Tag Archives: Métro de Montréal

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Actuaries make poor urban planners

Vancouver's Skylink is a Bombardier Innovia Metro light-rail system, a likely candidate for the type to be used by the REM
Vancouver’s Skylink is a Bombardier Innovia Metro light-rail system, a likely candidate for the type to be used by the REM

I can’t believe it. I’ve been stymied by light-rail.

And light-rail development in Montreal has been stymied by what appears to be a near-total lack of consultation or coordination by the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec with City Hall nor any of the numerous transit agencies operating in Greater Montreal.

This project may be responsible for some grey hairs I noticed recently; not in my lifetime has there been a transit project as audacious, innovative and potentially rewarding as the Caisse’s Réseau Électrique Métropolitain (REM).

Unfortunately, and just like every transit project announced in my lifetime, a lack of organization and consultation has likely doomed what might have been a major boon for local commuters.

This light-rail project gave me serious writer’s block. What’s the point writing about Montreal’s potential when every good idea we seem to have is so riddled with inconsistencies and flaws it’ll never get off the drawing board? The citizens of Montreal are used to being disappointed, and chronicling a city’s endemic disappointment hardly makes for good reading.

I wanted to take a closer look at some aspects of this project I found potentially innovative, but every time I started to write over the past week or so I discovered another news item detailing this project’s many defects. It wasn’t inspiring. I didn’t want to believe the cynics who initially scoffed at the REM for being too ambitious and/or requiring too much in funds from austerity-driven governments. Keep in mind the first criticism – and one of PKP’s last as leader of the PQ – was that the light-rail plan was over-focused on the suburbs at the expense of a long-planned (and now officially dormant) project to extend the Blue Line of the Métro.

Most of the criticism seemed unwarranted to me. Just because most of our recent transit and transport infrastructure endeavours have lagged behind schedule despite overinflated budgets doesn’t mean this is necessarily how things are done. And to a province wary of endemic corruption and collusion between the provincial transport ministry and the construction industry, the Caisse’s plan killed two birds with one stone: it takes initiative, and takes some of the financial burden off the public purse.

Pension funds financing infrastructure development is a smart solution to the problems that come with electing unimaginative austerity-driven governments and expecting them to ‘do more with less’.

Moreover, the Caisse’s expedited timescale to complete the project, in addition to its scale and scope, is reminiscent of Montreal’s single-greatest infrastructure success story, that of the Métro. The very first iteration of the Métro included 26 stations across three lines, and it was opened on time and in the black, entirely financed by the City of Montreal. It also only took four and a half years to build, and that was fifty years ago. The Caisse’s project is supposed to be ready in four years.

While I’d still like to see this project realized, the defects, shortcomings and problems that have come to light in the past two weeks must be addressed. Otherwise, the CDPQ’s REM project may end up causing more problems than it is worth.

Here’s a list of every reported problem with the REM so far:

– The REM is incompatible with the AMT network, and AMT trains will not be able to use the Mount Royal Tunnel. The under-performing Train de l’Est will be cut off from accessing the city centre via Central Station, and the Deux Montagnes Line will be eliminated altogether.

– This is particularly unfortunate because the AMT just sunk $300 million into building a maintenance depot to service those trains. Once the REM comes online the depot will service only a quarter of the trains it was designed to handle. On top of that, it was the AMT that purchased the Mount Royal Tunnel from CN for $92 million specifically so that it could execute renovations to expand the tunnel’s capacity.

– Light-rail systems are typically designed to be compatible with heavy-rail, such as the AMT’s commuter trains, and Montreal has a large railway network that would ideally be accessible to all AMT and future REM trains. If the Mount Royal Tunnel is rendered inaccessible to commuter rail it’s probable ridership on the $744 million Mascouche Line will decrease, and the REM may effectively prohibit its own potential future expansion.

– The system may require expropriations and demolitions, including two buildings of heritage value, the Rodier and the New City Gas. A total of seventy buildings in Montreal and Brossard have been put on notice by the Quebec government, despite the province having not yet set funds aside for the project. Worse, the incompatibility issue prevents the REM from using existing tracks on the CN viaduct. Buildings may be demolished to build a railway next to existing railways.

– Access to the airport seems to be reserved for the branch of the line running between it and Central Station. Passengers boarding on the Sainte-Anne or Deux-Montagnes branches will have to disembark at Bois-Franc and cross to the opposite platform to await an airport-bound train. From the looks of things, passengers airport-bound from the South Shore will have to disembark and transfer at Central Station.

– The locations of the Saint-Anne’s and Rive-Sud termini are suspicious; the latter is in an empty field across from the Dix-30 shopping complex, and the former adjacent to the Anse-a-l’Orme Trail. This has West Island conservationists concerned the city’s going to push through on a 5,000 home residential development next to the station. While encouraging public transit use amongst new homeowners is doubtless a good notion, it’s self-defeating if mass-transit is being oriented towards kickstarting large low-density housing projects.

– Initial discussions between the CDPQ and the city were conducted in secret, but on Monday City Councillor Craig Sauvé tweeted that Mayor Coderre now says his administration wasn’t consulted by the Caisse at all.

And if all that weren’t bad enough, the CDPQ clearly hasn’t yet consulted with the STM about hooking up the Métro to the REM at McGill and Edouard-Montpetit. I cannot stress this enough: this must be done as part of the first phase. Completing tunnel renovations and then re-renovating to build additional stations is so illogical writing that sentence actually gave me a nosebleed.

Oh wait: it actually get worse. The REM may actually be less efficient and less effective than what’s currently in service, especially in terms of passenger capacity on the Deux Montagnes Line. Anton Dubrau is anticipating crowded trains and platforms from day one.

Remember: this project doesn’t get off the ground without public money, and politicians (ostensibly) listen to their constituents. Having the Caisse fund this project is great, but before any actual work is done (or people forced from their homes and businesses), for the love of god let’s just try – once – to fix clearly identified problems before ‘the shovels pierce the soil.’

Otherwise, the REM may actually make public transit an inconvenient burden for everyone.

Hardly a wise move for the people responsible for our pensions…

Commentary, Economic commentary, Kondiaronk - My Montréal Experience, Let's make this an election issue, Political commentary, Social commentary, Urban Redevelopment, Worth reconsidering

Tempest in a Teapot

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New Azur Métro train test run - 2013
New Azur M̩tro train test run Р2013

Story out today in the Journal de Montréal about how the Azur Métro cars will be ‘too big and too heavy’ to operate in our Métro tunnels and that work had to be done to adjust the infrastructure so as to prevent trains from tipping over is about as good as it gets in terms of local media’s response to a slow news day.

The article is presented in such a fashion that makes it seem the STM only just found out about this and that these renovations may be somehow related to the delay in receiving the new Métro cars, which were initially due last July but now likely won’t be in service until the end of this year.

But according to the STM (and mentioned in the JdeM article), they new about the requirement to modify a 200 metre stretch of the Orange Line to accommodate the new trains from day one, and that the work has already been completed and factored into the overall budget.

If this is indeed the case and the STM isn’t perjuring itself then there isn’t much of a story in the first place. Yes, the new Bombardier-Alstom Azur Métro trains are heavier and bigger and will even consume more electricity than their predecessors but all of this was expected and understood since day one.

After all, these are entirely new vehicles. They are not carbon copies of the existing MR-63 and MR-73 trains. They’re bigger to accommodate more passengers. They utilize new technology. They will have a different layout and, perhaps most importantly, will permit transit users to move between Métro cars while the train is in motion. I think it’s safe to assume that, if you’re building something entirely new, it might not perfectly fit in a system it wasn’t designed for.

But, with all that in mind, the modification to the tunnels only seems to have involved 200 metres out of a total length of 71 kilometres.

In other words, less than half a percent of the Métro system needed to be modified for these vehicles. Peanuts. The STM knew this and made the decision to modify a portion of the tunnel rather than scrap the project and go back to the drawing board.

If we want to have a conversation about how private enterprise can’t ever seem to deliver a government project on time and under budget, this is another conversation (and one I’d say is well worth having). It seems to me that, time and again and at various levels of government, contractors working on government-sponsored mega projects are consistently late and chronically appealing for more money.

This is true about our new Métro cars, about the Train de l’Est project, about double-decker dual-power commuter trains, about fighter jets and maritime helicopters.

Every time government appeals to the private sector to work on public projects, they pitch it against an illogical assumption the alternative is to have the state build a factory and assume all related project costs. Over and over we’re told that appealing to the private sector saves money and will get the job done faster because of ‘the principles that guide the corporate world’ are ostensibly principles that prioritize efficiency and staying true to your word vis-a-vis project cost and delivery.

Bullshit.

The private sector’s interest in government contracts big and small is twofold, but neither has anything to do with efficiency and/or cost control. The interest lies chiefly in that a) government typically continues throwing money at the project and extending deadlines to save face and b) there are no repercussions to the provider, regardless of how late or how over-budget the project is, because they typically arrange to be the sole provider for after the fact maintenance, not to mention the fact that they own type certificates and other key pieces of intellectual capital that will keep whatever’s being built working. If a government upsets the private firm, they have very little recourse and will likely pay dearly at the polls. It’s not terribly expedient for a politician to campaign on keeping government contractors in check. People respond much better to hearing how much a politician intends on spending rather than how they plan on saving money.

We want to feel wealthy, not cheap, and we want our politicians to reflect this.

Ultimately, this is why we can’t have nice things at a reasonable, audited cost on the timeline set by the people.

A modest proposal, Commentary, Kondiaronk - My Montréal Experience, Let's make this an election issue, Montréal Architecture, Montréal Landmarks, Perspectives on the City, Political commentary, Urban Redevelopment, Worth reconsidering

Austerity Measures & Bad Design in Montreal Public Transit

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And now for something completely different...
And now for something completely different…

Not exactly the kind of news regular users of Montreal’s public transit system want to hear, but it looks like the city’s public transit agency is facing a budget shortfall of $20 million, and this apparently is going to result in service cuts – the first since the late 1990s despite increased usage. The city recently tabled it’s 2014 budget, which includes $12.5 million for the municipal transit agency, but this apparently isn’t enough to keep up current service rates according to STM President Philippe Schnobb.

Thus, cuts will focus on evening and weekend bus service, promotions and general cleanliness and maintenance.

I find it surprising that there’s money for new uniforms, however. You’d think the STM would use that money to keep buses moving and our Métro stations clean, given that it’s ridership that provides the primary revenue stream. Cutting back on the availability and quality of the principal service provided by the organization while spending money on new uniforms seems like a piss-poor idea to me. This wouldn’t happen in the private sector. Can you imagine the outrage if Air Canada cut back on flights and the general maintenance of their aircraft in a move to save money, all the while repainting the airplanes and buying new uniforms?

k-9_subway_std -

I guess that’s the key difference between the private and public sectors. Taxpayers aren’t shareholders, though we should be considered as such.

Above is a good example of why austerity measures don’t really work. It starts with cuts to cleanliness and maintenance, then security, and before you know it you’ve got the NYC Subway in the 1980s – filthy, unappealing, covered in graffiti and requiring police K9 units to maintain ‘law & order’. We shouldn’t follow their example. Rather we should learn from their mistakes.

Perhaps it’s political. Maybe there’ll be a back and forth and one day in a few weeks Mayor Coderre comes out and says, as a result of his fiscal prowess, the remainder of the STM’s budget shortfall will be covered by the city.

But I won’t be holding my breath. A 3% cut to service is just small enough it won’t result in mass demonstrations. Just frustration from the people most dependent on public transit, an unfortunately politically inconsequential demographic it seems.

I don’t know why they didn’t consider raising the fare. I think most public transit users would pay more to ensure, at the very least, that there are no cuts to upkeep, cleaning and maintenance.

It’s hard enough to keep our Métro stations and buses looking good – they need to be cleaned and maintained regularly or else they fall into disrepair. Haven’t we learned anything from the Champlain Bridge? Never cut back on regular maintenance – the problem not addressed today will be even more problematic tomorrow.

IMG_1171

I included the photo above as an example. Métrovision is actually running ads boasting about the total number of screens installed throughout the system, but as most regular users will tell you, many of the screens seem to be defective. I took the above photo at Vendome a few nights back – each screen was similarly defective, some had those annoying black spots, evidence of someone having hit or thrown something at the LCD screen. At Lionel-Groulx all four projectors weren’t working on the upper deck of the station – they haven’t worked for months. At Guy-Concordia and Bonaventure the situation was much the same as at Vendome – the screens have either been busted by vandals and/or the image doesn’t display properly.

And the STM is going to cut back on maintenance?

I’d be less concerned if it weren’t for the STM’s ‘half-assing it’ approach to improving the public transit system we have. The Métrovision screens are just one example of a good idea so poorly and inefficiently executed it makes me wonder if it wasn’t done on purpose so as to ensure the need for long-term maintenance contracts. Then there’s the Métrovision screens installed behind concrete beams at Snowdon Métro, meaning it can only be seen if you’re standing directly underneath it (see photo at top). Another example, the new bus shelters at Lionel-Groulx. The STM built what I can only describe as the world’s most ineffective bus shelter:

9170555

Now, if Montreal were located 1,000 km south (and the average Montrealer stood ten feet tall) this might not be such a bad design. But such is not the case, and this is apparently, actually the best the STM could come up with.

If this is what austerity gets us, it would be best not to build at all. These shelters are useless, primarily because they don’t provide much shelter. It’s really just that simple.

I’d prefer the STM stops putting up fancy new bus shelters with interactive advertisements and just focus on making what we already have work better. Figure out a way to get rid of the slush accumulating in Guy-Concordia. Try to eliminate the pervasive stench of urine at Bonaventure. Encase all the TV screens in a plexiglas container (why wasn’t this done from the start?). Run more buses, run the Métro later etc. And for Christ’s sake – install some public washrooms!

Now, that aside, a few questions I have re: advertising.

Recently, I was dismayed to find Sherbrooke station, and several others, looking like this:

IMG_1169

Barf.

Again, who the hell at the STM thought this was a good idea?

If only I could nominate this for the worst advertising campaign in the Métro’s proud history.

I feel it demonstrates a profound lack of respect for the general aesthetic and architecture of the stations (let’s not forget, each was designed by its own team of architects, features its own art, layout etc.), not to mention serves as an excellent demonstration of how we treat our public spaces. That is, cheaply.

This is cheap, that’s the only word for it. We may as well cover all the station walls with cork board and hang staplers on the wall. Is it any wonder we also have to contend with vandals going out of their way to destroy what we have? If the people who run the system don’t appear to be terribly interested with keeping things presentable, how can they expect the people to treat it any better?

Isn’t there a slightly better way to generate advertising revenue than by pasting over the walls of our Métro stations with uninspired marketing gimmicks?

It doesn’t make any sense really. The STM is aces when it comes to designing their own branding, instructional and promotional materials, and I’d argue both the vehicles and the systems are all very well designed indeed. But when it comes to infrastructure, the simple stuff in the grand scheme of things, the STM proves to be maddeningly inconsistent. From garbage cans to benches, bus shelters to tunnels, advertising space, PA systems and TV screens, the STM has demonstrated a lack of imagination at best and incompetence at worst.

But as always, there are some interesting solutions to consider if we open ourselves to alternative ways of thinking.

Take for instance, the TESCO virtual supermarket found in the Seoul Subway.

Tesco-Homeplus-Subway-Virtual-Store-in-South-Korea-3

There’s no question advertising is a key component of the STM’s overall plan to generate revenue, but it doesn’t have to be so much of the same old thing. As technology develops, advertising can move into interesting new territory. Take the above example. Rather than merely advertise a grocery store, TESCO brought the supermarket directly to the consumers as they wait to commute home at the end of the working day. Using your smartphone you simply scan the items you wish to purchase and place your order with online payment. The order is delivered by the end of the day. In time, developments such as a virtual store app linked to a credit or debit account could render the payment process automatic, and data provided by the user, the subway system and the smartphone could facilitate even more efficient delivery methods, timed to coincide with just after the user arrives home. The possibilities here are endless.

The TESCO virtual store model isn’t just impressive for its efficiency and the service it offers its customers, it’s also the best kind of advertising I could possibly imagine because it actually does something – it responds to my needs rather than telling me how a given store will satisfy my needs like no other. In terms of supermarkets and pharmacies the tired old pitch of incredible savings borders on the absurd (think about those idiotic Jean Coutu ads you hear on the radio set to the tune of Eine kleine Nachtmusik; ah, the refined elegance of simply unimaginable savings potential at my local chain-pharmacy! Gimme a break.)

I’d much rather have something like this serve as an advertisement. Something tells me you could easily justify slightly higher advertising rates in doing so. The STM shouldn’t wait for good design in advertising, they should push innovation in design as part of the broader image of the city as a design hub. Innovation of this type improves the overall experience enjoyed by public transit users due to the potential to save people the legitimate hassle of having to schlep to the supermarket. Yes it’s advertising, but it also provides a useful service too. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that the South Koreans would be on top of this – generally speaking the mass transit systems of the Far East are prized by the citizenry, immaculately clean, punctual – a sign of modernity and progress to be enjoyed by everyone. Including a virtual supermarket in the South Korean context is simply the next step in providing an even more exceptional customer experience.

The Montreal Métro came into being eight years before the Seoul Metropolitan Subway commenced operations in 1974. Today we have a modest improvement of the original model and Seoul boasts the world’s largest, most comprehensive and most used subway system. Whereas we are complacent in our approval to cut back on station cleanliness and allow the provincial government to dictate how and when our Métro will be expanded, the Seoul system is internationally recognized for its polished look, air-conditioned cars and 4G LTE and WiFi service, in addition to overall ease of use.

We designed one of the world’s best mass transit systems over a decade before the South Koreans, and have pretty much rested on our laurels ever since. Today we’re riding 40 year-old trains and they’re operating a system generations ahead of our own.

I suppose it’s all a matter of priorities…

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Fantasy Montreal Transit Map

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A Montreal Transit Fantasy Map by Yours Truly
A Fantasy Montreal Transit Map by Yours Truly

Perhaps I’ve got a smidge too much time on my hands…

In any event, here’s my very own Montreal transit fantasy map. This is the mass transit system I’d like to see for my city, ideally within the next twenty years but hey, much sooner would be great too.

What you’re looking at is our existing Métro with the AMT system superimposed along with some improvements I think are both reasonable and would be effective at increasing use of public transit in general.

The Métro is represented much as you might expect with thick lines of green, blue, yellow and orange.

AMT commuter rail lines are indicated by the thin coloured lines and, in this graphic, only intermodal stations on those lines are indicated.

The thin red line with stations represents a possible light rail route.

White dots indicate ordinary Métro stations. Large white circles with black rings indicate Métro transfer stations, like Snowdon or Berri-UQAM. Medium size white circles with black rings indicate Métro stations that could be linked to a surface light rail system (LRT, which I’ll get into later on), while large white boxes indicate STM-AMT intermodal stations (i.e. a station in which passengers can switch from commuter rail to the Métro and vice-versa). Four stations are represented by large white boxes with rounded edges (like Bonaventure); these stations are like the aforementioned intermodal stations, though in this case there is a further connection to the proposed LRT.

Concerning extensions, I’ve used the existing AMT commuter rail network, including the soon to be completed Train de l’Est going towards Mascouche (indicated by the thin magenta line) and have added a possible route that, much like the Train de l’Est, shares part of the AMT’s Deux-Montagnes line. The turquoise-coloured line could potentially provide a third commuter rail line to the West Island, relieving the already congested and over-burdened Deux-Montagnes & Hudson lines and providing service almost as far as the Fairview Pointe-Claire shopping centre (though, admittedly, there’d be a lot of work to do to actually connect what remains of this branch with the shopping centre and it’s key bus terminus). Because so much of the Hymus Branch cuts through the Pointe-Claire industrial sector along Highway 40, it’s possible that a kind of ‘express’ service develop here (as there wouldn’t be much point developing stations between a potential terminus near Fairview and where the Hymus Branch links up with the Deux-Montagnes line). Alternatively, I suppose it wouldn’t make much difference if a train station were simply built where the line currently ends and STM buses connected it with Fairview’s bus terminal, but I digress.

I should mention I don’t favour extending the Métro to Fairview when there’s a rail corridor that could just as easily be repurposed. A third West Island rail line (especially one that would cut right through the middle of the West Island) could potentially remove tens of thousands of cars from our already overly congested roads while providing an added incentive to live on-island.

As to the Métro, I’ve included the planned Blue Line extension to Anjou, but have further included a Blue Line extension from Snowdon to the AMT’s Montreal West train station near Loyola College in NDG. Further, I’ve included a Blue Line extension through the Mount Royal Tunnel from Edouard-Montpetit to Bonaventure, so as to allow for the Blue Line to connect directly with the central business district and the downtown train stations. As I’ve mentioned previously on this blog, the Blue Line was originally intended to connect withe the downtown via the Mount Royal Tunnel, which is now being transferred from Canadian National to the AMT, which happens to plan both Métro and commuter rail development.

In a similar vein, I’ve prolonged the Green Line from Angrignon west through LaSalle to intersect the AMT’s Candiac line, providing an intermodal station right after the bridge, while the Orange Line has been extended north by two stops in Saint-Laurent with a new terminus at an intermodal station at Bois-Franc on the busy Deux-Montagnes Line (which currently accounts for 45% of the AMT’s passengers). The Yellow Line has also been extended to alleviate congestion on the Orange and Green lines that pass through the CBD. The new Yellow Line would have a station at (or near) the Bonsecours Market to provide better access to the Old Port and Old Montreal and would terminate at McGill rather than Berri-UQAM, with stops on Prince-Arthur (near St-Laurent in an effort to revitalize the pedestrian mall), Parc & Pine (to access the mountain, Parc Jeanne-Mance, Molson Stadium etc.) and somewhere along Milton to open up the McGill Ghetto.

And then I added the purple line along Pie-IX boulevard, running from Montreal North to the Olympic Stadium, with a transfer station where it intersects the Blue Line, and an intermodal station connecting to the AMT’s Mascouche line.

Where’s This Coming From?

Many of these extensions are based on proposals or extension studies carried out in the past. In fact, as recently as the last municipal election, Projet Montréal proposed western extensions of the Blue and Yellow lines in addition to the northern extension of the Orange line to Bois-Franc. So this map isn’t exactly original and for that reason I think it’s a safe bet we’re moving in this direction anyways, it’s just a matter of time.

In addition, using the Mount Royal Tunnel to get the Blue Line to the city, and building a new line under Pie-IX, have both been on the drawing board before (in fact, the official STM map from about 1980 to 1990 portrayed the Pie-IX line as the inevitable next step as a dotted white line).

Perhaps the most unique component of this transit map is the inclusion of a possible surface light-rail route, as indicated by the thin red line on the map, but in this case as well, I’m not exactly starting from scratch. Given that the new Champlain Bridge is supposed to have an LRT integrated into it, and that the most likely route from the bridge to the city is up the Bonaventure Corridor, I figured such a system could theoretically make use of much more of this city’s existing rail infrastructure.

Thus, the Red Line loops around the city – a light train could run from Lucien-L’Allier train station all the way to Bonaventure, the long way, and provide a kind of public transit ‘ring road’ that would connect all the extant Métro lines with all AMT commuter rail lines at multiple points of intersection.

I also added a second branch of the Red Line designed to mirror the old Expo Express Line, though my version would connect directly to the Longueuil Métro station and bus terminus, effectively providing residents of our major South Shore neighbour two convenient methods of accessing the city centre.

This would effectively turn Place Bonaventure into a major transit hub, linking the city’s two main train stations with the heart of the RÉSO and further becoming the main terminal for a potential light rail system.

Two Métro lines, six (possibly seven) commuter rail lines, an LRT system, local, commuter and regional bus service, access to the Underground City, VIA Rail and AMTRAK all concentrated into a very small, very well connected area.

I can imagine Place Bonaventure would be renamed Gare Bonaventure were such a thing to happen.

What’s the Point?

I don’t want our public transit system to become a victim of it’s own success. In the last decade use of the Métro and AMT commuter rail systems has increased dramatically, but because we’re not doing enough to expand and improve these systems along with increases in usage, we’re coming across new challenges. It’s rather ironic – our public transit system is congested. The system we devised to mitigate congestion on our roads and highways has itself become congested, and that in turn is turning people away from our public mass transit system.

I don’t think there’s a single solution, but integrating the multiple solutions we come up with is probably the right move. The Red Line LRT could provide two new mass transit connections to the South Shore, alleviating congestion on the Métro and bridges and providing an alternative to the commuter rail line. It would also help to connect various parts of the city without forcing additional passengers into the central portions of the Orange and Green lines. Similarly, modifying the Mount Royal Tunnel for Métro use and extending the Yellow Line would mean four Métro lines (rather than two) would have direct access to the massive transit hub in the heart of the financial district.

As I mentioned before, this LRT route would further be useful in linking outer segments of otherwise disconnected Métro lines and help bridge ‘high capacity transit deserts’ in some of the first ring urban residential zones.

I look at this map and I see the potential for a city that is much better connected to itself, evolving past our current model which is effectively only designed to move commuters at two different rates of operation and along two different scales of distance. The system I’ve envisioned is designed to connect as much of the city as possible to high-speed, high-capacity mass transit, while further permitting a greater amount of the most heavily populated part of the island to exist within a well-defined ‘high-access’ zone. With eleven intermodal stations, more of urban Montreal becomes accessible to suburban commuters, which in turn could provide prospective suburban home owners with many more options to choose from.

And in the city, well, imagine a system such as this along with more buses, reserved bus lanes and even bus rapid transit (BRT) replacing traditional bus routes.

Would anyone living in downtown Montreal really need a car with such a system?

Ultimately, and regardless of cleaner, more fuel efficient or otherwise electric engines, congestion is still going to be a major concern. We have to realize that our street system was designed, for the most part, in a horse-drawn era in which mass transit was the norm for everyone. Our roads aren’t really built to handle the number of cars currently using them and this is why it costs so much to repair and maintain them each and every year. Removing cars and (simultaneously) improving our public mass transit system is in my opinion the only logical way forward for our city. It wouldn’t just be good for the environment, but would be good for our pocket books as well.

In any event, something to think about. Please comment!

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Champlain Bridge Blues

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Conversely, a view from the bridge rather than of it.
Conversely, a view from the bridge rather than of it.

So here’s our situation.

The most used bridge in all of Canada may be in danger of breaking apart and partially collapsing. Last week a known crack was determined to have widened enough emergency repairs and lane closures were merited. We’ve heard this before – it seems like the Champlain Bridge is in a constant state of emergency lane closures and repairs.

As Bruno Bisson of La Presse points out, there’s no Plan B in case the bridge has to be permanently shut down in advance of any proposed replacement. And because there’s no inter-agency nor inter-governmental cooperation on major transit and transport issues in Greater Montreal, there’s also no real hope of creating a Plan B quickly.

Ergo, if the bridge is in worse shape than we’re being told, it may become unusable and create one hell of a transit and traffic problem. One that will require swift corrective action less the closure of the bridge begin to negatively impact the city and region’s economy.

Federal NDP leader Tom Mulcair describes the Tories’ handling of the Champlain Bridge replacement project as ‘inexcusable’ as the project is significantly behind schedule and is currently estimated to cost anywhere from three to five billion dollars. In addition, the poor state of the bridge has been known to the crown corporation in charge of it for some time, and a considerable sum of taxpayers’ money (federal money, not local or provincial just to be precise) has been spent applying band-aid solutions rather than building anything new. The Tories first proposed a bridge replacement project early in their first mandate – seven years ago. Nothing has been accomplished to date, though the estimated cost has increased considerably.

For Context

Fifty million vehicles cross the Champlain Bridge each year, making it the single busiest crossing in all of Canada, working out to roughly 160,000 vehicles per day. Removing it from the city’s ‘transit and traffic equation’ without replacement would be very bad indeed, and not just for the individuals who cross it daily. The Champlain Bridge is bigger than itself, and if removed there will be a profoundly negative cascade effect presenting new stresses on every other bridge, tunnel and transit system used to cross the river.

Though the bridge is only fifty-one years old and the youngest of the city’s four principle bridges, it was built with an apparently poor quality concrete that has eroded far quicker than expected. Transport Canada argues that the span was never intended to handle it’s current operating capacity and that de-icing salt, sprayed in the volumes necessary to clear the bridge for high-traffic use, has expedited the deterioration of the concrete.

Today’s news is that a steel ‘super beam’ will be installed to buttress a girder against any further deterioration of its concrete. We should note that this beam was delivered in 2009; there are 350 beams on the bridge in various states of deterioration, and so I can imagine the Transport Canada may have several of these so-called ‘super beams’ lying around their worksites waiting to be used. Ergo, they’re anticipating years of serious maintenance and repairs anyways.

A report issued by the Fed back in 2011 estimated that yearly maintenance of the deteriorating bridge (assumedly at constant current usage rates) would come out to a quarter billion dollars over the course of a decade without solving anything: the bridge will remain in poor shape without replacement, though assumedly the quarter-billion dollar investment would, at the very least, keep it going for a decade.

Now Federal Transport Minister Denis Lebel is indicating the construction of the new bridge may be expedited to be completed before the originally estimated date of completion set at 2021.

When was the last time the Tories got anything built and delivered on schedule? We have reason to doubt such pronouncements; not only are the Tories notoriously bad for over-promising and under-delivering, there’s no political advantage in speeding up construction.

Questions

Does the cost of the new bridge (which, at $5 billion is ridiculously expensive) include the cost of maintaining the current bridge?

It’s not like the question is ‘either we continue maintaining the bridge for an estimated quarter billion or we replace it for five’ – either both need to occur simultaneously or the current bridge is maintained up to the point it becomes redundant. Obviously, the current bridge can’t be shut down while the next one is being built.

And yet, with each and every car, truck and bus passing over it, with every winter and every snowfall, it gets weaker, and we may have painted ourselves into a corner where that becomes our reality…

I’d like to know, were structural maintenance and repairs to be suspended, how long would it take before the bridge became unusable? How long before pieces begin to fall off? How long until it collapses?

Assuming the bridge has a definitive expiry date, how much longer can Transport Canada and the Jacques Cartier and Champlain Bridge Corporation realistically and cost-effectively maintain it and how much is too much to spend, per year, on bridge maintenance and repairs?

Would the bridge last longer/ cost less to maintain and repair each year if the traffic volume were reduced through the expansion of alternative transit systems?

As to the cost of the new bridge, where exactly is the money coming from? There’s been talk of tolls used to pay down the cost once the bridge is completed. But does this mean that the federal government has three to five billion dollars up front to pay the cost of the bridge?

It’s these last two points that brings us back to the issue of why we need a greater degree of inter-agency cooperation; if the Fed has five billion dollars to spend on a new bridge, why not invest that money in developing mass-transit systems that lessen the load on the Champlain? Reducing the bridge’s traffic volume may extend its life, or at the very least make it easier to repair and maintain. Even if the estimated cost to maintain and repair the Champlain Bridge for the next decade were to double to $500 million, this would be but a tenth the cost of the bridge’s apparent successor.

Cooperation

At the end of the day the issue isn’t ‘how do we replace the Champlain Bridge’, but rather ‘how do we get anywhere from fifty to a hundred thousand motorists to give up their cars for the purposes of commuting in and out of the city?’

Wouldn’t cutting one to two-thirds of the bridge’s daily vehicle crossings not only potentially extend the bridge’s lifespan but reduce yearly maintenance and repair costs as well?

And if you could divert the rest of those vehicles onto other bridges without over-loading them, would we even still need a Champlain Bridge at all?

And if those costs were reduced, wouldn’t that have an effect on the total cost of the bridge’s replacement, given that the proposed replacement wouldn’t need to be built as quickly, nor to the same, rather grandiose specifications as the current proposal?

If the Tories want to do something that will actually benefit the people of Greater Montreal, then it stands to reason they should cooperate, fully, with provincial and local authorities to incite and propel a major shift towards public transit commuting throughout the South Shore.

As it already stands, the AMT’s Candiac line is the fastest growing (in terms of usage) of the whole system, but both South Shore AMT lines combined carry less than half what the AMT’s Deux-Montagnes line carries by itself. In order to make the AMT’s South Shore lines more usable, they’ll need to increase operational tempo, and this in turn means working out a new agreement with the owner of the Victoria Bridge, which is to say Canadian National Railways.

Further still, an entire new network of bus routes will have to be created to quickly pull in commuters from the sprawling suburbs to either the Longueuil Métro station or the many commuter rail stations operated by the AMT, though this is quite outside further incentives, such as rebates on transit passes. Constructing large parking lots and parking garages near bus and train hubs could help keep cars on the South Shore, but who would be responsible for such construction isn’t entirely clear.

The major point is that the combined cost of maintaining the Champlain Bridge so that it doesn’t deteriorate quite as quickly, coupled with investments in public transit to lessen the bridge’s load, both come out to significantly less than building a ten-lane super bridge. Under ideal circumstances the Champlain would only be used by trucks, buses and people who cannot depend on public transit for their day-to-day work, with commuters dispersed across other modes. And if absolutely necessary, perhaps the Champlain Ice Bridge could be fitted with a temporary light-rail system to further encourage the shift away from car commuting.

But all this requires, as I mentioned before, an entirely new way of looking at transit and transport issues, one that looks at the big picture rather than short-sighted notions of limited responsibility.

As long as we’re dealing with an alphabet soup of transit agencies with competing political interests we gain nothing; as long as we wait for the Fed to replace the bridge we get nothing but a lot of cheap talk.

If our newly elected mayor is looking for something to do, I suggest he meet with the mayor of Longueuil, the heads of the RTL, AMT and STM and see what short-term measures they could put into place to turn down vehicular volume on the Champlain Bridge, and as quickly as possible too.

A modest proposal, Commentary, Kondiaronk - My Montréal Experience, Let's make this an election issue, Montréal Architecture, Montréal Landmarks, Perspectives on the City, Political commentary, Social commentary, Urban Redevelopment, Worth reconsidering

Premier Marois to Stifle Opposition with Métro Extension Plan

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AMT Métro Extension Plan
AMT Métro Extension Plan

The mayoral contest officially kicked off today with Projet Montréal taking a strong lead, winning the idiotically-named ‘poster war’ thanks primarily to the fact the party is fielding 103 candidates and an immense volunteer effort. Aside from Projet’s street sign ubiquity, Mélanie Joly may have come in second place (who’s counting?) with her unconventional Super Woman pose and dark background posters.

And in response to a week of outright hostility from nearly all quarters of our city, the Premiere, Benevolent Queen Pauline Marois, announced a Métro extension. As the CBC puts it, “Montreal’s Metro system is about to get its biggest and most expensive upgrade since the Laval extension.”

Indeed.

In fact, the PQ has announced that they’ve set aside $38.8 million for a planning office with a two year mandate. Whether the PQ lasts that long is another issue.

So don’t get your hopes up – this isn’t a ‘shovel-in-hand’ announcement of the immediate construction of Métro tunnels. It’s more an announcement of intent to eventually do something.

When it comes to the Métro, that’s pretty much all we’ve gotten for years anyways. The Charest government made a similar announcement back in 2009 though nothing came of it, and the idea to extend the Blue Line further east dates back to the mid-1980s when the line was first developed. Of note, Charest’s 2009 plan called for closing the Orange Line loop, as well as extensions in both directions of the Yellow Line, in addition to the Blue Line extension, as you can see in the above image. Today’s announcement mentioned that a Yellow Line extension would be contemplated once the Blue Line project is completed.

Why not do both?

Why not do the 2009 plan?

Wouldn’t we save money in the long run if we streamline one big Métro expansion, rather than small, piecemeal extensions? It would certainly streamline bidding processes and purchasing, no?

The Blue Line’s proposed eastern extension to Anjou (specifically, to an intermodal terminus at the Galleries d’Anjou suburban shopping complex) will undoubtedly alleviate congestion on the Metropolitan Expressway and extend a convenient and efficient mass transit system into a broad medium density residential area. There’s no question about whether the extension is the right way to go, but we need to be vigilant regarding the estimated cost.

The PQ is projecting a $250 to $300 million cost per kilometre and a total extended length of six kilometres (about the distance from University to the Olympic Stadium along Sherbrooke) with five stations. On the outside that’s a $1.8 billion extension to serve a combined population of about 120,000 Montrealers living in the boroughs of Saint-Leonard and Anjou, one hell of an investment in a relatively small number of citizens.

The cost to extend the Orange Line to Laval by three stations cost about half that amount per kilometre, and that project was announced in the late 1990s but only completed in 2007. As you might expect, post-industrial Québec takes a lot longer to get anything done.

So don’t expect this Blue Line extension any time soon; those making the announcement today were indicating ‘the beginning of the 2020s’ for ‘full operations’.

Christ; I’ll be old by then.

I’ll say it one more time – we built 26 stations between 1962 and 1967 across three lines and it cost just under $1.5 billion (or 213.7 million in 1966 dollars).

Granted I’m obviously not an economist, but I would like to know why the cost of construction has increased so much in the past decade in particular. You’d figure we’d be getting some kind of rebate in Post Charb Commish Quebec, but this is as expensive as ever.

And we’re not exactly reinventing the wheel either – so how the hell did it suddenly become so expensive to build basic mass transit systems in our city?

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Original design of Edouard-Montpetit station's connection with Mount Royal Tunnel
Original design of Edouard-Montpetit station’s connection with Mount Royal Tunnel

There’s another issue we should consider when thinking about the Blue Line and any potential future extensions. It has the lowest ridership of all four lines and the trains are shorter by three cars (you’ll notice that the platforms at Blue Line stations have barricades at either end as the stations were designed to operate ‘full’ nine-car trains). I think this is as a consequence of the line not directly connecting with the city centre.

As long as we’re re-hashing old ideas, why not take a closer look at the original design of Edouard-Montpetit station, which was intended to act as a transfer point between the Blue Line and the commuter rail line passing fifty meters under the Métro in the Mount Royal Tunnel (as you can see in the station’s original design plan above). The tunnel is now owned and operated by the Agence Métropolitain de Transport and is in need of upgrading to support new dual-power locomotives inasmuch as some kind of emergency exit at some point in between the tunnel entrances. I would argue strongly in favour of developing a connection between the Métro and the Mount Royal Tunnel as a means to transfer passengers on the Blue Line to Gare Centrale. This would not only require high-speed, high-capacity elevators (as they have at some Parisian Métro stations), but the potential construction of a short ‘by-pass’ tunnel deep underground. A difficult job no doubt, but far from impossible.

The benefit is that the Blue Line becomes a lot more useful with this upgrade. I’d even argue prioritizing this element of the original design before any eastern extension. If this connection were made, transferring at Edouard-Montpetit would give Blue Line passengers access to the Orange and Green lines via the Gare Centrale and Place Ville-Marie portion of the Underground City. For the hundreds of thousands of people living along the line’s route, Downtown Montreal suddenly becomes much, much closer – about five minutes from Université de Montréal to the heart of the financial district.

Such a development could lead to increased land values of properties within proximity of the Blue Line, not to mention give the Blue Line’s extension a more practical raison-d’etre. Call me a cynic, but I smell subtle vote-buying.

Don’t get me wrong – expanding eastwards is a good if very costly idea, and I’d like to know why this is taking so long and costing so much.

But if we’re going to extend the Blue Line’s reach, why not also expand its capacity and increase its utility as well?

I have a feeling realizing the original plan would have the effect of increasing ridership on the Blue Line to such an extent that the STM upgrades to nine-car trains on the line, thus giving the line the ability to truly operate at full capacity.

In any event, I should close with a thought.

There was once a time in which elected officials had to deliver on promises made, otherwise they’d lose the public’s confidence and the right to govern.

This is not the case today. The people are so incredibly disengaged and cynical we don’t expect anything from our supposed leaders at all. We carry on despite them. Sometimes they do something good, most of the time they’re an annoyance, occasionally they’re discovered to be outright criminals.

I don’t know what was so different about life in this city back in the 1960s and 1970s that made the people here demand action and quick results for their political support. I don’t know what lit a fire under people’s asses to get shit done. I know many people suggest Expo and Olympics being the sole motivating factors, but surely this can’t be the case. The people wanted action and their will was respected. We elected, and kept electing, a visionary mayor, who paid us back by giving us a truly global city to live, love and play in.

Today we get flashy press conferences that ultimately only promise more study and preparation for some interminable project whose only purpose seems to be to sap whatever confidence the people have in their elected officials.

I suppose my question is why the PQ isn’t coming to us with a plan to actually begin development?

I wish government had the self-respect and restraint to only bother the people with announcements of actual accomplishments.