Chapleau: the REM downtown
Rather than draw an editorial cartoon for the weekend, Serge Chapleau composits how the REM might look going down René-Lévesque – click to see 2/2.
Contrary to what some commentators have said, I don’t think he’s exaggerated the effect.
Milo Vermeulen, one of my Dutch friends, posted a photo this week of an elevated train in the middle of a street in Den Haag. This may be a more recent, high-tech type of structure than the image Chapleau used, but no matter what you do with this kind of thing, you inevitably put in a visual barrier that casts a shadow – even if you put a pot of tulips under it.
mare 16:02 on 2021-05-22 Permalink
That’s actually a tram in The Hague, that travels at lower speed on narrower track than the REM. The reason it’s elevated is that it’s ascending to the tram- and bus station which is located *on top* of the railway station with its tracks at ground level. (Below the tracks is a parking garage, and on top of it all is a tall office tower. The Dutch sure like stacking.)
GC 16:03 on 2021-05-22 Permalink
I had hoped I would click through to that and think “Oh, it’s not so bad but I’m still pessimistic the real thing will look worse.” And yet…his imagining is pretty much as bad as it could be. At least the Dutch one lets some light through.
Kate 17:26 on 2021-05-22 Permalink
mare, far be it from me to contradict a Dutchman, but I’ve seen other photos of this elevated track going on for blocks, so I don’t think it’s necessarily a ramp rising to a station.
Kevin 19:46 on 2021-05-22 Permalink
CTV did something similar the day or the day after the REM de l’est was announced.
The Powers That Be don’t care since no real Quebecois live in Montreal anyway.
mare 20:08 on 2021-05-22 Permalink
@Kate, oops, this is a very different piece of track. Milo’s photo (yes, coincidentally I know him, even worked with him on a project) looked like it was in another area of The Hague. This is more a light rail train akin the REM. I was wrong.
I kind of like this one, but not straight from below, but very unlikely the REM East will look anything like that. Money is the main factor in every decision CDPQInfra makes. And Quebec doesn’t even have steel mills and we do have a concrete industry…
(Even the amount on art they spent on REM 1 is much lower than the usual 1% in Quebec.)
ant6n 19:01 on 2021-05-23 Permalink
The graffiti is a nice touch
JaneyB 19:19 on 2021-05-23 Permalink
I was hoping it might not look too bad…and I was wrong. That concrete obstruction with its certain graffiti is a fright. There’s no way that’s going ahead. I guess the REM has another plan and this is the ‘unreasonable pre-option’ to soak up our fury. I wonder where they really want the elevated track will be. Above the Ville Marie Expressway?
ant6n 20:03 on 2021-05-24 Permalink
Yeah like with the REM one: the project is full of problems, but the biggest one of the original proposal was the lack of McGill and Edouard-Montpetit stations. Once they added those in, it was hard to move the goal post to the next list of problems.
Even if REM 2.0 fixed the downtown access, it will still be a very expensive, relatively low-ridership solution, which is redundant with an existing metro lone along a lot of its length, its new areas are on branches that are either low population and only exist for political reasons (East End), or it’s a branch (Norther branch) that is sort of okay, but is too far East to capture most of the population that needs rapid transit going downtown, and the REM will make it nearly impossible to get those more dense areas served by rapid transit later.
The next line of problems is the expense and financing, and the lack of integrated long term planning (for example, will the REM 2.0 ever to West, how does it interact with commuter rail lines, how does it interact with the Blue line extension, the pink line, or various tram proposals?).