CDPQ Infra: answerable to no one
Urbanist Gérard Beaudet examines how CDPQ Infra ordains transit for the Montreal area without any consultation with the city or with the ARTM, the entity that’s supposed to orchestrate transit planning for the greater urban area.
Daniel D 22:54 on 2020-12-23 Permalink
Allowing a private organisation free rein to build what it wants is one thing (and not a good thing), but if I’ve understood correctly the CDPQ can actively prevent competing transit from being built, or even revoke existing transit routes?
Etienne 23:50 on 2020-12-23 Permalink
I hate to be that guy, but if we just look at the big picture, before cdpq was given their « superpowers » nothing never got built in montreal. Blue line extension stalled for 30 years… now we finally have movement and projects getting built.
In my opinion, more transit is the goal and it is what we are getting and it’s great.
I cannot explain why the “old” way was not working for transit projects to always be stalled by consultation after consultation after study but at least now the future looks bright.
It might not be the perfect solution nor fill the need entirely but it is at least SOMETHING and also pretty fast.
Taylor Noakes 00:18 on 2020-12-24 Permalink
To Etienne’s comment:
1- Montreal is legally prohibited, by the province, from building mass transit infrastructure. This has been the case since 1988.
2- the province stalled or cancelled all the projects that went nowhere in the past
So “the old way didn’t work” because we can’t do it ourselves and are dependent on provincial politicians to do anything, and they’re not incentivized or motivated to get it done.
Ergo a city with excellent public transit has had control handed over to a private interest whose built a monorail to replace high capacity trains, in the process arranging to profit off it for themselves.
We had no choice. We were screwed.
Kevin 00:21 on 2020-12-24 Permalink
I’m projecting, but I think that when the REM launches the Deux Montagnes line, the pandemic WFH aftereffects will be the only thing that prevents disaster.
Daniel D 10:18 on 2020-12-24 Permalink
“Montreal is legally prohibited, by the province, from building mass transit infrastructure. This has been the case since 1988”
I’m curious, what’s the history behind such a draconian policy?
Kate 12:58 on 2020-12-24 Permalink
I’m hoping Taylor Noakes comes back and explains in more detail, but I suspect that a lot of what Montreal administrations have experienced since 1976 derive from the excesses of the Olympics, when Quebec had to clamp down on massive cost overruns sparked by both poor planning and corruption. In a sense, Montreal’s been in tutelage to Quebec ever since that time.
DeWolf 13:58 on 2020-12-24 Permalink
Taylor makes some very salient points but I think they’d be even more credible without the hyperbole. The REM is deeply flawed but it’s not a monorail, even in the Simpsons sense, and it doesn’t reduce capacity on the Deux-Montagnes line – it increases it by 2.5 times. The problem with the REM has to do with the CDPQ’s planning and management, and the Quebec government’s imperious neglect of regional planning, not with the technology or rolling stock, which is already in use in dozens of cities around the world.
GC 14:14 on 2020-12-24 Permalink
My first thought was the Olympics, too, but then why did it take until 1988? Did it just need a particular government with the right majority? I was still a child in 1988, but I’m guessing we knew about the Olympics corruption before that…
Ant6n 14:37 on 2020-12-24 Permalink
The infrastructure does indeed reduce capacity. The problem in the dm line was an operating one, coupled with a lack of vehicles. So the old schedules operated at a fraction of the capacity, the new rem will operate at the limit — except at the high peak, where the capacities were somewhat similar.
But it’s true this is just one of the problems of the project. And given our governance and the impossibility to inform the public about the problems of a project like this, it’s kind of a lost cause.
DeWolf 15:16 on 2020-12-24 Permalink
Yes, you’re right, the DM line’s theoretical capacity was higher, if new trains were added and some of the more fundamental problems were fixed (turns out there was unexploded ordinance in the tunnel!). But given the political realities that would never have happened. It should have happened a long time ago, but it didn’t.
It seems like the only two acceptable positions on the REM are naïve boosterism or outright cynical rejection. How about a bit of nuance? Isn’t it possible to acknowledge that for all its flaws, REM will be a net improvement for public transit connectivity in Greater Montreal, while also acknowledging that the process that led to its creation is deeply problematic? Some people seem to be rooting for the REM to fail, which seems like pure dogmatism.
Taylor Noakes 18:10 on 2020-12-24 Permalink
Oh what fun!
To answer some of your many excellent questions:
1. Yes, it’s somewhat related to the Olympics. My understanding is that the city pushed the province to partly finance the Green Line extension towards Honore-Beaugrand and the province’s responsibility increased from that point onward. The initial system was entirely within the city limits, with the exceptions of Atwater & Longueuil, but to my knowledge Montreal worked out agreements with each on a one-on-one basis. There was a predecessor to the AMT called the BMT, whose job was to continue managing Metro expansion. IIRC the BMT helped figure out the jurisdictional issues relating to the subsequent expansions, which would have involved separate communities (i.e. VSL, Lasalle, Verdun, Outremont etc).There was also the planned use of disused CNR tracks for a “Metro de surface’ which would, many many years later become the AMT’s Deux-Montagnes and Mascouche lines. In truth, the original proposal would have involved service rates closer to Metro levels than those of commuter trains.
There was nonetheless a jurisdictional issue between the STCUM and the BMT in the early 1980s. One early mention of the idea to propose a moratorium on Metro construction is a Gazette editorial from 1983, arguing it’s too expensive and the population density doesn’t merit it. Old arguments of the right on transit die hard. My understanding is that the moratorium came into effect during the second Bourassa admin, and is partly why the Blue Line was never completed all the way out to Anjou as was proposed back in the late 1970s. It’s also why the White Line was never built. Riders of the Blue Line will also note the trains are three cars shorter than the Orange and Green lines even though the stations (or at least the Westernmost stations) have fullsize platforms. There was concern the Blue Line wouldn’t be used as much as the others, as the city was still depopulating well into the 1990s. Whether the city never got more trains to run full size trains on the Blue Line or not enough is something I still need to research.
So yes to Kate’s point, I think tutelage is an apt description, at least with regards to transit.
Craig Sauve once told me there’s an additional complication in that the city can’t independently raise the funds for such massive capital projects.
It’s also worth considering the nature of the Metro as originally built, which is to say, Drapeau got a great deal on construction costs because the Metro was built, in a sense, in the cheapest way possible. Tunnels weren’t bored, for the most part, but rather whole sections of street were excavated (much like in the case of the McGill REM station). In the case of the Green Line’s Atwater to Place des Arts section, the city just destroyed buildings in a straight line and put de Maisonneuve on top.
Also I think a dozen people died during the construction. Such were the days of radical urban depopulation and large non-unionized immigrant workforces. Urban residents, mostly renters, had no vote back in the mid-1960s (not that it really mattered anyways when the SPVM could randomly throw out ballots) so Drapeau could do pretty much whatever he wanted. This too plays into why the Quebec govt got involved.
2. @DeWolf – see I disagree, I think Sabia is very much like Lyle Lanley and that Coderre was very much like Mayor Quimby. Where our situation differs is that Sabia sold the REM to Couillard who then decided this would solve Montreal’s transit problems. Montreal didn’t win several billion dollars that were then exploited by an unsrupulous snakeoil salesman, rather, the snakeoil salesman decided both price and technology and put Quebec and Canadian taxpayers on the hook, both on the front and back end.
I think there are other aspects of the project that are worth additional scrutiny, in addition to those you mentioned. I’m concerned with the control the CDPQ has been given over setting fares, in the redundancy that’s been eliminated, in the profit motive.
The REM was designed to make money by and for people who generally do not use public transit. Sabia doesn’t ride the bus. Moreover, the REM connects properties owned by Ivanhoe-Cambridge, the CDPQ’s real estate arm.
It’s more than a little peculiar that the CDPQ is building a new REM station under McGill College when the REM is supposed to use the existing train station at Gare Centrale. Weirder still that there’s no thru-connection. Guess who owns nearly every building on McGill College, including Place Montreal Trust, the Eaton Centre, Place Ville Marie, as well as the Queen Elizabeth?
My biggest issue with the technology and rolling stock is that we’ve sacrificed local construction for cheaper foreign imports, and ensured they’d be automated to eliminate needing to hire unionized transit workers. Again, this project is driven by profit over all else.
I’m also not crazy that the REM was supposed to seamlessly integrate onto an existing track system and now everything is being rebuilt such that only the REM can use it. The system could have been designed so that multiple rail vehicles could have used the same track, but this would bite into the potential profit to be extracted from it. It needlessly limits adaptation to future requirements, essentially meaning that we’ll need full rebuilds every time we need to expand. That said, it now seesm that the REM is the only option, so there’s a path dependency problem on top of everything else.
I’m not rooting for the REM to fail, I write about it and will continue to analyse and opine on it because I want Montreal to take control of it and try to fix some of the very important problems now before it’s really too late. I also think that, expensive though it may be, expanding the Metro is the most sensible thing to do.
I’m concerned the REM will not operate ideally in winter. This isn’t a ridiculous thing to be concerned about either, the original Champlain Bridge didn’t take winter into account.
Our city should be fully in charge of transit planning and infrastructure development, and it should always and only be designed to maximize accessibility and connectivity. I feel too much of the thinking behind the REM was “we absolutely need an airport connection” or “trains are cool, people need to see that” or even still that this would be a great way to force new ‘transit oriented development’.
At the end of the day my over-riding concern is that, 10 years from now this thing won’t be working as well as it could and that there’ll be a trickle-down effect that undermines the vitality and utility of our transit system, just as we need it to be working at its best level. And we’ll all be wondering how we got to this point, and will have no choice but to coninue using something that wasn’t very well designed in the first place.
In other words, that we’ll have learned nothing from the Metro’s flaws.
Kate 18:24 on 2020-12-24 Permalink
Thank you, Mr Noakes.
GC 00:58 on 2020-12-25 Permalink
I didn’t even know about the proposed White Line, so I just Googled that one… Interesting.
ant6n 08:44 on 2020-12-25 Permalink
@DeWolf
I’d say it’s a strawman to pretend that our opinions are black and white, and only yours is the only nuanced one. I think all opinions are nuanced to some extend, and we’re all on a white to black spectrum (except faiz imam, who’s an unapologetic booster). My position is a pretty dark gray, Taylor Noakes position is an even darker gray. I don’t think I have to cheer the REM at all or acknowledge that yes, omg, finally some sort of rapid transit is getting built. CDPQInfra with its PR minions and stretching of the truth has already convinced most people of that, and virtually the whole political class is playing along.
Btw, to those who say nothing is getting built in Montreal in the last 30 years (usually referring to the blue line), that’s not true. Almost a billion dollars was spent on the Deux-Montagnes line to almost make it a rapid transit line between 1990 and 2016, we got another 900M for the Mascouche line, 175Mio for parking, etc. etc. Look at the listing below extracted from all capital plans (I linked a spreadsheet where I’d extracted all the data some days ago). I hope you see a pattern. Spoiler: the province spent it’s money on suburban centric projects, the money that went towards the metro is either for suburbia (Laval Extension) or necessary repair (new trains, maintenance facilities).
Another point: excusing that the DM line was not upgraded to proper rapid transit standards, which could’ve done for perhaps 200-400Mio, by saying it was not possible within the “political realities” is to me an unapologetic boosting of the REM. It was a failure by AMT and politicians, and claiming it would’ve been impossible is just an attempt boost the myth of the CDPQ as our savior.
AMT Capital Spending ~1993-1016
System (or commuter rail line); Mio$
DM 867
VH 417
SJ 593
SH 370
CA 208
MA 866
metro 982
bus 433
other 188
parking 175