Montreal City Weblog

Kate 09:05 on 2022-04-07 Permalink Reply  

• Thomas 09:19 on 2022-04-07 Permalink

  We’re getting a grade-separated, automated, regional light metro system. Which is not the same thing as a street-level tram. The Vancouver SkyTrain is not the same thing as the Toronto Streetcar; both are good and both serve completely different needs and use cases.

• MarcG 09:39 on 2022-04-07 Permalink

  I love how the CTV website looks like it’s from 1999 and the links are all janky. Here’s a direct one to the REM video: https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=2417541&binId=1.1332485&playlistPageNum=1.

• MarcG 09:45 on 2022-04-07 Permalink

  Will the structure actually be metallic white like that or will it be brutal grey concrete?

• Daniel D 09:45 on 2022-04-07 Permalink

  I notice it’s rendered with “midday sun” so the shadows are seen to be cast under the elevated structure.

  We see a lot of artists’ renderings of these kinds of projects. Do they always come out looking like the idealised version they’re trying to sell?

  (I have to confess, I do like the lookout above the tunnel portal though!)

• Kevin 09:52 on 2022-04-07 Permalink

  Can you spot the power lines in that illustration?

• dwgs 10:02 on 2022-04-07 Permalink

  Can you see the ugly fencing / barrier at the end of the belvedere to stop people from jumping / throwing crap on the tracks?

• MarcG 10:11 on 2022-04-07 Permalink

  In certain segments it seems to cast no shadow whatsoever – very deceptive. Regarding the inevitable fencing/barrier on the belvedere, do you think there is another real design hidden somewhere that includes it or are the people designing this thing out of touch with reality?

• Dave 10:34 on 2022-04-07 Permalink

  A tram isn’t suitable for this project. The REM is meant to bring people from suburbs to downtown quickly, which means it needs to be grade separated (separated from traffic). A tram would be less frequent, have less capacity, and be less reliable due to interaction with traffic.

• mare 11:05 on 2022-04-07 Permalink

  I think René-Leveque is one of the most terrible and ugly streets in Montreal, so whatever they do is an instant improvement. In reality however, especially in the winter, it is going to look very different, as it always does with these inspirational videos.

  A new public square in Chinatown. Has CDPQInfra (or it’s real estate sister branch) already bought that empty lot? I bet the city has to expropriate it, and gosh, now it has suddenly gone up in value.

  There is so much loss of parking and driving space, there’s no way this is going to look like that. RL is a highway at the moment with more-or-less 7 or 8 lanes. No way they’re going to bring that down to 4 lanes, one of them even suggested being a buslane. And then the situation sneakily changes halfway the video in 6 lanes, without any traffic lights at intersections.

  All that gained space, and still bi-directional bike paths? I bet the city is on the hook for all the ground level infrastructure changes.

• carswell 11:10 on 2022-04-07 Permalink

  Amazing that CDPQinfra have discovered a way to keep all that concrete free of graffiti and to maintain huge swaths of lawn and meadow in such perfect condition (maybe they can give some tips to the parks department). Does anyone think for a second that people are going to want to work out in an open-air gym next to a major thoroughfare and under a dirty, noisy elevated railway, let alone do yoga? Such PR BS.

  @Kate Your link goes to another video now.

  Heading back to bed. F**k COVID and f**k the CDPQ.

• GC 11:42 on 2022-04-07 Permalink

  I was around Cremazie, where it does under the 40, last weekend. I fear the reality will look more like that than what’s in the video.

  The lack of shadows in that video really stands out. There’s maybe one point near the end that the elevated part casts a shadow over the ground but, before that, it’s all lush meadows growing underneath. And people sitting on benches with the trains running overhead and cars jammed up on one side?

• Kate 11:49 on 2022-04-07 Permalink

  carswell, I fixed the link, thanks – used MarcG’s link.

• DeWolf 13:19 on 2022-04-07 Permalink

  I realize everyone is just venting their spleen here, and now that the CDPQ has officially paused the project, the REM de l’Est is unlikely to be realized in its current form. But once again I feel the need to point out that an automated electric train is not the same as thousands of diesel-spewing trucks. And a nine-metre-tall, two-track structure is not the same as a six-lane highway that is only six metres off the ground. The scale is completely different and the level of noise and pollution wouldn’t even be comparable.

  Also, there are countless examples of the space underneath elevated railways being put to good use. Paris has markets and plazas underneath its elevated metro lines. Toronto has managed to create a delightful park called the Bentway that is directly underneath the Gardiner, which is definitely a noisy, overbearing highway. Right here in Montreal, there are very pleasant gathering spaces underneath the Notre-Dame viaduct and the Van Horne viaduct. I’ve been to music festivals underneath the latter viaduct and they’re fantastic. The REM de l’Est is a deeply flawed project, but the elevated structures are far from the worst things about it. Any comparison to the Metropolitan expressway is disingenuous at best.

  I’m not defending the REM de l’Est in particular – the examples I gave are all spaces that have been retrofitted around an existing structure. But I think there’s an awful lack of imagination on display here. Not all elevated structures are the same, and there are many, many examples of interesting and well-used public spaces underneath and around elevated structures.

• JaneyB 13:21 on 2022-04-07 Permalink

  @MarcG. It won’t be metallic white or brutal grey. It will be graffitied with tags for blocks.
  OTOH, if they do a mural festival all along it…I could be OK with that. That would be very Montreal and probably improve R-L.

• DeWolf 13:39 on 2022-04-07 Permalink

  Just to belabour my point, this is the Metropolitan. It’s a beast:

  https://goo.gl/maps/FxV7xrDfAk46aHYv9

  The REM would be more like one of these structures. Again, I’m not trying to justify it, I’m trying to make the point that the elevated structure is not the worst thing about this project.

  Paris metro – https://goo.gl/maps/Uq3CEkdXxmtriEv7A
  Vancouver SkyTrain – https://goo.gl/maps/M7bXQ2SX2WunBvLMA
  London DLR – https://goo.gl/maps/7zR44keXJGNMjoNX6
  Notre-Dame viaduct – https://goo.gl/maps/s8u2BhXExsJQSDPH6

• Ephraim 14:12 on 2022-04-07 Permalink

  Can someone redo the video with the tagging, please. Because if it’s white like that, it’s just an invite for tagging.

  And those poor people living on the floors at the same level as the REM… woosh, a lovely train goes right by what used to be your streetview.

• Tim S. 16:10 on 2022-04-07 Permalink

  Along with Dewolf’s point, I once spent a day walking a path beside the suburban section of the Skytrain, and while it wasn’t super picturesque, it was reasonably pleasant. Of course this was without a 4/6 land road next to it.

• Kevin 22:13 on 2022-04-07 Permalink

  Here’s the REM in Kirkland. Not tagged, but not that pretty.
  https://www.google.com.hk/maps/@45.4548662,-73.8515736,3a,75y,279.2h,101.1t/data=!3m9!1e1!3m7!1s6Xco4sDkr8jBAwqjFCAPmw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192!9m2!1b1!2i40

• CE 09:32 on 2022-04-08 Permalink

  Why is it elevated along the highway where there are no obstructions at ground level?

• James 10:19 on 2022-04-08 Permalink

  @CE. There are lots of obstructions in this sector: multiple crossing roads. Only right after the Hwy 40 exit to Ch. Sainte-Marie there is 1000m without obstruction before arriving at the Saint-Anne-de-Bellevue station area. I suppose it was simpler and less intrusive to stay with the elevated structure. The structure is very close to the ground in this area.

• Ephraim 10:25 on 2022-04-08 Permalink

  Much of the downtown Skytrain in YVR is underground. And when it is above ground, it’s generally along ancillary streets. This is not comparable to having it run along Rene-Levesque at all.

  The London DLR again isn’t downtown and was built as part of the redevelopment. It weaves in and out and is also underground in many areas. Imagine that they built an entire building between Complexe Desjardins and Guy Favreau that included the station flowing through the building, but no car lanes.

  And in fact, they have a chance at doing some of that at the far end of downtown, before everything is finished. In fact, it could possibly make that part of it better. Once it is passed Wolfe, they could have worked with the company that bought Radio Canada and build a station within the area on it’s way down to the train tracks and/or replace the far side of Wolfe with the REM and build a station into the redevelopment of the Molson property, so right between the Aut-136 and then down to the train tracks, well before Parthenais.

• Kevin 11:45 on 2022-04-08 Permalink

  @CE
  If you go a little bit further west on my link you can see the St. Charles overpasses. It’s daunting.

• DeWolf 12:44 on 2022-04-08 Permalink

  Ephraim, I’m making an academic point that elevated railways aren’t the end of the world and they can be easily adapted to create interesting urban spaces. I agree that the REM de l’Est should run underground along René-Lévesque, albeit with a surface-level revamp so we no longer have an eight-lane highway bisecting our downtown. I’m less moved by the argument against the elevated guideway along Notre-Dame East because it will essentially be like the SkyTrain sections in Burnaby, which run through a green corridor. It’s hardly a blight because people are flocking to live right next to the tracks.

• Ian 12:58 on 2022-04-08 Permalink

  Worth noting that final station is just before the Morgan exit off the 40. Still a good half hour bus ride to Ste Anne. The only point of having that station there is specifically to allow Broccolini and other developers to build a ton of new developments right next to the ostensibly preserved marshlands. Also worth noting the 40 is part of the Trans-Canada highway, building a swooping concrete EL isn’t going to make it go away. There’s a reason we get raspberries in February at the grocery store, and the REM isn’t it.

  Everyone’s talking about how the REM will prevent exurb sprawl but that’s utterly false, at least west of Dorval. The main point of the REM is not to solve current transit issues, but to create opportunities for profit. Anyone who thinks it won’t be the same if they are allowed to extend into the east end is dreaming in technicolor.

• Uatu 17:24 on 2022-04-08 Permalink

  It’s the same on the south shore. The rem ends at the Solar condo city smack in the middle of nowhere Brossard. If it they wanted to stop sprawl the rem would’ve run the length of taschereau Blvd and limited high density condo developments to that area