Montréal Transit Developments

[NoahB]

No idea how they're planning to get by with 40m trains, unless the frequency approaches that of the Canada Line. I very much doubt the REM de l'Est will have that kind of frequency, though it's theoretically possible.

The technical brief already said that the trains will come every 2 min in the central section and 4 min in the branches. That is Canada Line frequencies. Elevated and ground-based stations can be expanded relatively easily if it comes to that. So At least one of the branches can be expanded without heavy costs. (Look at the London DLR) But I am hoping that the underground stations will be built with longer trains in mind.

The connection from Central to the terminus should be pretty simple. Hopefully the final station is underground, but I"m sure they could have some long escalators from elevated as well, if they are willing to sacrifice road lanes.

A bigger issue is the connection to the Metro at the terminus. Their figure makes it look like Central and Bonaventure are a single station. In reality, parts of Central are as close to Square-Victoria, and honestly, the slighter walk from McGill to Central seems simpler, as it's so much shallower than Bonaventure. I find the excellent STM downtown map (see below) very good at showing the relative locations of things.

What's missing here, unlike the REM which links to the Green Line well (and I hope there's some improved connections from the Central platforms into Place Bonaventure), is as good connection to the existing Metro lines downtown - though tough, given where Réné-Levesque runs.. However, isn't the Orange Line quite shallow (and straight) underneath Réné-Levesque? I wonder if there's any feasibility in adding a station there - that area has certainly developed since the Metro was first built, and if the northern entrance was at Réné-Levesque, then it's no closer than Place-des-Arts and Saint-Laurent.

But hang-on ... if you look at the map closely, they do mention and show an intermodal connection with the Orange Line! Is that really a new Metro station?

View attachment 289257

The northern terminus of the Montreal North branch is unclear. They say at Cegep Marie-Victorin, but the figure makes it look like just west of the Anjou Exo station. But they don't show an intermodal connection.

The driving route from Cegep Marie-Victorin to Central Station is interesting. Does anyone really drive that way (south on the 25, west on the Metropolitan, and then down Decarie and the Ville Marie) ? I suppose it's the only expressway route - but I take the 25, Souligny, Dickson and Notre Dame - or possibly St. Laurent and Park from the Met. I don't think whoever did graphic has driven down Decarie and between the 15s very often!


View attachment 289256

I would not bet on them adding anew station to the Metro. The images in the technical brief clearly shows the whole downtown segment is elevated. Berri-UQAM's closest entrance on Berri is a good 200m away from Rene Levesque/Labelle. It probably will be an elevated pathway of some sort. Or maybe a pathway to the closest underground path. (The university?) It is still possible to create an underground passage under the road. I have seen it done for Riyadh Metro. But Is very disruptive can add costs that the elevated alignment was meant to avoid. So I wonder what they will choose.

Given the station name, Labelle Station will probably is about here:

 

[robmausser]

Im less enthused about this project than the original REM. Its simply way less innovative.

Reusing the old CN tunnel and the already existing Champlain bridge LRT corridors, reusing a regional rail line to create a seamless network was pretty smart with the first REM.

This feels less so an innovative design. Elevated through downtown and then tunneled out in the suburbs? Can't co-exist in compatibility with the existing system? Feels like an Ontario PC project.

Plus, I feel like a bunch of it is really close to existing subway lines. When Tory presented Lawrence GO-RER station, everyone clamored that it was too close to the Scarborough subway extension Lawrence station and would cannibalize ridership from that line. But here its ok?

 

[jayme2016]

The speed of how REM was built really does exemplify how slow the progress has been on RER. They built an entire system from scratch in 5 years and Toronto has yet to decide on what kind of trains they will run. Heads should roll at Metrolinx.
/QUOTE]

Im less enthused about this project than the original REM. Its simply way less innovative.

Reusing the old CN tunnel and the already existing Champlain bridge LRT corridors, reusing a regional rail line to create a seamless network was pretty smart with the first REM.

This feels less so an innovative design. Elevated through downtown and then tunneled out in the suburbs? Can't co-exist in compatibility with the existing system? Feels like an Ontario PC project.

Plus, I feel like a bunch of it is really close to existing subway lines. When Tory presented Lawrence GO-RER station, everyone clamored that it was too close to the Scarborough subway extension Lawrence station and would cannibalize ridership from that line. But here its ok?

A Ontario Pc project would be half the size and construction would start in 2030 the council in Montreal is very Liberal.

 

[NoahB]

Im less enthused about this project than the original REM. Its simply way less innovative.

Reusing the old CN tunnel and the already existing Champlain bridge LRT corridors, reusing a regional rail line to create a seamless network was pretty smart with the first REM.

This feels less so an innovative design. Elevated through downtown and then tunneled out in the suburbs? Can't co-exist in compatibility with the existing system? Feels like an Ontario PC project.

Plus, I feel like a bunch of it is really close to existing subway lines. When Tory presented Lawrence GO-RER station, everyone clamored that it was too close to the Scarborough subway extension Lawrence station and would cannibalize ridership from that line. But here its ok?

To cut costs, they are elevating the section with the most complex underground conditions but with a wider, straight right of way while tunnelling in the section where the underground is less complex and to avoid the tighter right of way on the way to Cégep Marie-Victorin. Also, it goes through a lot of low-density areas and parallels the green line for its downtown segment, justifying the smaller trains. Doesn't seem too crazy to me. If anything we need more of this in Canada.

It just sounds like 'downtown deserves tunnelling argument' which misses the point of looking at the local context while threading the needle of rapid transit. Which the REM East is doing more of than REM1.

 

[ARG1]

Im less enthused about this project than the original REM. Its simply way less innovative.

Reusing the old CN tunnel and the already existing Champlain bridge LRT corridors, reusing a regional rail line to create a seamless network was pretty smart with the first REM.

This feels less so an innovative design. Elevated through downtown and then tunneled out in the suburbs? Can't co-exist in compatibility with the existing system? Feels like an Ontario PC project.

Plus, I feel like a bunch of it is really close to existing subway lines. When Tory presented Lawrence GO-RER station, everyone clamored that it was too close to the Scarborough subway extension Lawrence station and would cannibalize ridership from that line. But here its ok?

The problem is the downtown segment of the line will run in areas where tunneling is nigh impossible unless you're deep deep boring it (at which point you might as well elevated since you'll still be stuck with long escalator rides). There is simply way too much in the way, namely Gare Centrale and the Underground City. There's a reason why "tunneling in the suburbs" is a thing because its genuinely easier and cheaper to tunnel in suburbs than it is to do so in a heavily used downtown core such as Montreal's.

 

[nfitz]

The technical brief already said that the trains will come every 2 min in the central section and 4 min in the branches. That is Canada Line frequencies.

Canada Line at peak is only every 3 minutes, with 6 minutes on the branches. Dropping as low as 10 minutes, with every 20 minutes on the branches off-peak. So they could still, in theory, double their capacity if they obtain more vehicles (though going from every 120 seconds to every 90 seconds never seems as easy as they make out in reality). And this is after 10-years of operations, they've already added additional vehicles already.

If they are planning every 2 minutes at peak, for day 1, I'd be very, very concerned about long-term capacity. That doesn't give them much room to grow, compared to starting out at every 5-6 minutes

Elevated and ground-based stations can be expanded relatively easily if it comes to that.

So they claim. But see also Line 3.

I would not bet on them adding anew station to the Metro. The images in the technical brief clearly shows the whole downtown segment is elevated. Berri-UQAM's closest entrance on Berri is a good 200m away from Rene Levesque/Labelle

Great post!

I would have thought they wouldn't add one either. But at the same time, they clearly say in that document that there are transfers to the Blue, Orange, and Green lines. But otherwise, Orange would only be at Berri (or Place-des-Armes/St. Urbain I suppose - probably a similar walk). They explicitly didn't say Yellow, which is also at Berri (though a longer walk once you are inside ... but I'd have thought they'd have mentioned it, if the intention was to only transfer to Orange at Berri.

At the same time, adding undergroundMetro stations doesn't seem to be part of their business model. Has there ever been a discussion of adding one here before - the tracks look amazingly straight now I look at them, north of de la Gauchtierre. And it's surely very shallow, given how shallow it is at both Berri and especially at Champ-de-Mars.

There's certainly been talking about adding a Bonsecours station at St. Antoine/St. Denis/Bonsecours - but the Yellow line is so very deep and sloped there, that it would be very expensive.

 

[nephersir7]

It will be interesting to see how the REM station will be designed to connect with the chosen layout for the blue line metro station at Lacordaire. They will probably need to tunnel deep underneath.

source of the image: http://www.stm.info/sites/default/files/media/Travaux/Ligne_bleue/processus_de_decision_vf.pdf

 

[aquateam]

Don't know enough about Montreal to comment fully but first thoughts are:

1. Cool.
2. Seems weird to run a branch to the north-east rather than extending the metro up that way. Its basically serving as a metro extension, without actually being one and results in kind of a weird duplication of service and transfer point. Can the metro not run above ground?
3. Yikes @ 40m platforms
4. Yikes @ elevated through the downtown (Though, I've been to other cities like Bangkok where that isn't really all that bad, but its also not particularily pleasant)
5. Yikes @ the poor downtown connections to the existing metro (see point 4)
6. Ten billion seems a tad expensive for what they're getting, especially considering the short train lengths.

Anyways, its cool to see Montreal moving so quickly on these projects. There does seem to be some weird decision making going on (probably largely for $ reasons), but at a certain point you just have to accept that the perfect is the enemy of the good.

The current mayor's plan was originally to extend the metro up that way with the pink line.

The new "REM of the East" largely accomplishes the same thing but without providing the additional coverage in dense areas like the Plateau/Rosemont.

The metro needs to run underground due to its rubber tires, which can't handle snow. Montreal's infamous former mayor Jean Drapeau selected these trains as he was enamored with the rubber-tired metros that Paris was running (including outdoors, because Paris rarely sees snow). The result is a metro system that has stagnated due to the cost of having to tunnel any extensions to accommodate these trains, combined with a decades-long economic decline out of which Montreal only recently emerged. The slight upside is that Montreal has a system that is 100% underground - kind of just a cool fact and also good in winter.

The other upside is the lack of heat cycling on the vehicles, which is why the Montreal metro was able to use their original metro cars while Toronto is on their third generation of trains. All the change from warm to cold with outdoor running causes mechanical parts to expand and contract which causes them to wear out.

The connection from Central to the terminus should be pretty simple. Hopefully the final station is underground, but I"m sure they could have some long escalators from elevated as well, if they are willing to sacrifice road lanes.

A bigger issue is the connection to the Metro at the terminus. Their figure makes it look like Central and Bonaventure are a single station. In reality, parts of Central are as close to Square-Victoria, and honestly, the slighter walk from McGill to Central seems simpler, as it's so much shallower than Bonaventure. I find the excellent STM downtown map (see below) very good at showing the relative locations of things.

One thing that was proposed by Anton Dubrau during the BAPE audiences for the REM was to divide the downtown section into 3 stations instead of 2 in order to improve the orange line connection and spread out the passenger loading better. Maybe that should be revisited so that there is a station directly at Rene-Levesque for a connection with the REM East.

Im less enthused about this project than the original REM. Its simply way less innovative.

Reusing the old CN tunnel and the already existing Champlain bridge LRT corridors, reusing a regional rail line to create a seamless network was pretty smart with the first REM.

This feels less so an innovative design. Elevated through downtown and then tunneled out in the suburbs? Can't co-exist in compatibility with the existing system? Feels like an Ontario PC project.

Plus, I feel like a bunch of it is really close to existing subway lines. When Tory presented Lawrence GO-RER station, everyone clamored that it was too close to the Scarborough subway extension Lawrence station and would cannibalize ridership from that line. But here its ok?

I agree with you 100%. Most Montreal transit proposals (e.g. South Short LRT, "Ligne de Savoir", "Train de L'Ouest") seem to be focused on how to dump people from one radial direction on to Rene-Levesque and University. The original REM was innovative for through-running to allow connections around the region instead of just shuttling people downtown (although it was effective at that, too.)

Running elevated over Rene-Levesque isn't an awful idea, though. It is very wide, the buildings are mostly office towers and the city had been looking at putting streetcar lanes along it. It would provide a great vantage point for watching the parades that are normally scheduled along it

I think it would make sense for them to continue west (downtown definitely doesn't end at H-B) at least until Atwater. From there it could either join the CP corridor, the CN corridor, or the reserved space along the highway 20 from the Turcot project to reach the airport as a more direct route than the original REM airport branch. Quebec is looking at dropping the airport branch from the original REM so this might be a more cost-effective way of reaching it.

Another idea: if they want to serve Montreal-Nord they could just finish what they started with the Mascouche line and make it an REM branch. The Mont Royal tunnel might be getting crowded but there should be space from the deleted airport branch.

 

[ARG1]

The current mayor's plan was originally to extend the metro up that way with the pink line.

View attachment 289342

The new "REM of the East" largely accomplishes the same thing but without providing the additional coverage in dense areas like the Plateau/Rosemont.
View attachment 289347


The other upside is the lack of heat cycling on the vehicles, which is why the Montreal metro was able to use their original metro cars while Toronto is on their third generation of trains. All the change from warm to cold with outdoor running causes mechanical parts to expand and contract which causes them to wear out.



One thing that was proposed by Anton Dubrau during the BAPE audiences for the REM was to divide the downtown section into 3 stations instead of 2 in order to improve the orange line connection and spread out the passenger loading better. Maybe that should be revisited so that there is a station directly at Rene-Levesque for a connection with the REM East.

View attachment 289346



I agree with you 100%. Most Montreal transit proposals (e.g. South Short LRT, "Ligne de Savoir", "Train de L'Ouest") seem to be focused on how to dump people from one radial direction on to Rene-Levesque and University. The original REM was innovative for through-running to allow connections around the region instead of just shuttling people downtown (although it was effective at that, too.)

Running elevated over Rene-Levesque isn't an awful idea, though. It is very wide, the buildings are mostly office towers and the city had been looking at putting streetcar lanes along it. It would provide a great vantage point for watching the parades that are normally scheduled along it

I think it would make sense for them to continue west (downtown definitely doesn't end at H-B) at least until Atwater. From there it could either join the CP corridor, the CN corridor, or the reserved space along the highway 20 from the Turcot project to reach the airport as a more direct route than the original REM airport branch. Quebec is looking at dropping the airport branch from the original REM so this might be a more cost-effective way of reaching it.

View attachment 289348

Another idea: if they want to serve Montreal-Nord they could just finish what they started with the Mascouche line and make it an REM branch. The Mont Royal tunnel might be getting crowded but there should be space from the deleted airport branch.

You do know the Airport Branch wasn't deleted right? The feds jumped in to fund it, so there literally isn't room for a Mascouche Branch without halving the capacity of the Deux-Montagnes branch.

 

[NoahB]

Canada Line at peak is only every 3 minutes, with 6 minutes on the branches. Dropping as low as 10 minutes, with every 20 minutes on the branches off-peak. So they could still, in theory, double their capacity if they obtain more vehicles (though going from every 120 seconds to every 90 seconds never seems as easy as they make out in reality). And this is after 10-years of operations, they've already added additional vehicles already.

I was referring to the line's ultimate frequency of 120 seconds. My understanding is that the single track sections on the line prevent going higher than that. That could be fixed but It is out of the scope of my comment.
The Canada Line is getting more trains (Funded) to reach that frequency to reach 8000PPD. Next, they will need to expand the trains. After that, they expand the elevated platforms. (15k)

If they are planning every 2 minutes at peak, for day 1, I'd be very, very concerned about long-term capacity. That doesn't give them much room to grow, compared to starting out at every 5-6 minutes

It is a big concern. They expect the line to be at maximum capacity in about a decade unless the platforms are expanded further than 50m. So I guess I eat my words about the Canada Line being appropriately built. ( But I still think they should just build a parallel line to expand coverage and relief it.) In the case of the REM East, they will be able to expand it more easily because of the elevated nature of the stations. An example is the London Docklands Light Railway.

At the same time, adding undergroundMetro stations doesn't seem to be part of their business model. Has there ever been a discussion of adding one here before - the tracks look amazingly straight now I look at them, north of de la Gauchtierre. And it's surely very shallow, given how shallow it is at both Berri and especially at Champ-de-Mars.

Agreed. The Metro will be too deep and expensive and I imagine the Cuise not being keen on the idea of building an asset they cant own make money off.

I would have thought they wouldn't add one either. But at the same time, they clearly say in that document that there are transfers to the Blue, Orange, and Green lines. But otherwise, Orange would only be at Berri (or Place-des-Armes/St. Urbain I suppose - probably a similar walk). They explicitly didn't say Yellow, which is also at Berri (though a longer walk once you are inside ... but I'd have thought they'd have mentioned it, if the intention was to only transfer to Orange at Berri.

Good find! I imagine they think it would be easier to just build a bridge from the Robert-Bourassa to Central/Bonaventure/Square Victoria-OACI/RESO. Based on REM1 I don't expect them to value convenient connections.

The connection to Central Station is a big question mark. But if they go full Riyadh/Dubai, they could have a pedestrian bridge all the way to Central Station. But this will be cumbersome. I have a feeling that they will find the connection to the RESO at Place Ville-Marie will be enough. But I really hope not. It might look like this:

 

[aquateam]

You do know the Airport Branch wasn't deleted right? The feds jumped in to fund it, so there literally isn't room for a Mascouche Branch without halving the capacity of the Deux-Montagnes branch.

Has that been settled yet? Last I heard Legault said it was a "federal responsibility" so the province didn't need to fund it and they pulled out of the cost sharing after the feds offered to cover the ADM portion.

Ontario can barely get federal funding for their projects, maybe Ford can get the feds to pay 100% of the Eglinton West extension and Finch West extensions since transit to the airport is now apparently a federal responsibility.

The airport is half of the West Island branch, so that's only a quarter of the capacity through Mont Royal used by that branch. But you could schedule the trains to vary the proportion of capacity used by any given branch. Mascouche wouldn't need to have half the trains go to that branch. But you're right that the REM is already excessively branched to begin with.

 

[felix123]

Has that been settled yet? Last I heard Legault said it was a "federal responsibility" so the province didn't need to fund it and they pulled out of the cost sharing after the feds offered to cover the ADM portion.

Ontario can barely get federal funding for their projects, maybe Ford can get the feds to pay 100% of the Eglinton West extension and Finch West extensions since transit to the airport is now apparently a federal responsibility.

Yes Trudeau essentially addressed the issue in the fall budget update. The government of Canada will cover the shortfall; the airport branch and station are being built.

It's obviously just a case of the QC govt being opportunistic though. It's poor form, but they'll get away with it because Québec's gonna Québec.

 

[nephersir7]

Ontario can barely get federal funding for their projects, maybe Ford can get the feds to pay 100% of the Eglinton West extension and Finch West extensions since transit to the airport is now apparently a federal responsibility.

It's not transit to the airport that's a federal responsibility, it's the airport authority itself.

Initially, CDPQ was supposed to finance, build, manage and assume all the risks for the $150M YUL REM station. But then the airport decided that they wanted a fancier $250M station, which they would finance, build and manage themselves. (as part of the parking/drop-off area reconstruction project). And critically, they signed a contract with CDPQ to do so.

Is it not normal for the federal government to be on the hook when an airport authority fails to meet its contractual obligations?

 

[Xav]

René-Lévesque is not directly served by the metro for a good reason: it's too far from the metro stations. The closest official metro exits are at Beaver Hall (part of Square Victoria station) or at Windsor station (which is part of Bonaventure station). The REM running in that right of way doesn't solve that issue. That's why I think the better way to provide connections downtown is through the RESO.

The "Labelle" station should be located 2 blocks west at the intersection with Saint-Denis, where it could provide a connection to the CHUM super hospital on its south side (itself connected to the Champs-de-Mars orange line station) and UQAM just north of the station (connected to Berri-UQAM and the orange, green and yellow lines).

The "Saint-Urbain" station could easily connect to the Complexe Desjardins shopping mall to the north (connected to Place-des-Arts green line metro) and the Guy-Favreau complex and the Montreal convention centre to the south (both are connected to the Place d'Armes orange line metro station).

Finally the "Robert-Bourassa" stop can have a connection to Central station (where it's not so complicated to reach the REM Gare Centrale stop and further south the Bonaventure orange line metro) and Place Ville-Marie (connected to the green line McGill station further north). Also, the Beaver Hall exit of Square Victoria metro is not too too far from there, so that could also be a possibility.

When you think of it connections to other metro lines aren't that important. The northeast branch will have connections to both the blue and the green line. Anyone who wants to go on the orange line will be able to use those lines instead of the REM line. The only connection that would have mattered is with the other REM line (which they will call line A apparently), which could have provided an easy transfer for the airport or Brossard. Then again, someone coming from the northeast or the east could use the green or blue line for that. I think that also explains why they'll use smaller stations. It's strictly an O/D line.

Sorry for this long post

 

[ARG1]

I was referring to the line's ultimate frequency of 120 seconds. My understanding is that the single track sections on the line prevent going higher than that. That could be fixed but It is out of the scope of my comment.
The Canada Line is getting more trains (Funded) to reach that frequency to reach 8000PPD. Next, they will need to expand the trains. After that, they expand the elevated platforms. (15k)

The single track segments are located at the terminus of the 2 branches, meanwhile Waterfront has 2 platforms available to eachother. Assuming an ideal 90 second headway on the core section of the line, that leaves the branches with 180 second headways. Simply put, the single track segments don't pose any threat to the line reaching maximum potential.

Good find! I imagine they think it would be easier to just build a bridge from the Robert-Bourassa to Central/Bonaventure/Square Victoria-OACI/RESO. Based on REM1 I don't expect them to value convenient connections.

I've seen some documents showing the layout of Grand-Centrale REM station, and from what I can tell they're making the connection to Bonaventure station quite quick and convenient.