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The Province of Quebec confirms the Eastern Extension of the Blue Metro Line

Ansem

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http://montreal.ctvnews.ca/pq-expec...e-line-to-anjou-will-cost-2-billion-1.1462959



http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/montreal-metro-s-blue-line-to-get-major-extension-1.1861770

Montreal Metro's blue line to get major extension


Montreal’s Metro system is about to get its biggest and most expensive upgrade since the Laval extension.

The STM and the provincial government announced today the extension of the blue line east, to St-Leonard and Anjou.

Five more stops are expected to be added to the Metro line, likely near boulevards Viau, Pie-IX, Lacordaire and Langelier, with a terminal in Anjou.

It isn’t the first time an extension of the blue line has been discussed.

The project has been studied for years, along with other possible Metro line extension scenarios.

In 2009, then-Quebec premier Jean Charest announced a similar plan to extend the blue line six kilometres east from St-Michel, currently the line’s easternmost terminal.

The five-kilometre extension of the orange line to Laval was announced in 1998 and completed in 2007 at a cost of $745-million — about $150 million per kilometre.

At the announcement today, ministers Jean-Francois Lisée and Sylvain Gaudreault said this extension would cost between $250-300 million per kilometre.

How long will it take?

The first step the Quebec government will take is to set up a $38.8-million project planning office. It has a two-year mandate.

Quebec Transport Minister Gaudreault said the goal was to have a fully functional blue line by the early part of the 2020s.

Shortly after that, he said, work would begin on an extension of the yellow line, which currently ends at Longueuil on the South Shore.

Education Minister Marie Malavoy, who is also the minister responsible for the Montérégie region, said she was very pleased with the announcement of the yellow line extension.

"For the South Shore, it's excellent news," she said.

"It's a region that is full of development," Malavoy continued.

Metro extension important for economic development

Paul Micheletti, the owner of a business on Jean-Talon Street East and the president of the Jean-Talon East Commercial Development Committee, said he’s cautiously optimistic about the announcement.


Montreal metro extension
The blue line extension will go through St-Leonard, to Anjou.

“We’re excited,” he told Daybreak this morning. “At the same time, we’re realistic it’s not going to be done tomorrow morning.”

“Am I going to be in a wheelchair by the time it happens? I’m not sure,” he continued.

He said extending the Metro eastward to Anjou would help alleviate traffic on the Metropolitan and would help improve the economy by making it easier for people to move from west to east.

“If you want to develop the east and make it feasible for people to move around easily, I think the Metro is very important,” Micheletti said.

At today's announcement, Gaudreault agreed, saying it would help bring business to stores and restaurants in the eastern part of the island.

Extending the blue line would also lead to more land development for housing, he said.

Metro to West Island won’t happen for a while

Ed Janiszewski, the mayor of Dollard-des-Ormeaux and a member of the STM’s board of directors, said the imminent extension of the blue line is not a matter of if, but when.

“Twenty years down the road, if we don’t build it, we’ll be sorry, because the costs will escalate,” he said.

Janiszewski said the blue line project is the most pressing extension of Montreal’s Metro system, but told Daybreak he wished the STM and the provincial government would move faster on extending service to the West Island.

He said because of the presence of Highway 40, there would be no one Metro line that could be extended to accommodate the entire West Island.

“You’d need a big loop to serve the whole West Island,” Janiszewski said.

He said the best option would be to change the Metro's wheels from rubber to steel, so that the metro could go outside as well.

“This is doable and it’s the only way we’ll ever get to see a Metro in the West Island in the next 20 or 30 years,” he said.

In 2010, the STM rejected a proposal from a Chinese company to build new Metro cars with steel wheels.





http://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/m...yberpresse_BO2_quebec_canada_178_accueil_POS1

Here's the main highlights

-6.6 Km eastbound with an extra 5 stations through St-Leonard to the borough of Anjou for a true north rapid transit crosstown

-Estimated cost of the project is 1.5B$ with an average of 250-300M$/Km

-Transport Minister wishes for the line to be further extended to the east of the Island as soon as 2020

-Quebec estimates that 84 000 riders will use the new extension




Blue Line now

745749-plan-actuel-metro-montreal-cliquez.gif



Blue Line once completed

carte21.jpg
 
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The video at the 40s mark says

"The STM said that there was more people in the northeast end of the city than all of the city of Laval and yet in 2007, Laval got new stations."

Aren't we doing the same thing with subways in Vaughan with stations built like cathedrals?

Good for them since I know that the extension will serve families with a lower revenue. Sucks for the rich citizens of the west ;)
 
So Montreal is willing to extend their equivalent of the Sheppard subway but Toronto is not - why?

Also Toronto insists on building partially underground light rail on Eglinton, while most other cities in the world would build a regular subway - why?
 
So Montreal is willing to extend their equivalent of the Sheppard subway but Toronto is not - why?

Also Toronto insists on building partially underground light rail on Eglinton, while most other cities in the world would build a regular subway - why?

Looking at it on Google Maps, I'd say the Blue line would have more in common with the Eglinton than Sheppard. It is well within the pre-war suburban ring north of downtown, while Sheppard is in the post-war suburban ring.

As for Eglinton not being a subway, it is because there is ample space to run it on the street at its ends. If Eglinton was to be a full subway, it is likely a transfer would be needed to get from around Bayview or Don Mills to Kennedy.
 
The video at the 40s mark says



Aren't we doing the same thing with subways in Vaughan with stations built like cathedrals?

Good for them since I know that the extension will serve families with a lower revenue. Sucks for the rich citizens of the west ;)

If Montreal continues its trends (and I really hope they do), it is likely these stations will be cathedral like in nature as well.
 
Looking at it on Google Maps, I'd say the Blue line would have more in common with the Eglinton than Sheppard. It is well within the pre-war suburban ring north of downtown, while Sheppard is in the post-war suburban ring.

As for Eglinton not being a subway, it is because there is ample space to run it on the street at its ends. If Eglinton was to be a full subway, it is likely a transfer would be needed to get from around Bayview or Don Mills to Kennedy.

Take if from someone who was born and raised in Montreal, the blue line is way more like Sheppard than Eglinton will ever be.

When the line opened, its ridership was so low that the line used to closed at 11h15pm in the evening. Over the years, the ridership grew and now the line closes later. The ridership and was a catalyst for all the development of the northern part of the city.

By going farther east like the Sheppard line was supposed to do, lower revenue households will have access to rapid transit. Like Solid said above, I'm glad that the Province recognize that the more dense and populated eastern Montreal should have access to a subway line while Laval gets the privilege to ignore the commuter trains (2 lines) at their doorstep and making the orange line just as bad as the Yonge line and a living hell for Montrealers. At least, they are paying their share of the annual operating costs as well.

But hey... Montreal just doesn't get it. LRT's on Jean-Talon would have been the smart thing to do right? Maybe City council and the Province of Ontario should educate them on the merits of substituting to an LRT on an already built subway line...

STM already won the award for best North American Public Transit but still, they just don't get it...Or maybe they do get it...LRT was studied for Jean-Talon and they rejected it just as fast.

http://www.examiner.com/article/stm-wins-the-stanley-cup-of-public-transport-for-north-america
 
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This is just grasping at straws, it has been made abundantly clear on numerous occasions through multiple reports and studies over many years that a subway on Sheppard is not remotely justified, the ridership is not there nor will it be there, the line would lose a massive amount of money and come with an exorbitant construction cost. Far more riders could be better served by spending the same amount of money on multiple other lines, such as improved and new GO train service to the area and light rail and bus service.
 
It's definitely worth talking about Montreal--another of Canada's great metropolitan cities. The mods can move the discussion to the appropriate subforum. Montreal's blue line is being further cemented as a true, useful crosstown subway line. As for Toronto, the city is currently building every kind of transit on a large scale. It's no longer wishful thinking to say that bigger subway projects like the DRL will come, and they will be impressive. Eglinton is part of the big LRT vision for transit in lower density suburban areas--though built underground where it has to be. With our LRT and BRT lines under construction, the suburban parts of the city will have the kind of transit that minor single-line subway extensions can't deliver alone.
 
People post transit news from all over the world...FYI

Do you suggest we take down the thread about Ottawa line too?

Exactly. Some people like getting updates on projects across Canada, because it's important to learn what other cities are doing too. If it's in it's own thread, then it's not a big deal. If you don't care what's happening in Montreal or Ottawa or Vancouver, don't look at those threads. Seems pretty simple to me.

That being said, I agree with the suggestion in the article that they should switch to steel wheels, so that the system can run at-grade. The requirement that all extensions must be underground in order to satisfy the technology type will make suburban extensions a lot harder to do.
 

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