Montréal Transit Developments

[kettal]

Eglinton is not a subway, won't function like a subway, and won't be called a subway.

Subway:
n.

1.
- 1. An underground urban railroad, usually operated by electricity.
- 2. A passage for such a railroad.
2. An underground tunnel or passage, as for a water main or for pedestrians.

 

[Ansem]

Subway:
n.

1.
- 1. An underground urban railroad, usually operated by electricity.
- 2. A passage for such a railroad.
2. An underground tunnel or passage, as for a water main or for pedestrians.

whatever gets you through the night
but were talking about HRT.

 

[Voltz]

Says who?

I don't see the portion between Union and Queens Quay being included, If Eglinton is LRT with 2/3 of the line waiting at red lights, no Its not a subway

At the risk of continuing this endless debate further, the central section of eglinton will have almost nothing in common with the bay street tunnel, and is it really that hard to believe they will short turn every second train within the tunnel? The demand patterns would pretty much require that they do. But I still wouldn't call parts of eglinton a real subway.

 

[kettal]

whatever gets you through the night
but were talking about HRT.

The average commuter waiting at the station won't be able to tell you what is the difference between HRT subway and the Eglinton LRT subway.

I guarantee it.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

The average commuter waiting at the station won't be able to tell you what is the difference between HRT subway and the Eglinton LRT subway.

I guarantee it.

And once they actually depart that station and ride the line, no one will fail to notice that it runs in the middle of the street and stops at red lights.

Even if your 'average commuter' is only going from Mount Pleasant to Yonge and never leaves the tunnel, the surface sections and the tunnelled bit will affect each other in terms of frequency, reliability, and travel time unless they're completely isolated...which they won't be.

 

[kettal]

If you're going to take that path, Montreal has zero subways because they're all unreliable

I wouldn't call the above-ground section a subway because it's not.

The underground part, by every official definition, is a subway.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

If you're going to take that path, Montreal has zero subways because they're all unreliable

I wouldn't call the above-ground section a subway because it's not.

The underground part, by every official definition, is a subway.

It's one line - it either is a subway or it isn't. It isn't, no matter how many tens of people on the internet claim otherwise. It's either useful rapid transit or it isn't...we'll see.

Using your definition, the YUS and BD lines are *not* subways because they're not always underground. I shouldn't need to point out how silly that is, but apparently I do.

 

[Amphibius]

Kettal:

Buffalo's metro line is considered LRT too despite two-thirds of it running underground and operating in exclusive ROW above ground. Newark, NJ also has an extensive underground LRT system. Why fabricate the truth about what we've got?

 

[kettal]

You can call it what you want, I'm just defending the dictionary.

 

[nfitz]

^ I should clarify...the subway network is better. You have admitted it's better distributed throughout the city compared to the TTC's subway network.

If your near the metro perhaps; but try getting to Repentigny, or Pointe-Claire ... or even the Pointe. What about Brossard? And good grief - nothing west of Decarie?

 

[allabootmatt]

What I like about Montreal's Metro is the very dense network of coverage in the core, with (in effect) two closely-spaced parallel lines, and the existence of a very decent northern cross-town service. For a city that's much, much more compact than Toronto, I think it does the job better, strictly as a subway in covering the important nodes geographically.

However, when you compare systems--notably Toronto's much, much better network of feeder buses and the huge streetcar network, which does provide higher-order transit than bus service and has tons of potential, it's no contest. The long headways in Montreal are annoying too, along with the weird locations of some stations some distance away from the main drags they are supposed to serve.

 

[unimaginative2]

One thing I love about the Montreal Metro are the squares built around some of the station entrances. In the summer, some of them even have little markets. It makes them really feel like a centre of the neighbourhood.

A big question about the Eglinton line is whether the underground portion will be signalled or will operate visually, like the existing underground streetcar segments. If it's the former, I really worry about how the system will handle the heavy bunching that occurs on every TTC-operated surface streetcar route. Eglinton will be much longer than Spadina, but on the latter streetcars typically travel in packs of three or more. On a signalled underground line, they would be forced to wait at the portal to establish a minimum safe headway--typically at least two minutes. If there are trains short-turning within the underground section, the waits would be even longer. I really, really hope that the TTC will make more of an effort to manage surface headways than they do on the existing streetcar network.

 

[GTS]

If Montreal does extend its Metro I hope they try and do what Toronto does where buses and sometimes streetcars interface with our Subway. In the well designed stations it is a relatively cofortable to transfer from bus to subway and vice-versa, even in bad weather. Most of the downtown stations besides Union and Spadina don't have good interface of transit modes but a lot of our out lying stations where their is more room have really well designed stations that I think Montreal could get some ideas about. I live near and use mostly Warden Station and it isn't a well designed bus station as all the bus bays are seperated and you have to climb and desend stairs to transfer from bus to bus or subway to bus- bit of a pain. I sometimes use the Victoria Park Station and it used to have those seperate bus bays for each different route but they have gotten rid of all that and are presently modernizing the station so all the different routes will use one shared platform.

Last summer my wife humored me and we went to Montreal and we explored Montreal via the metro. I think the station was Lasalle and we had to wait outdoors to catch the bus in the rain. I am not sure if it was Lasalle but it was down there near the south west portion of the Metro. That day I had wished that Montreal had indoor waiting areas to catch connecting buses. I didn't see any indoor type of stations but we didn't see the whole system as we spent the whole weekend downtown- downtown is really well served by transit in Montreal though- so maybe big expensive stations aren't needed so much.

 

[golodhendil]

The average commuter waiting at the station won't be able to tell you what is the difference between HRT subway and the Eglinton LRT subway.

I guarantee it.

Your guarantee is shattered, because every resident and tourist in Boston has no problem distinguishing between the Green line LRT subway and the Red/Blue/Orange line HRT subways in terms of speed, smoothness and capacity. (unless Torontonians are any less observant or intelligent than Bostonians)

However, to be fair I will also defend the "dictionary" definition of subway, because Boston's Green Line, SF's Muni and even Philly's subway-surface lines are considered "subways" by even the locals, and rightly so. An LRT subway is still a subway, though not necessarily the right technology for a subway in certain corridors.

 

[nfitz]

We don't have to travel all the way to Madrid to learn how to build subways more economically: Montreal also builds them for a fraction of what the TTC now claims they cost, even after overruns.

The last Montreal extension was so far over budget, they had a provincial enquiry into it - though part of the problem was certain agencies low-balling the costs, to get the project approved.

Also, the trains are much narrrower, and the geology is very different, allowing for a single tunnel through rock, rather than the double tunnels in overburdens.