminiscent of ion phase 2 in KWC
Yeah! But worse!
Montreal has been a transit basket case for several decades now. In the early 00’s when cities and regions were starting to develop progressive, long term, visions, Montreal never really fell into that groove. Making matters worse is that plans seem to get reset every time a new government comes into power. There is fair criticism to level against Ontario’s current government, but at least they largely carried on with the plans the Ontario Liberals spent a decade developing instead of ripping them all up. That continuity makes a massive difference, especially when cities are for the most part playing catch up and trying to create all new, and often massive urban transit networks.
Montreal’s transit issues run deep. Even though there are some good aspects to the current REM project, there is a lot that has been questionable since day one as well. They seem to have forgotten about EXO. There are endless metro expansions that never come. It’s no surprise that the second wave of REM proposals have been bad because how can anything good come out of such a hot mess?
When it comes to Montreal I think it’s gotten to the point where they just need to halt any further funding to avoid flushing money down the toilet until they clean house and start planning from scratch.
I am not sure would agree about EXO, but there was no plan before the REM came about really - and there has been nothing since. That's on the ARTM!
Sure the current REM like any project is imperfect, but I think it's personally hard to say it's not one of the best projects Canada has undertaken in decades on balance. I think the main reasonable criticism is that it was not mainline - but, I think its at best unclear that mainline would have been a better choice. I think I did a post about REM vs. GO RER for just this point, GO will hypothetically be a much better system long term but, theres a ton of unknowns - REM should be quite good from day one.
The biggest problem with EXO is that the system is basically GO of the 1980’s with no plans for modernization. And to a certain extent I get it. The rail network in Montreal is a mess and modernizing EXO means things like tunnels and dedicated tracks and probably some pretty expensive work to unify services into a single downtown station. And that is going to be an incredibly complex project. But the fact that even a conversation around a long term plan isn’t happening is kind of bananas.
When it comes to REM A it isn’t that project needs to be perfect. In fact there is no such thing as the perfect Canadian urban transit project (the Broadway subway might be the closest but even that isn’t a 10/10 project). The reality is that Canada is trying to figure out how to develop mass, urban transit systems to serve what are very often car oriented suburbs and that is not easy. Mistakes are going to be made because the two things are fundamentally at odds. And the REM did some things super well. Having the new Champlain bridge built with a dedicated REM right of way was a fantastic choice.
But at the end of day the REM was designed as a pension fund investment to make money on. And that meant design choices were made based on cost versus how it would actually fit into the overall transit goals today, and decades into the future. And sure the project meant a lot of stuff and kms were built and at a relatively cheap cost. But all that did was kick the can down the road. And instead of a slightly more expensive system that would have made connecting other lines into the downtown segment easier (or created better transfer points) there is an expensive mess ahead of them. That was always a day one flaw with the REM A plan.
Everyone is going to judge transit projects differently (because as you know transit people almost never fully agree on anything). But from my perspective failing to develop the project to be scalable and easily integrated into future expansions, especially when REM was being tossed around as a new model for regional transport, is a huge knock against it. And it’s a mistake that should be recognized and learned from so that other cities don’t repeat it.
I think the issue is that EXO presented no alternative model and they still haven’t- integrating all the lines shouldn’t even be that hard, will require some tunnelling though.
That being said I don’t actually agree it would be hard to scale or integrate the REM at all IF we could get costs back to reasonable levels. A project the size of the Ontario Line could create several new cross city corridors for the REM (ala Mount Royal tunnel). So you basically do three REM tunnels for four car trains, each picking up a few branches on both ends of downtown. With elevated construction over wide roads you can get the costs way down.
You are right that EXO hasn’t presented an alternative. But that is part of the larger public and political culture in Quebec at the moment. If you consider Ontario transit today (even with its imperfections) it took 14.5 years of Ontario Liberal governments creating Metrolinx and making transit a political issue and pushing and supporting large scale projects like the big move to build public support for large investments and big thinking. There are no politicians, and seemingly not much of a public groundswell, pushing agencies like EXO to do better. The only reason REM A happened is because a pension fund was involved and made the public cost minimal. If it had to be fully footed by taxpayer money who knows if it would have happened at all. And until you get charismatic people/politicians making transit an issue that a majority of people will vote for, it’s going to be a tough battle in Montreal.
As far as costs go that’s a problem any construction project faces today, whether it’s a factory or condo or transit line. When you max out your labour force and industrial capacity prices are going to increase. The government can do things like invest in expanding cement and precast factories, or home built TBMs, but it’s the labour force that is the big issue and so far no one has figured out a way to get more people into construction and the trades (at least in the way that is needed). And because that isn’t going to happen overnight transit projects have to be a lot smarter and hyper efficient in terms of their planning to make the most of what they can build. They should do that anyways but in 2020’s Canada doing that is absolutely critical.
Boy oh boy do I have a lot of Thoughts about this, and about the REM in general, and how it all goes back to the general state of affairs for transit here.
Honestly I think that there are plenty of people who for whatever reason want the project to fail. There's the obvious NIMBY angle, but I've also seen it from people on the pro-transit side, who point out, not entirely unjustifiably, that the way the project has been handled, subcontracting a regional system like this out to the private(-ish?) sector and handing over a major heavy rail trunk that had *just* been electrified for its exclusive use when it could have been further upgraded suggests a lack of long-term foresight and lack of trust in your own existing agencies. But at the same time this whole debacle and the general record of the other public-sector transit projects in the recent past have suggested that this lack of trust may be justified, and I hate it.
Ultimately if I were in charge in Quebec I'd rather have a proper Montreal RER that was more conducive to integration with interregional and intercity services given the wealth of rail corridors already in the area instead of building an entirely new system that kind of limits what's possible in the long term and owned and operated in a weird private-but-it's-a-state-owned-enterprise way, but I find it really doubtful that the ARTM was or is interested or capable in actually going ahead and doing such a thing. Given that, I really don't think anyone can be too surprised that the Caisse came in and ate their lunch when they said hey here's a system that'd be a big upgrade over existing service (even if that existing service could have ultimately been significantly better) that we're ready to build in seven years and for not-ludicrous prices. I don't know if ARTM had plans to bring the Deux-Montagnes up to acceptable regional rail service levels, but I can't believe we have to settle for these tiny incremental improvements instead of just going ahead and upgrading all the infrastructure on it and all the Exo lines. Even if they had, which I see little evidence of them thinking that they would, it seems even less likely that we would be getting the through-running, the service to Brossard and the South Shore, or the West Island/airport services. If we want these projects to happen and not end up with either nothing or all these stupid agency turf wars, we have to demand better of our agencies.
This leads me to a wider frustration I've had, that's boiled over into obsessive rage over the last few days, with how on Earth we're going to get people to take the costs issue seriously. On the off chance this is an actual real proposal, and not some strawman that they are sandbagging to have cancelled, it shows that this is not an issue we as a country are taking seriously. Even if it is a deliberately bullshit proposal, stuff like the Blue Line extension suggest that their sincere projects aren't that much better. We are seeing this across the country. The costs in Toronto are ridiculous. Even in Vancouver, which I think is comparatively pretty well-run in terms of transit, I cannot think of a single good reason why the Surrey-Langley Skytrain will cost over double per km what the original Millennium Line cost despite it also being 100% elevated. Even with the Broadway Subway, the most obviously good transit plan in the city, we've had to make political compromises because of these cost increases. This has very real effects!
Just...who am I supposed to talk to? What am I supposed to do? I hate screaming into the void. Sorry this turned into a giant rant post, this news has just left me feeling extremely frustrated.
Idk, the DM line was reelectrified in the 90s, they had 20 years and didn’t do anything. The REM is frankly probably a better use.
Before the REM was proposed, I don’t think there were any serious plans to turn the Deux-Montagnes line into a modern RER service. That would have required major upgrades to the line. The line was electrified, but I believe all of the platforms at the stations except for Gare Centrale had low platforms that required users to climb stairs to get on the train; needless to say those platforms would have had to be raised. Also, there were several at-grade crossings and single-track portions of the line that would have probably had to be grade-separated and double-tracked. Ultimately, one can make the argument that what was really most valuable about the Deux-Montagnes line was its right-of-way. And so, if it was going to be necessary to do major upgrades and basically rebuild a lot of the line anyways, you could argue that you might as well turn it into automated metro and save on operations costs in the long term.
That said, an RER system would still have probably been ideal. But considering that there were no actual plans to build an RER and that the Deux-Montagnes line’s right-of-way was useful for a project like the REM that would bring rapid transit to Brossard, the airport and many other areas, I think it ultimately made sense. The REM is obviously much better than the old Deux-Montagnes line with had trains run hourly off-peak and lacked level-boarding. And nothing (except perhaps lack of political will and freight rail ownership of the tracks) is stopping Montreal from electrifying, double-tracking, grade-separating, and raising platforms on the other commuter rail lines. Perhaps even another tunnel for mainline regional rail could be built.
The DM line is interesting because I don’t think there is a right or wrong choice in terms of whether it should have been a modernized regional rail line, or turned into an REM line. Both options have nearly equal merits and drawbacks. The big issue is how do you integrate that line into part of a larger, regional network. In other words, both could be successful if you picked a technology and then followed through to maximize its use on the network as a whole.
And it’s that follow through and long term planning that is hurting Montreal right now. A lot of EXO lines could make sense as RER. Some, like service to Dorion-Rigsud or St-Bruno should probably be conventional electrified regional rail. But they just need a long term vision so that when they are working on really expensive cations, like tunnels through the downtown core and under Mont-Royal, they build them with the future in mind. This way additional projects after that don’t have to deal with those costs as well.
You are not alone in that frustration. Montreal is a city that does a lot of things right, but has just been absolutely brutal on transit for the last few decades.
And part of the problem is that you can’t talk about transit planning without also talking about the political class and construction industry corruption & influence in the province, which is obviously a hugely complicated issue. It’s hard to see how any serious, long term, transit plans can actually be developed when there isn’t a single party with a long term, progressive vision, or who doesn’t get caught up in the pettiest aspects of politicking.
REM A is a 70% project. It was relatively cheap, it built many kms, it uses modern equipment. But the 30% it missed was being scalable and suitable for efficient (ie lower cost) expansion. And the decision to just go with the budget option is causing havoc now because new lines can’t just piggyback off an existing downtown segment and save a huge amount of cash off of the price tag.
And to me that is the most frustrating part. REM could have set up future expansion brilliantly. It could have really allowed for a much broader modernization campaign of regional transit to take place. But short term, budget minded decisions have really sunk that opportunity and now it’s back to square one in terms of figuring out what to do in Montreal and the surrounding region.
How do you see it having been made more scalable?
I would also add that they (in the broad sense of the word) have kind of positioned REM to be the future of regional transit. An EXO replacement, or at the very least what they use instead of building new commuter lines. And that is a fine strategy. If the plans are for it to be a faster, more regional metro type system or even just a one off, then sure they can do whatever they want. But right now their vision is completely unclear and confusing. And until they actually pick a vision their plans are going to continue to be bad and poorly supported by the public.
The simplest answer I can give is that it depends on what the ambitions for REM are. Obviously there is the REM de l’est line. But there have also been discussions of a branch line to Laval, extension to Chambly and St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, and branch lines at Panama heading to Longueuil or possibly to Chateauguay in the other direction.
If all of those are serious ideas, then that would be great and it would actually create an incredibly flexible, fast, semi regional network that would really change transit options for the region, especially the East Island and South Shore. But that also means there would be four branch lines on each side of central station all running through a Mont Royal tunnel. That’s a fundamentally different network than what REM A is in its current form which is essentially a metro with a few branch lines on the northern/western end of it. And while automation does help reduce headways and increase capacities, 4 branch lines on each end is going to push the limits of the shared section (primarily when it comes to ensuring smooth boarding and unboarding). So in that case you need to make sure the shared section is ready for that, and the rest of the network is designed for extensions and branches to easily be plugged into it.
Does that mean central station would have to have been done differently and at a higher cost? Yes, in particular to make sure REM de l’est could easily connect into it. But those are the kind of preliminary choices that would allow extensions to be planned and constructed in total isolation without being worried about impacts on the rest of the network. And because the only cost would be the extension you can eliminate additional price increases by not having to sort out downtown sections again and branch line connections.
As it stands right now REM A is fine for what is currently being built. And if that’s all they really want to do with the line, then they are fine. But I would also argue that would a waste of the networks potential and doesn’t really help anything in the long term. And that goes back to one of the root problems. That long term planning has been poor for decades in Montreal (regardless of the agency) and by planning lines “on the fly” instead of developing comprehensive plans all they do is make life more difficult and expensive for themselves.
For all its faults, it seemed genuinely exciting for a split second-the original proposed REM de l'Est seemed like a natural evolution of the first. And yet...politics or something has resulted in this punchline of a...I don't know what to call it, I don't want to give it the dignity of calling it a plan.
And you're right, this is a flawed concept. What I find infuriating is that no one else in relevant positions seems to have genuinely had any better ideas despite how clear what the regional system -should- be like, and it seems like their influence has only been negative, and certainly so on the REM de l'Est. I really do believe that it is critical that our public agencies develop the in-house capacity and resources needed for these kinds of project, but first they must demonstrate that they actually have a clue. I have similarly complicated feelings about the situation in California.
I actually live in Vancouver, though I grew up in Montreal and so am unusually attached to it. I think Translink does a decent job for the most part, though I'm very alarmed at the way costs have been going up steadily for each new Skytrain extension. I also suspect that the only reason they haven't been embarrassing themselves with mainline rail service like the rest of the continent is because there is basically none to speak of out here lol. That said, I like having just the one agency responsible for the entire metro area, helps prevent petty infighting.
Unfortunately REM A was always going to set up the next proposal for failure. By using the existing Deux-Montagne corridor, being able to piggyback off of the new Champlain bridge, they had advantages that most projects don’t get. Couple that with other cost saving decisions and there was no way a second project could ever come close to the same cost/km.
That said this REM B plan is literally so horribly bad that there is no way it wasn’t fuelled by a combination of incompetence, corruption, and politics. I don’t even think there is some ‘conspiracy’ that they made the project bad to sink it. It just seems like anyone involved in the plan is just really not that smart when it comes to transit planning, or the politics of selling transit expansion to the public.
It’s just so bad that it’s hard to believe!
Are these things perhaps also being said by relevant local academics such as at Polytechnique ? Who are the locals who can influence the discussion in the right directions?
To me what is frustrating is the land use around REM stations.
The currently opening stations under highways or in the middle of parking lots surrounded by fast food and big box stores making them less of a destination for people not in the suburbs.
Recently I read an article that a new TOD around the Sunnybrooke station was cancelled by a few residents concerned about “traffic” congestion. https://globalnews.ca/news/9825599/pierrefonds-roxboro-redevelopment-project-rem-station-blocked/
I think many suburbanites who are getting a rapid transit system are unfairly getting fantastic access to the city without necessarily allowing others to access to their areas (in terms of new development or local bus/bike lines). To me this is the opposite of what we should expect areas around the REM stations to be like.
If we want to solve car congestion, affordable housing the REM alone is not enough and the NIMBYs need some education.
There's not a single day that they don't interview someone complaining about the noise on the radio or at least talk about it. I don't know why they are piling against it that much. Maybe slow news days? The rem isn't without its fault: I'll need to carry two cards to pay depending on the transit I'll be taking, it will be 40% more expensive than the bus and it will take a bit longer on most days to get to work. Unless the price skyrockets due to the private partnership of the project, I think it's definitely a step in the right direction anyway!
Ah NIMBYs. Unsophisticated American that I am, I kind of thought Quebec would be more welcoming to a great transit project than most cities here in the US, ground zero for NIMBYism and the “my-time-horizon-is-the-next-election” politicians who unsurprisingly cave to a vocal, well-organized minority. But cheer up, RM and Canadian friends, you’re still doing way better overall on new and transformative transit projects than your neighbors to the south. I have a wee bit of hope for LA, but fear NIMBYism there will screw up some important projects, like the Sepulveda line. Happy belated Canada Day.
When they rerouted away from Sherbrooke East onto Souligny, imo that was when they soft-cancelled it. There is no possible universe in which routing through a heavy commuter and industrial boulevard would piss off fewer neighbours than a freight line that has one slow short consist every day
It’s ridiculous though, the trains are not going to be comparably loud to freight trains!
I used to be completely dismissive of the noise problem because I lived in Vancouver for a bit and I remember SkyTrain guideways being a complete non-issue (besides I guess down under Commercial-Broadway) but then I went to check the testing phases near Peel Basin and ... they're there. I'd say actually the freight is probably less annoying than the light rail in context, but where I'm getting at is basically the point you raised about René-Lévesque in downtown:
Sherbrooke was a *much* better allignent than Souligny, and they gave it up because of a minuscule amount of pressure. If we can't run modern guideways along our stupidest, loudest, ugliest car and truck corridors, then what *can* we do.