City promises tram to Lachine
The city is promising to build a tram from downtown to Lachine, after agreeing to hand over transit millions it has in the bag for Quebec City’s tramway first.
-
Kate
Reply
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
- dhomas on City ends distribution of baby box
- steph on Back to the office, say the bosses
- bob on Balcony suspect charged with manslaughter
- Anton on Tentative route chosen for TGV
- DavidH on City ends distribution of baby box
- azrhey on Tentative route chosen for TGV
- azrhey on City ends distribution of baby box
Pages
Other levels of gov’t
Sideblog projects
Enviro Montreal is a Bluesky feed that follows local environment news. Also available on Mastodon.
Archives
Pages rescued from montreal.com
Meta
Jack 13:03 on 2019-06-26 Permalink
Great deflect, especially after the CAQs environment ministers spokesperson said the ” Plan Vert ” money could be spent on the troisieme lien.
nau 13:38 on 2019-06-26 Permalink
Pretty sure I suggested a while back that under the CAQ maybe the Lachine part of the Pink Line would get done first. Good to see something happening, and Lachine certainly deserves to be better connected to downtown.
Ant6n 14:14 on 2019-06-26 Permalink
This is confusing. The pink line was supposed to be a metro (heavy rail), not a tram. Is Montreal heading towards a weird hodge podge of disconnected, random transit systems?
mare 15:14 on 2019-06-26 Permalink
Yes, because changing from one mode of transport is fun for the passengers. Also, transfer stations are expensive to build so better for the construction and engineering firms.
But I doubt this gets ever built, by the time the million dollar feasibility studies are finished the earmarked money will be spent on something else, and another government is in power.
And that tramway in Quebec City won’t have many passengers per spent dollar.
ant6n 17:09 on 2019-06-26 Permalink
As part of their “structuring network” consultations, I also proposed a tram with a downtown tunnel, which works well in many mid-sized cities. But other cities connect the expensive downtown tunnel to multiple branches outside of downtown to actually make a good network. As far as I can see for Quebec City, it’s just a single line.
Michael Black 17:13 on 2019-06-26 Permalink
Maybe this is the best she could leverage. As I recall, people here have liked trams,nwhike I’ve wondered whst improvement they are over buses.
But maybe it gets more transport towards lachine. Yes switching transport slows thing down. But if this gets you out of the main poulation, maybe it’s a good thing.
Lionel-Grioux to Dorval can take as much as an hiur, as Ian always reminds us, on the 211. But then the rest of the way to St. Anne’s is shorter and rarely slowed down. Maybe getting to Lachine by a different route will speed things up.
Michael
ant6n 17:14 on 2019-06-26 Permalink
(I was replying to mare’s point about Quebec City … it’s true that they won’t have many passengers per spent dollar, and I think it’s cuz they don’t maximize the utility of the expensive tram tunnel)
ant6n 17:19 on 2019-06-26 Permalink
@Michael
A tram to Lachine sounds like a glorified 90 bus. In previous proposals, the Lachine tram was often to go via the Turcot yards. That would make very little sense: The pink line envisioned going to Lachine via NDG, parallel to the very full 105 bus, and it also meant a direct connection downtown. Without connecting to NDG, where there’d be more passngers than from Lachine, and without a good connection into the network and the requirement for extra transfers, but also possibly as a slow surface tram, this line won’t make sense.
…one can only hope that in the budgets this money will be made out for a “Lachine connection”, and then spend it more wisely. After all, the REM didn’t exactly follow what was originally proposed (although we don’t know what the initial project agreement between CDPQ and government was, because they afaik it’s not public).
Kate 18:01 on 2019-06-26 Permalink
Ant6n: Is Montreal heading towards a weird hodge podge of disconnected, random transit systems?
Yes. Patched together from political expediency and weird deals about money, and not designed in response to users’ needs as it should be.
Joey 22:05 on 2019-06-26 Permalink
Seems like it may be premature to draw too many conclusions about what precisely will be built. From La Presse:
« Aujourd’hui, je célèbre », a dit Mme Plante. Pendant la période de questions avec les journalistes, elle a admis que le projet final ne serait pas nécessairement un tramway, mais pourrait prendre une autre forme. Tous les élus ont refusé de s’avancer sur une date d’inauguration.
Faiz Imam 01:27 on 2019-06-27 Permalink
See, this is a Mayor doing their job very well.
It’s not about the plans per se, it’s about taking the hand you are dealt, and doing the horse trading necessary with other parties to get resources to actually advance the cause, even if you have to shovel money from one imaginary bucket to another.
It takes a very strong understanding of the institutions of power, and very good inter-personal skills to make this sort of deal happen. It’s super rare.
Now of course that also means its very fragile. There is a lot of trust in place that the quid pro quo will actually be honored. But if at the end of the day this actually gets shovels in the ground sooner (and of course assuming the actual project is not overly compromised) then this is a real win.
Ant6n 13:50 on 2019-06-27 Permalink
Wtf
Ian 17:43 on 2019-06-27 Permalink
Oh great, a streetcar to Lachine. What a fantastic transit win for the city. Ha, ha, ha.
Michael Black 17:52 on 2019-06-27 Permalink
“A Streetcar named Desire”? The mayor desires more, this is what she gets?
Michael