Montréal Transit Developments

[drum118]

No Drum, I have no clue about the history of Toronto or the 401.........

Really, must you be so condescending? I know all about the 401 and when it was built as the Toronto by-pass.




Really, wow, you wasted a post on all that.

I did not say I favoured removing the 401, I said I oppose its existence relative to context in the City.

Which is to say, I consider it bad urban planning that the Toronto by-pass was by-passed.

There is no practical ability to remove it now. I was not suggesting there was.

The Greenbelt should have been created in the 1950s and begun at the 401 and been inviolable, or we should have built the 401 further north.

****

You need to read posts in context Drum, I was replying to someone.

My point in replying was to say if you were purposefully designing a City you would never put the 401 as it is, where it is.

Its function is impaired, and its aesthetically and otherwise problematic.

Its too wide, its entrances/exits are often unsafe for pedestrians/cyclists, its unsightly, there are too few crossings, and its clogged, which defeats the point of efficient movement of goods and people.

My point was not that we should make it disappear.

Again, the 401 "WAS TO BE A BY-PASS" as it was the shortest route with no vision Toronto was to be what it is today as well where it is. It was to by-pass places like Cambridge, KW, London, Kingston, along with many other places along the route, but it runs in the centre of a number of other places.

How far north should the 401 been built and which town or city would see the same thing happen to it like Toronto?

Toronto isn't the only city like this today in the world.

Green Belt thinking like today didn't exist in the 40's-50's or 60's for building highways.

What will you expect the 401 will look like when the city is double the current size???

Hwy are for moving of goods since the RR shot themselves in the 50's by not moving good fast enough that on line business that use to use the RR move to transportation and to larger areas away from RR. It was also allow families to take trips.

NA lacks good intercity passengers trains as well lack a real transit system to get cars off the road. It will be interesting to see what REM does for traffic starting with phase 1 open, but more so after the system is open for 5 years.

As one who has driven in all 49 US states, their highways are bad as the 401 around cities as well some are slow going for 10's of miles well outside the city limits caused by convoys of 18 wheelers, especially climbing 2 lanes mountains.

At one time I could drive from Mississauga to Oshawa in an hour for work and good thing I don't do that anymore as I would be looking at 1.5-2 hrs today if not more.

Montreal is a slow moving hwy city if one going to Quebec City or to the east coast.

Planning to be in Montreal for the opening of the REM and then heading to the US for a holiday that will cost me an extra day of driving to get to where my first stop was to be on Sunday.

 

[Northern Light]

Again, the 401 "WAS TO BE A BY-PASS" as it was the shortest route with no vision Toronto was to be what it is today as well where it is. It was to by-pass places like Cambridge, KW, London, Kingston, along with many other places along the route, but it runs in the centre of a number of other places.

How far north should the 401 been built and which town or city would see the same thing happen to it like Toronto?

Toronto isn't the only city like this today in the world.

Green Belt thinking like today didn't exist in the 40's-50's or 60's for building highways.

What will you expect the 401 will look like when the city is double the current size???

Hwy are for moving of goods since the RR shot themselves in the 50's by not moving good fast enough that on line business that use to use the RR move to transportation and to larger areas away from RR. It was also allow families to take trips.

NA lacks good intercity passengers trains as well lack a real transit system to get cars off the road. It will be interesting to see what REM does for traffic starting with phase 1 open, but more so after the system is open for 5 years.

As one who has driven in all 49 US states, their highways are bad as the 401 around cities as well some are slow going for 10's of miles well outside the city limits caused by convoys of 18 wheelers, especially climbing 2 lanes mountains.

At one time I could drive from Mississauga to Oshawa in an hour for work and good thing I don't do that anymore as I would be looking at 1.5-2 hrs today if not more.

Montreal is a slow moving hwy city if one going to Quebec City or to the east coast.

Planning to be in Montreal for the opening of the REM and then heading to the US for a holiday that will cost me an extra day of driving to get to where my first stop was to be on Sunday.

Drum, you're not reading or comprehending what I said. Moving on.

 

[afransen]

I'm not, I oppose the 401 existing in Toronto. I believe highways should exist, but I think they should connect one city to another, not serve transportation within a City.

Vancouver has no freeways within its urban boundary and I wish Toronto were the same (said as someone who owns a car and drives).

You think Toronto should be served by a highway at the outward edge of Mississauga, Richmond Hill, or Ajax? There are legitimate goods movement reasons for the existence of highways, even within cities. The 427/401 is a ring road for the inner city of Toronto. I can see an argument for removal of DVP/Gardiner, but 401 is hard to argue against, other than that it should be tolled.

Edit to add: In the context of what you later added, it sounds like what you are trying to say is that Toronto should not have grown as large, which is a different thing. I think if we could wind the clock back to 1950 and develop the GTA in a pattern more like the Randstad with denser urban areas buffered by agricultural land and naturalized land with strong regional and local transit and cycling connectivity (and interurban freeways), you will not find me disagreeing with you.

 

[Northern Light]

You think Toronto should be served by a highway at the outward edge of Mississauga, Richmond Hill, or Ajax? There are legitimate goods movement reasons for the existence of highways, even within cities. The 427/401 is a ring road for the inner city of Toronto. I can see an argument for removal of DVP/Gardiner, but 401 is hard to argue against, other than that it should be tolled.

We agree here.

Edit to add: In the context of what you later added, it sounds like what you are trying to say is that Toronto should not have grown as large, which is a different thing. I think if we could wind the clock back to 1950 and develop the GTA in a pattern more like the Randstad with denser urban areas buffered by agricultural land and naturalized land with strong regional and local transit and cycling connectivity (and interurban freeways), you will not find me disagreeing with you.

This is indeed what I was saying.

The context of the conversation begins from the discussion 'Els'.

The suggestion from another poster was, to the effect, sure the 401 is ugly but I'm glad we have it as a way of saying 'Els' may be ugly but.....
To which my essential reply was meant to convey, right, but if we didn't have it, no one would want that solution (the 401), as built, in that location, today.

Which, to get back on topic......... this tangent started as an off-shoot of the discussion of REM de L'Est or its non-starter successor project, where I pointed out that the whole thing was scuttled the moment the CDPQ proposed elevated in central core where no one would tolerate that, and any sensible person would have known that.

Its not that you can't do elevated its that people don't prefer it; and so if you want to do it you have to present it the most appropriate spots, with the best mitigation.

There is a real streak among many posters here that "If you don't endorse my brilliant idea (that I would never allow beside my own home or over my favourite shopping strip) we should just force it on you"
There's no realization that that rarely works, and when it does, it comes at the expense of any similar project for a generation or more.

 

[Pacer]

Has ARTM altered the bus routes btw for the opening of the REM? I know TOD is big, but robust bus connections would definitely help ridership.

 

[afransen]

Our friends @Reecemartin and Paige Saunders had an in-depth reaction/rant livestream where they went through the report and critiqued it a few days ago. Posting this mainly because I like a lot of Paige's (and Reece's) work covering the REM and think it deserves more eyeballs.

 

[NoahB]

This thread spiralled a little and got a bit toxic. People should at least try to read and understand more thoroughly.

There is merit to the idea that proposing something with portions of low social acceptability can lead the project to be killed. This is what seems to have happened with the REM East. More on that in a bit.

I personally liked the version CDPQ released right before the project was transferred to the ARTM. That one would have transformed René Lévesque Boulevard into an urban linear park in downtown Mtl. Say what you will. René Lévesque is incredibly ugly right now, and transferring car lanes to transit and cycling will improve it. The REM East was an excuse to do that. (There are no plans for such conversions that I know of without the REM) I'd rather have a viaduct with a bike track underneath than have a wide road with streetcar tracks in the middle. Would have preferred it over Spadina's ultra-wide roadway, for example.

The Gardiner Expressway's Bentway (and other under-roadway parks like the Underpass Park) show that even ugly structures can have a silver lining. As much as I hate to say it, replacing these structures with street-level (and wide) boulevards would actually remove park space at this point. (not the best argument, but still...)

Some of my positives on the original REM East.

• The line would have been frequent and fully automated, which would have served the island's east side well.
• The cost was lower (relative to the Blue Line Extention and ARTM's REM East)
• It would have had the nicest viaducts in Canada and an example for future projects.
• The CDPQ has proven that it can build efficiently. (REM A's initial segment will open before Finch West LRT, even though they started construction the same year. And the former is longer with more intricate stations.)
• The views on the train along Notre Dame would have been magnificent. One of those things that users would appreciate.
• It would have connected established and brownfield neighbourhoods to each other and downtown.
• It would have effectively doubled the REM station-wise. (REM East's 23 vs REM A's 26.)

The negative I had were:

• The REM East was going to use shorter, narrower trains and possibly different signalling altogether than the REM A, making it practically impossible for the two to be interoperable in the future. (The rationale behind the narrower trains is to reduce the width of the viaduct and probably tunnels)
• For technical reasons related to underground infrastructure, the line could not be extended further west and is stuck as a commuter rail focused on bringing people downtown from the east, not across to Lachine/west.
• The line would create some noise, seeing how close it is to some buildings on the route. But that can be mitigated. (see Skytrain stations/tracks with buildings straddling it)
• The connection to Central Station was horrendous.

Anyway, if Quebec's gov and CDPQ went along with their idea, regardless of what NIMBYs, streetcar 'urbanists,' and howling media thought, we would have had a second REM line under construction around now. They can improve the looks and material as they tried in the video. But asking for drastic changes that make the project cost 26 billion dollars more is not acceptable. Even with the negatives, building something estimated to be used by 100k+ people per day is better than letting those people be stuck in traffic just because the project was not perfect. The Ontario Line is an example of such a project.

I would have loved to ride it.

 

[generalcanada]

This thread spiralled a little and got a bit toxic. People should at least try to read and understand more thoroughly.

There is merit to the idea that proposing something with portions of low social acceptability can lead the project to be killed. This is what seems to have happened with the REM East. More on that in a bit.

I personally liked the version CDPQ released right before the project was transferred to the ARTM. That one would have transformed René Lévesque Boulevard into an urban linear park in downtown Mtl. Say what you will. René Lévesque is incredibly ugly right now, and transferring car lanes to transit and cycling will improve it. The REM East was an excuse to do that. (There are no plans for such conversions that I know of without the REM) I'd rather have a viaduct with a bike track underneath than have a wide road with streetcar tracks in the middle. Would have preferred it over Spadina's ultra-wide roadway, for example.

The Gardiner Expressway's Bentway (and other under-roadway parks like the Underpass Park) show that even ugly structures can have a silver lining. As much as I hate to say it, replacing these structures with street-level (and wide) boulevards would actually remove park space at this point. (not the best argument, but still...)

Some of my positives on the original REM East.

• The line would have been frequent and fully automated, which would have served the island's east side well.
• The cost was lower (relative to the Blue Line Extention and ARTM's REM East)
• It would have had the nicest viaducts in Canada and an example for future projects.
• The CDPQ has proven that it can build efficiently. (REM A's initial segment will open before Finch West LRT, even though they started construction the same year. And the former is longer with more intricate stations.)
• The views on the train along Notre Dame would have magnificent. One of those things that users would appreciate.
• It would have connected established and brownfield neighbourhoods to each other and downtown.
• It would have effectively doubled the REM station-wise. (REM East's 23 vs REM A's 26.)

The negative I had were:

• The REM East was going to use shorter, narrower trains and possibly different signalling altogether than the REM A, making it practically impossible for the two to be interoperable in the future. (The rationale behind the narrower trains is to reduce the width of the viaduct and probably tunnels)
• For technical reasons related to underground infrastructure, the line could not be extended further west and is stuck as a commuter rail focused on bringing people downtown from the east, not across to Lachine/west.
• The line would create some noise, seeing how close it is to some buildings on the route. But that can be mitigated. (see Skytrain stations/tracks with buildings straddling it)
• The connection to Central Station was horrendous.

Anyway, if Quebec's gov and CDPQ went along with their idea, regardless of what NIMBYs, streetcar 'urbanists,' and howling media thought, we would have had a second REM line under construction around now. They can improve the looks and material as they tried in the video. But asking for drastic changes that make the project 20 billion dollars more is not acceptable. Even with the negatives, building something estimated to be used by 100k+ people per day is better than letting those people be stuck in traffic just because the project was not perfect. The Ontario Line is an example of such a project.

I would have loved to ride it.

TLDR: "dont let perfection be the enemy of progress"

 

[blaixx]

Griffintown station not on the list of stations opening end of the month. They are also taking measures to mitigate noise.

Construction at Griffintown hasn't even began yet and I'm not sure why. It's going to be harder to build it now that they have to work around an operating rapid transit line.

 

[blaixx]

ARTM put out a new Greater Montreal transit map. PDF in article: https://www.artm.quebec/un-nouveau-...litains-integrant-la-signaletique-harmonisee/

 

[nfitz]

I've been looking for the 1970s planned extension map I'd seen previously on the Web. I finally dug it out of Archive.com - it used to be on Wikipedia, but was deleted many years ago.

The 1976 map


Also here's a 1978 version of the one that they put in the Metro cars. This is the one I remember from when I first moved to Montreal in 1980.

 

[p_xavier]

ARTM put out a new Greater Montreal transit map. PDF in article: https://www.artm.quebec/un-nouveau-...litains-integrant-la-signaletique-harmonisee/

View attachment 491332

They kept the REM de l'Est projected line in the legend... (seems it was for the BRT, my mistake)

 

[rbt]

ARTM put out a new Greater Montreal transit map. PDF in article: https://www.artm.quebec/un-nouveau-...litains-integrant-la-signaletique-harmonisee/

View attachment 491332

Dumb question, why isn't a budget REM East proposal a branch replacing the Mascouche line? I've got to assume that was studied.

Exo5 ridership is about 2500 people (5000 trips) per day? That's about 2 train-loads per hour during peak periods. Is full capacity of the central REM section already expected to be used? Lengthening stations to enable 6-car or 8-car trains still seems an order of magnitude cheaper than the most recent East proposal.

 

[HillcrestUrbanist]

While elevated transit in Chicago is seen almost entirely as a welfare service (where, its worth noting, NYC managed to build something that the middle class would take, in at least some measure) .

As a native Chicagoan, I take issue with this characterization of the L as a "welfare service". While it doesn't attract the high levels of ridership from groups across the wealth spectrum that the NYC subway does, implying that it exists solely to serve low-income residents is not an accurate description. May of the lines run solely or partially through areas that are solidly middle-class or upper class, and are used by residents of all walks of life. The Brown Line is a good example of this - it runs through some of the wealthiest and most desirable areas of the city, and has seen such large ridership increases that the bulk of the CTA's capital projects in recent years have focused on improving service for it and the Red Line.

 

[Northern Light]

As a native Chicagoan, I take issue with this characterization of the L as a "welfare service". While it doesn't attract the high levels of ridership from groups across the wealth spectrum that the NYC subway does, implying that it exists solely to serve low-income residents is not an accurate description. May of the lines run solely or partially through areas that are solidly middle-class or upper class, and are used by residents of all walks of life. The Brown Line is a good example of this - it runs through some of the wealthiest and most desirable areas of the city, and has seen such large ridership increases that the bulk of the CTA's capital projects in recent years have focused on improving service for it and the Red Line.

Any characterization is, by nature, unfortunately, broad-brushed.

I do make every effort to be nuanced.

That said.

Toronto's modal share for Transit from the same period is 26%, Montreal was 22%, Vancouver was 23%

Which is to say, far more middle-class than Chicago.

Source Data:

Modal share - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I'm very big on using verifiable data. I make every effort not to be pejorative, or insulting. (unless we're talking Kirkor or G+C architecture) ...

To me, its not disparaging those who may be middle-income who use Chicago's transit, to admit that overall, the numbers skew to the poor.

The service is objectively lesser than the Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver or NYC experience.

Its not that it has to be that way, that it always was, or that it won't change again, its just where we are now, overall.

ThIs from here:

Regional Transportation Authority | Survey shows current riders are more likely to be essential workers or minorities, feel transit is safe

Although ridership on the Chicago region’s transit system has dramatically declined during the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 500,000 riders are still taking CTA, Metra, and Pace each weekday according to the RTA COVID Transit Dashboard. Similarly, 75 percent of current CTA riders and 54 percent of…

www.rtachicago.org

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By contrast, a story about the TTC from 8 years ago said this:

This is from here:

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/tr...of-typical-ttc-rider-emerges-from-survey.html (behind the paywall)