Updates from March, 2019 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Kate 14:36 on 2019-03-06 Permalink | Reply  

    There won’t be any REM tracks on the new Île-aux-Tourtes bridge.

    Update: That’s what Radio-Canada said earlier, but this piece in Metro claims the REM has not been definitively ruled out. CTV’s brief item doesn’t mention the REM at all.

     
    • mare 15:34 on 2019-03-06 Permalink

      Of course not, all undeveloped land in Vaudreuil-Dorion is already sold to other developers, no point for SDPQ Infra to ever extend the track a few kilometres and making a station in an already built up, populated area.

      Much better to build stations in the middle of nowhere, so you can make money building offices, malls and more McMansions.

      Besides Vaudreuil votes Liberal, so why would the CAQ spend extra money there. BTW! I thought all bridges were federal, so why does the Quebec minister of transport presents this project?

      (I’m against sprawl, but that last part of the REM doesn’t go anywhere. Ending it in a big community makes much more sense than ending it far away of St-Anne-de-Bellevue.)

    • Ian 15:40 on 2019-03-06 Permalink

      There’s a big Broccolini housing development going up near where the Sainte Anne REM will be.
      I suspect you’re right about all the reasons the train won’t go further west though.

    • Faiz Imam 16:48 on 2019-03-06 Permalink

      Good news.

      I’m not a fan of the St-Anne station either (though I think it’s somewhat justified due to its proximity to Abott and Mcdonald) but it’s good to draw a line.

      And the fact is that Vaudreuil and surrounding areas have a huge opportunity to improve their existing but anemic bus network to have solid connections to St-Anne. There is very little that an extension can do that a diversified bus network cannot. Strong bus links via the existing gare vaudreuil could be hugely effective to promote development in existing areas without pushing farther into farmland. I’m very happy to read the focus on proper segregated reserved bus lanes on the new bridge.

      Also, I found it very revealing that the person pushing for REM to vaudreuil went out of her way to critisize the pedestrian/bike lane with “cette « piste polyvalente » n’a pas sa place sur le futur pont de l’Île-aux-Tourtes. « Il faut s’entendre qu’en hiver, un vélo, ça ne va pas très, très bien”

      That’s some grade A nonsense from a person that most surely wants to drive her car from home to a free parking spot by the train station.

    • Alex L 12:20 on 2019-03-07 Permalink

      What I don’t understand with all this talk about the REM is why they don’t buy the tracks or do anything to upgrade the Vaudreuil-Hudson line. It’s there already, has stations in central locations that wouldn’t encourage sprawl, it could connect the airport and be electrified. The schedule has been essentially the same since as long as I can remember (Wikipedia article actually says it hasn’t changed much since the 1950’s).

    • Kevin 10:01 on 2019-03-08 Permalink

      Alex L
      Three passenger train lines use the tracks between downtown and Montreal West.

      Other portions of the corridor are used by cargo trains and Via.

      Buying the line would cost more than constructing the REM

    • Kate 10:34 on 2019-03-08 Permalink

      Alex L, you seem to think the REM is about transportation. It isn’t. It’s about profit, and possibly about creating jobs. Saving money is not the point.

    • Ian 17:54 on 2019-03-08 Permalink

      Well for all of you who oppose the train going to Vaudreuil because you disapprove of sprawl, You’re basically guaranteeing everyone will drive – because bus service, while crap west of Dorval, takes a distinct turn for the worse once you get off-island, and simply saying “well they need to improve transit then” is kind of silly when that’s the whole reason they want the REM to come to them…. nad people already live there. This is not some hypothetical suburban community that might spring up becasue a train station is built, it’s service to communities that have existed for hundreds of years. What makes the REM running off-island to the north somehow better than to the west? Or do you guys just not approve of the smaller communities just west of Montreal? Somebody from Dorion break your heart? …Because your arguments just don’t make any sense.

  • Kate 14:34 on 2019-03-06 Permalink | Reply  

    Martin Prud’homme has been suspended as head of the Sûreté du Québec pending a criminal investigation. He’d just wrapped up being temporarily in charge of the SPVM for a year. No indication yet whether the questionable issue happened during that period.

     
    • Kate 14:30 on 2019-03-06 Permalink | Reply  

      CBC begins by saying Hydro-Quebec has promised to make room for the Black Rock, but then hedges away with talk about a feasibility study.

       
      • Kate 07:57 on 2019-03-06 Permalink | Reply  

        Would it be worth the public expenditure of $4 billion to get faster train service on the Quebec City-Toronto corridor?

         
        • Roman 08:40 on 2019-03-06 Permalink

          A few decades to too late. I don’t know what the timeline is, but I imagine at least 10 years to build. By then we’ll have self driving electric vehicles. I’ll be sitting back doing work or sleeping on the commute. No need for trains.

        • thomas 09:17 on 2019-03-06 Permalink

          So we spend $4B to save 5 min. on the trip between Toronto and Montreal?

        • Daniel 09:18 on 2019-03-06 Permalink

          Oh dear, the first commenter is going to be disappointed in a decade’s time when self driving cars are still a pipe dream _and_ no fast train lines have been built.

        • Steve Q 10:34 on 2019-03-06 Permalink

          It doesn’t really matter is eventually we end up with self driving cars because most people wont be able to afford one ? There will still be a need for a high speed train beetwen Quebec-Windsor and more specifically beetwen Toront-Montreal. Just like most people today can’t afford electric cars, they need buses and metros.

        • Tim 10:41 on 2019-03-06 Permalink

          @Thomas: the numbers for the Montreal/Toronto route must have a typo. It should be around 3 hours total if the trains are traveling at 180 km/hour.

          Rapid train service will never happen as it would kill Air Canada’s most profitable flight. I remember reading years ago (sorry no source) how rapid train service kills airline flights. Imagine how much more expensive air travel would be if Air Canada couldn’t gouge people traveling between Montreal and Toronto?

        • Ephraim 11:34 on 2019-03-06 Permalink

          @Tim, that’s not a typo. All trains would go through Ottawa, then Smith Falls and then Peterborough and on to Toronto, rather than directly. Essentially, they are lengthening the route and making too many stops to really have it TGV. This proposal is for trains at 180 km/h, while the real TVG actually travels at 270 km/h to 320 km/h. That’s 50% to 75% faster…. or in other words, Toronto would be then be just about 3 hours away, even with stops. But this proposal is useless…. the biggest traffic you want to handle is Montreal/Toronto, having it route through Ottawa and stop in Smith Falls and Peterborough just makes it so slow that you won’t compete with air traffic.

          Here’s the point, a flight is scheduled for 1 hours, plus you need to be at the airport 1 hour in advance, plus it takes 30 minutes to get to the airport and another 30 minutes from the airport to town. So that’s 3 hours. If you can beat this end to end, you cut down on the air traffic and make it viable. So viable that people will seriously consider not bothering to fly unless it’s for connections.

          So Montreal to Toronto, end to end by car, station to station is about 540km. At 270km/h that is 2 hours. At that speed, not only do you compete, you kill flying and buses and in fact, take away a serious chunk of car travel between the two cities. Heck, you might even have people commute between the two rather than sleep over, for day trips. That’s the connection we need between the two cities.

        • Spi 11:44 on 2019-03-06 Permalink

          @Ephraim is right, except that a TGV line is orders of magnitude more expensive because of technical constraints (grade separated rail, the necessity for straight lines) and would require a completely different business case in order to justify that level of capital investment. I’m unsure potential ridership along that corridor would ever justify TGV.

          If I remember correctly VIA’s plan is to offer a more reliable and predictable service to gain ridership, departures every hour in each direction and more reliable arrival times with its dedicated tracks. The goal isn’t to compete and make air-travel between the 2 cities obsolete, the goal is to capture enough of the inter-city travel to fill your service offering.

          Also, I’m uncertain whether stops at Smith falls and Peterborough would be necessary for each service. You could easily make it every other train.

        • Clee 14:39 on 2019-03-06 Permalink

          my dream would be TGV between MTL and NYC.

        • mare 15:45 on 2019-03-06 Permalink

          Building the track via Ottawa would probably also cheaper. The current train need to run while building the new train and there’s not much room next to the current track and the 401 and the river. And lots of commuter towns.

        • JaneyB 20:24 on 2019-03-06 Permalink

          @Clee. Too true! Or even Boston.
          @Ephraim. If we had a 2 hr commute time between TO and MTL, it would raise real estate prices in Montreal too – people could finally live in Mtl and work in TO.

          Will never happen because it will kill the only profitable route for our airlines and buses. Put that $4 billion into urban transit measures. Daily commute times are a huge, daily quality of life issue for most people.

        • Ephraim 21:48 on 2019-03-06 Permalink

          @Janey – Lyon is 2 hours from Paris by TGV and yet, people aren’t doing a daily commute from Lyon. The train time from Paris to London is about 2 and a half hours. And Brussels is under 1 and a half hours. But there are still flights, life goes on. But it eats into the flights and into the road traffic… which is exactly what you need.

        • ant6n 08:37 on 2019-03-08 Permalink

          In Germany, the planning consensus is that trains become competitive with air travel if the travel time is less than four hours. Generally the network does support super high speed operation, most of the network only allows 200-250km/h. Other countries in Europe focus on frequeny and coverage over high speed and are very succesful with that (although these are smaller, like Switzerland).

          Id say the travel time Montreal-Toronto has to be below 4h to be viable. We dont really need TGVs for that, 230km/h would probably do. VIA ordered 200km/h conventional trains, but faster conventional trains are possible (e.g. Austria its 230km/h, Germany just ordered 230km/h conventional trains). I wish VIA was a bit more ambitious with speeds and travel times, without necessarily going full TGV.

        • ant6n 08:38 on 2019-03-08 Permalink

          I meant “Generally the network does not support”

      • Kate 07:33 on 2019-03-06 Permalink | Reply  

        As more and more rentals are converted to Airbnb offerings, the city is pressing Revenu Quebec to act on its power to fine operators not respecting the rules about certification and tax. This item says that not one fine has been handed out yet in this matter.

         
        • Ian 11:08 on 2019-03-06 Permalink

          For all the posturing by pm I’m not surprised one bit to hear this.

        • Ephraim 11:42 on 2019-03-06 Permalink

          The city is doing it all wrong (and worse off, I told at least one councillor this.)

          You start to amass the addresses and the names and you submit the forms, asking for your share of tax fraud denouncements. That’s right, RQ is supposed to pay anyone denouncing tax fraud a finder’s fee…. the fine for illegally running an AirBnB is $2500 to $5000 per DAY, plus part of all the tax revenues not declared, meaning not just hotel tax, GST and QST but also income taxes, going back 7 years!

          Then the city needs to use the freedom of information act and request from RQ publicly (And frankly, I don’t know why the press themselves haven’t done this…) how many actions RQ has done per month for the last year and how much it has collected. You see, they can’t release information on WHO they have collected from or acted on, because of privacy, but actual visits, calls, and money… that should be covered by the freedom of information act, because it doesn’t disclose WHO, it just discloses if RQ is doing it’s job.

          And frankly, I’m ashamed that no reporter has gone after this, to see if RQ, who took over the dossier, is actually doing it’s job and collecting the taxes… or just calling people and scaring them into changing the person who’s renting (the reality).

        • Kate 14:37 on 2019-03-06 Permalink

          the fine for illegally running an AirBnB is $2500 to $5000 per DAY

          Ephraim, maybe this is too damn high, and is deterring inspectors from imposing it?

        • Ian 14:51 on 2019-03-06 Permalink

          Well committing tax fraud is one of the more serious crimes, which makes it kind of funny that all these “disruptors” like to pretend that’s not a concern at all. Committing tax fraud is way more seriously punished than simple theft because effectively it’s a theft against society as a whole.

          Just thought I’d share this comment from Richard Ryan on Facebook:
          Nous sommes en lien avec Revenu Québec et nous avons bon espoir que les agents vont appliquer des constats pour faire respecter la loi sur l’hébergement touristique. Ainsi des centaines (voire quelques milliers) de logements pourraient revenir pour un vrai usage d’habitation.

          It really does sound like they are trying but RQ won’t go ahead and jump in which is odd since this is kind of their raison d’être.

        • Joey 15:22 on 2019-03-06 Permalink

          @Ian presumably RQ agents have bigger fish to fry, though I guess you could probably self-fund a department that does nothing but airbnb-type investigations for a few years. I suspect, like Kate, that RQ staff are probably not super keen on the huge fines Ephraim mentioned.

        • Ephraim 21:52 on 2019-03-06 Permalink

          @Joey I have RQ agents at my door within a week of the changes to ensure that I was running my business legally. And yet… when it comes to those who aren’t paying their taxes and doing it legally, they aren’t enforcing? Fine… do a freedom of information act request and embarrass RQ into showing that they aren’t doing their job and therefore the minister should answer for it in the house of commons.

        • Ephraim 22:07 on 2019-03-06 Permalink

          Kate… all you have to do is impose it a few times. (Heck, they can let them off a hook after signing a non-disclosure agreement.) Do it by booking a few online and sending them the fines. The news will travel like wildfire and the illegals will pull their listings off AirBnB for fear that RQ will make a reservation and send them a $2500 per day bill. In fact, RQ can make a few 4 day reservations and send in a cool $10K bill. Want to bet that within a few days you will see AirBnB cleared of the illegals?

        • TC 23:40 on 2019-03-06 Permalink

          To be cynical, maybe high fines are an incentive to corruption. Cities world-wide are trying to get a handle on AirBnb, for legitimate reasons: safety, taxes, housing vs. hotel uses. In the US, it has added pressure to housing inventory. Apartments are taken off the rental market and moved to the hotel market, with no hotel taxes paid.

        • Chris 10:35 on 2019-03-07 Permalink

          With all that you’ve written on this topic over the years Ephraim, I’m surprised *you* haven’t used an access to information request! 🙂

          I’d wager politicians don’t want to clamp down, because most people *like* AirBnb, just like they like Uber, Walmart, Amazon, and all kinds of other things that have serious negative effects on others.

        • Ephraim 11:51 on 2019-03-07 Permalink

          Chris – What’s the point of my doing? For my own edification? Someone with some political clout needs to do it. Useless for me to do it. And as the price of housing goes up and city taxes go down, more and more people want to do something about it. More cities are stepping in all the time.

        • thomas 11:41 on 2019-03-08 Permalink

          I believe B.C. recently made an agreement with Airbnb, to directly collect sales tax on all transactions. At a minimum, that should be added to the 3.5% lodging tax that Quebec already collects.

        • Ephraim 11:51 on 2019-03-08 Permalink

          @Thomas – Here’s my question… Expedia has to collect GST, QST and Hotel Tax. Booking.com has to collect GST, QST and Hotel Tax. AirBnB is over $30K in sales… even just their commission is over $30K in sales, so why aren’t they collecting (and paying) GST and QST? Why do they get to cheat on our sales taxes? Why do we, as citizens have to pay more income tax to make up for the fact that they aren’t paying their fair share?

          And if you read AirBnB’s documents on Quebec, the reiterate several times that they don’t report your name to RQ or the CRA. Why? Because they KNOW that they are helping people cheat on their taxes. Nothing wrong with disruption…. something wrong with stealing taxes… because if they aren’t paying their share of taxes, you and I have to make up for it in our tax rates.

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