A report is in on turning the orange line into a loop with 3 stations past Côte-Vertu (Poirier, Bois-Franc and Gouin) and two new stations in Laval before closing the circuit at Montmorency. Total estimate: $4.3 billion.
St-Laurent mayor Alan DeSousa is very keen and has chosen his moment, with doubts arising about the condition of the Mount Royal tunnel, to point out that, should anything go wrong with it, a metro stop at Bois‑Franc would provide an alternative for REM users to get downtown.
The hand taken from the museum’s totem pole has been anonymously returned with an apology.
Greenhouse gas emissions in Montreal are down 28% since 1990.
The Viens report, which came out Monday, has a lot to say about Quebec’s poor attitude to its indigenous peoples. One of the points is that Montreal is poorly equipped to help its indigenous residents, failing Inuit women in particular.
Lots of REM headlines Wednesday morning. First off, the Caisse has rejected any suggestion there could be a delay in constructing the line downtown through the old Mount Royal tunnel, via spokesman Harout Chitilian, who used to be one of Coderre’s crowd. That news story had train commuters riled up over potential delays and even provoked transport minister François Bonnardel into insisting the deadline is firm. (Even though the project was born under the Liberals, I imagine the CAQ does not want the debacle of late delivery busting out on its watch.)
As usual, the Gazette’s concern is with the West Island experience, in this case the issue of parking spots. The spokesman here is quoted saying the stations will be accessible “by bus, by active transport, by car, and other innovative mobile methods” but he doesn’t explain what those other methods might be.
The Longueuil transit service, on the other hand, is all excited about how the REM will change things there, allowing them to remove a lot of their buses from the bridge run into the city, and rethink their bus routes.
Although La Presse has a headline about a REM station coming in Griffintown there’s no firm news about exactly where, except that it will be north of the Lachine canal and not right in the Peel basin where, as André Dubuc writes here, where a stadium is planned for “the return of the Expos.”
Glad to know the new public transit system is accessible by innovative mobile methods but not, apparently, by foot…
If the project has already been born, we should know now whether or not it was delivered late, wouldn’t you say?
Joey, I believe foot is considered an active transport mode. Especially in the winter.
The educated speculation is the Griffintown station will be on Ottawa St, facing the new park that will be built.
That leaves an opening down the line to build a second station south of the basin, depending on what ends of happening there, stadium or no.
Also, regardless of what happens with cost overrruns and delays, the real question we all need to ask is who is going to pay for it?
The whole point of a PPP is guaranteed costs for the public. The Caisse is suppose to be liable for all risk.
That’s in theory, but in practice there are many cases where they come running to government whineing about how unfair it is, and want to share costs.
We should hope that’s not in the cards here.
That’s already the case here. The REM has all sorts of costs that cdpqinfra says they’re not responsible for. Like the 200M for replacement bus services (when originally the were supposed to be no shut downs), or how the airport is being asked to pay for their station, etc etc. Arguably, getting the Deux montages line at like 10-20% its value is another way you can quietly increase costs without changing the supposed 6B price tag.
Anton I’ve read your report on the DM line’s “value” and I don’t disagree with the facts, but let’s assume REM paid fair value for it — RTM would they be the bandit absconding with a 1000% ROI. Should RTM in turn compensate CNR? After all, RTM predecessor AMT bought the line from CNR just three years earlier for $97 million. https://www.cn.ca/en/news/2014/02/cn-amt-deux-montagnes-sale
@Francesco
Please read my very detailled article on the valuation of the DM line again. The 100M$ that was paid to CN in 2014 represents only a small amount of the total investment in the line. In total, the AMT invested nearly 900M$ in the line.
Anton, like it or not all those costs you mentioned were negotiated up front, with everyone shaking hands and smiling together as the final signatures were written.
The real question is for unexpected delays and costs, such as those these recent reports are warning about.
Historically all major projects have cost inflation. And a ppp is mostly designed to shield the public from that risk.
If this does end up costing a billion extra, the caisse should be expected to absorb that entirely. That’s the whole point of doing it this way.
I indeed don’t like lies. Stop the BS.
For example, the 192M$ mitigation program was only announced in September this year. Previously, people at the ARTM were asked to plan with mitigation measures without having a budget. If the REM people had kept their promise and continued service on the Deux-Montagnes line during construction, then the province wouldn’t have to pay for it, but then construction would be more expensive. This is how cost gets moved from the budget of the REM to other actors like the province of Quebec.
There’s been oodles of more backdoor costs, that have been slowly accumulating almost since the beginning. There was no actual “up front”, when was that supposed to have been? And it makes sense all these items aren’t in the PPP agreement, because if contributions like the 400M (or so) from Hydro Quebec where in the PPP, they might have to get a stake (shares) in the project – or CDPQInfra would have to match any contribution, in order to ensure that they still own 51%. So instead, responsibilities are quietly shuffled to other actors, then they have to pay for those overruns.
I found a link talking about how the REM folks are getting the airport to pay for the airport station.
ant6n, something went wrong with that link and it isn’t live. Can you send it to me and I’ll link it back in? Thanks.
Ant6n 20:24 on 2019-10-02 Permalink
DeSousa has been pushing bois franc for like decades. Would’ve been nice if that had been included in the garage construction they did up the.
Kate 20:50 on 2019-10-02 Permalink
It’s mentioned in the article and DeSousa has raised the point before that money could be saved if a tunnel to Bois-Franc was included with the construction. According to this latest piece, they’ve already dug a tunnel about halfway there anyway.
Cynically, I remember thinking that DeSousa was a little naive in thinking there was anything attractive about saving money on a project like this, when major construction projects always seem to be about putting big money into the right pockets. But maybe that’s going a cynical step too far.
….Also, now that I think of it, they dug a piece of tunnel well past Snowdon metro, but there’s never been any serious expectation of a new station cropping up beyond Hampstead (which would never welcome such a plebeian feature, just as Westmount never did).
jeather 10:17 on 2019-10-03 Permalink
A further west station would almost certainly be in NDG (which could use one), not Hampstead or Montreal West.
Kate 10:54 on 2019-10-03 Permalink
A station or two in NDG would take so much pressure off the bus routes there, especially the 105. I don’t think it’s ever been considered politically feasible, though.
ant6n 13:18 on 2019-10-03 Permalink
The pink line would relieve the 105 more, since it would be a better connection to downtown. A short blue line extension would make a lot of sense with the pink line, so they could have a transfer near Cavendish/Sherbrooke.
I’ve also seen old proposals to extend the blue line to LaSalle, to the terminus of the green line. It’s interesting to ponder the blue line as a true circumferential line, rather than awkward mix of circumferential and downtown-bound
Mark Côté 15:35 on 2019-10-03 Permalink
So infuriating. The 51 and the 105 run nearly constantly in rush hour. In the morning they are all so crowded that some don’t even let on more passengers by the time they get to eastern NDG. Then the traffic gets so bad that you can walk to the metro faster than the bus can make it—which is fine for able-bodied people now but a lot less fun in January.
Faiz imam 16:42 on 2019-10-03 Permalink
Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the rail tracks between Lucien l’alliée and Montréal West do not have any freight traffic on them. They are 100% for passenger use until you get to the rail yards near Lachine
A high ish frequency rail line from Downtown to the Montreal west station, with a couple extra stops along the way, would be a huge deal. Especially for concordia Loyola campus, but also ndg in general.
But I have to think that the stm, exo, Artm are not idiots. If it hasn’t happened, it’s because there are are key obstacles that are more expensive or more difficult than we think.
John B 17:30 on 2019-10-03 Permalink
They say that the rail lines between Lucien L’allier & Montreal West are at full capacity – I think they even added another track a couple of years back to to leave a little space to work around stalled trains, but my understanding is that there “isn’t more space”, (because so many commuter lines run on that section: Vaudreuil, Candiac, & St-Jerome).
But if they could figure out how to add a train it would be amazing. The 105 has run beyond capacity for years, with people having to shuffle along in the snow beside the bus as Mark Côté says, and a single train going back & forth along there could really help the situation. Even a “Concordia Express” that only uses the existing 3 stations would help a lot.
Ephraim 18:53 on 2019-10-03 Permalink
The original Blue Line proposal had it going down to CSL Road at Cavendish. They finally sold the land and built an Esso station.
ant6n 23:58 on 2019-10-03 Permalink
“But I have to think that the stm, exo, Artm are not idiots. If it hasn’t happened, it’s because there are are key obstacles that are more expensive or more difficult than we think.”
“They say that the rail lines between Lucien L’allier & Montreal West are at full capacity”
Lul. Three, lines having a combined peak frequency of about 8 trains per hour at the very peak, is fully saturating three tracks of a transit line, which btw has space for a fourth track. Meanwhile, if you talk to them and ask them why they don’t use any rail lines for local rapid transit service, they’ll say “oh but that’s what the metro is for”. I indeed wonder what the key obstacles are.
Max 08:43 on 2019-10-04 Permalink
West end -> anglo ridership -> always other projects with higher priorities.