Montreal City Weblog

Kate 19:58 on 2020-09-21 Permalink Reply  

• DeWolf 11:19 on 2020-09-22 Permalink

  The problem was letting the private sector grab ahold of major pieces of infrastructure in the first place.

  But it’s too late in this case. Stopping the REM from reaching the airport would be exactly the kind of short-sighted approach Quebec has always taken to public transit. People are going to resume travelling at some point, and unless you somehow stop everyone from doing business or visiting family overseas, there’s still going to be a need for airplanes. And they need a way to get to the airport that doesn’t involve a private car or the 747 bus, which is useless for 99% of the population.

  Hopefully future governments can deprivatize our transport systems, but for now, stopping the REM a couple kilometres shy of the airport out of ideological spite would be an incredible act of self-sabotage.

• Faiz imam 22:51 on 2020-09-22 Permalink

  The ADM is a arms length psuedo crown corporation what funds itself through airport traffic. For the next few years they will not be able to fund any major construction projects. That’s just the facts.

  But this crisis will eventually pass, and the need for a high quality airport shuttle will remain.

  Seems to be the ideal solution is for the government to hand ADM a interest free loan so that the work can go ahead. In the long run it will be paid back by the traffic that will inevitably return.

  But leaving them on their own helps noone.

  On a different note, the numbers the article is citing are misleading. The REM’s own ridership studies are notoriously conservative, and the way the author arbitrarily reduced the number further is absurd.

  A more useful figure to be aware of if that in 2015 5000 people per day took the 747 bus. We should expect REM figures to be at that level at least, if not higher.