REM: “An indifference to ugliness”
Urbanist Marc-André Carignan writes a Le Devoir op-ed about how the REM shows an appalling indifference to ugliness.
Something a commenter said on Twitter recently struck me. We just managed to get rid of the high pylons of the Bonaventure, and the highest pylons of the Turcot – and now this.
James 17:59 on 2021-12-10 Permalink
Too bad that Star Trek transporters haven’t been invented yet. it seems like people want better public transport but don’t want to see it. The alternatives with population growth are either wider and more inhospitable roads or more gridlock. The alternatives for powering the train are 3rd rail or catenary and 3rd rail is definitely not the choice to make with our climate. There are no magic solutions to hide a system like this unless you are willing to spend a LOT more money to bury everything.
dhomas 19:44 on 2021-12-10 Permalink
I don’t see the metro from ground level.
walkerp 20:01 on 2021-12-10 Permalink
The government is willing to spend a lot of money on a stupid tunnel for cars.
DeWolf 22:52 on 2021-12-10 Permalink
I really wish people would stop comparing six-lane roadways to a double-track railway. The REM is ugly but it is completely disingenuous to compare an electric train to a pollution-belching, noisy, pedestrian-endangering expressway that degrades everything around it.
But I certainly agree that our priorities as a society and a province are completely backwards. The government is eager to spend $10 billion on the troisième lien when that same amount as dismissed as too expensive for a new metro line that would serve several times more people.
ant6n 23:07 on 2021-12-10 Permalink
It’s also disingineous to compare a suburban mini metro designed by a money-seeking entity that is sucking money out of transit as whole and privatizing important infrastructure with our urban metro system.
ant6n 23:14 on 2021-12-10 Permalink
Invoking nonexistence of star trek transporters to show it as inevitable that transit has to be ugly and not well designed is kind of silly. Transit could also be well designed, high capacity, and strengthening urban areas rather than suburban ones (that is, encourage walkable neighborhoods instead of sprawl).
Kevin 14:49 on 2021-12-11 Permalink
I thought the pillars were ugly. The overhead wires are like tinsel, accentuating garbage.
If they don’t hold up well to freezing rain the REM is going to be useless for months of the year.
I am just picturing Vancouver’s trolleys, which detach from the wires whenever they go a bit too fast.
Ian 19:40 on 2021-12-11 Permalink
“Something a commenter said on Twitter recently struck me. We just managed to get rid of the high pylons of the Bonaventure, and the highest pylons of the Turcot – and now this.”
Agreed – and even worse, these raised concrete tracks are in places the Turcot & Bonaventure never went to. I realize that the West Island along the 40 is not exactly bucolic, nor is the Southwest along the tracks – but they also didn’t look like the bottom of the Met at St Denis.
Not like the track goes anywhere useful west of Dorval, at least the old train followed the lakeshore where people actually live and work. It’s pretty clear the entire point of the REM in the west island is to encourage new development and yes, increase sprawl. It certainly won’t serve the needs of existing west island commuters, or people commuting to the west island.
One thing I think a lot of the regulars here don’t realize is that a large proportion of west islanders don’t actually leave the west island much. They might live in Pointe Claire, work in Dollard, and go to school in Ste Anne. The REM doesn’t help any of them, and the bus service is sporadic at best. The majority of young people living in the west island rarely leave the west island, and I can guarantee they all plan to buy cars which they will only get rid of if they move downtown for work.
Uatu 21:57 on 2021-12-11 Permalink
If the young West Islanders are like the ones I know, they can’t wait to move downtown. Like I’ve said before, the REM is just a means of making the real estate holdings of the caisse more attractive to buy. Anything else like public transport is secondary
ant6n 01:17 on 2021-12-12 Permalink
@Kevin
Ice on overhead wires could be a bit of a problem, but the trolley issue won’t be. These use pantographs, not trolley poles, which is a much more robust technology (pantograph: long stick with wheel rolling along wire. Pantograph: long metal bar perpendicular to overhead wires pushing against them)
david448 03:02 on 2021-12-12 Permalink
There’s like an iron law in Montreal that nothing positive and progressive can occur without a chorus of cynical naysaying, catastrophizing, and concern trolling, assuming every possible negative scenario as an inevitable and obvious straight line to the complete destruction of both the city and everything it stands for.
Somehow the town survives despite growing, developing, new restaurants opening, laws changing, and all the rest.
The REM could have been done better, but when that thing opens it’s going to be amazing, and in 2030 or whatever, people won’t even be able to imagine the city without it.
Push and advocate for the best possible moves on the eastern expansion (which I still don’t think will happen, frankly), but don’t act like this is some sort of dystopian or transparently moronic idea, because it’s just not.
Kevin 09:53 on 2021-12-12 Permalink
@ant6n
Thanks. Like just about everyone else i missed the connection technology in all the promotional material.
Ian/Uatu
The West Island produces two results: love it or hate it. I think it runs pretty close to 50/50
ant6n 11:47 on 2021-12-12 Permalink
@davidXXX
Youre building a straw man.
Don’t tell anybody how they should advocate for a better city.
Ian 18:21 on 2021-12-12 Permalink
@Kevin it’s funny how the east island is just as suburban and even more underserved by transit but nobody complains about them the way they do about the West Island. One might almost think it has to do with othering Anglos than urbanism.
ant6n 22:19 on 2021-12-12 Permalink
@Ian
That’s not true. Up to and including Anjou (a bit beyond the A-25) the East somewhat suburban, but it is more urban, more dense, better served by transit, having better bus+metro connections, having more transit usage and having less distance from downtown than the West island. As you go further east it becomes indeed more suburban (montreal-est, PAT) but there are much fewer ppl living out there compared to the west island.