Montreal City Weblog

Kate 14:38 on 2022-10-14 Permalink Reply  

• Kevin 15:04 on 2022-10-14 Permalink

  I don’t think I’ve ever been through that tunnel, but the spillover effects from its closing are widespread.
  When they were doing work pre-pandemic (fire, paralumes, whatever) the afternoon backups to get on the Jacques Cartier bridge would spill onto the eastbound Ville-Marie all the way to the St. Laurent exit.

• Ian 15:15 on 2022-10-14 Permalink

  I know we like to ridicule commuter woes here, but after getting a job in Ste Anne and taking the bus for a few years it was only the reconstruction of the VME that convinced me to buy my first car. I am still not pleased about it, and the transit to Ste Anne is only getting worse. I would not be surprised if this capharnaüm for the South Shore leads to more people buying cars.

  If we don’t want people coming from or going to anywhere outside the city centre, fine, but if we actually want people to stop driving there need to be realistic transit solutions – we need carrot as well as stick. We aren’t all lucky enough to be full abled, have no mobility issues or needs, live and work within walking distance or convenient biking distance.

  Even the city centre bus lines aren’t back to their pre-covid schedule. This whole city is a shambles and we need to work together, not play at victim/villain against one another.

  I would love to live in a city where I could reasonably expect to get from one end to the other by public transit even outside commuter hours. I would love to live in a city where the only vehicular traffic allowed is delivery vehicles, emergency services, and public transit. Heck, I would love to not have to use a lead filter on my tap water and have the city pay for replacing the standpipes instead of funding the police more than any other Canadian city. These are all things that are ultimately political – they take work, and cooperation.

• Kate 15:58 on 2022-10-14 Permalink

  Not making fun. I’ve just been interested in the vocabulary.

• dhomas 16:17 on 2022-10-14 Permalink

  I for one had never come across the word capharnaüm before in my life. Interesting vocabulary indeed!

• qatzelok 12:07 on 2022-10-15 Permalink

  That tunnel has very bad bicycle karma.

  Because of the priorities that dominated its construction in the 60s, you can’t ride your bike to les Iles de Boucherville. You must take a ferry from the South Shore that is only open for a few months, and closes at aroung 5 pm.

  Meanwhile, SUVs and Winnebagos have easy access 24-7 via this tunnel-bridge.

  So if commuters really do experience a bit of the Hell-Pain-Nightmares that the car-industry media warns about, they probably deserve it for this kind of systemic racism against non-car commuters.

• DeWolf 12:22 on 2022-10-15 Permalink

  You’re absolutely right, Ian. Regional transport planning in Montreal is broken and until it’s fixed, there will be more and more cars on the road.

  I honestly don’t know how to fix it. We have a federal government willing to pony up cash, but a provincial government that clearly has no interest in actually funding transit solutions. Meanwhile, transit agencies seem to have their head in the sand, hoping things will magically get better. Perfect example: the famous Pie-IX SRB is launching soon, but it will offer 10 minute off-peak frequencies and *no service at all* after 6pm on weekends. There will be no ticket machines in stations, so you’ll still have people fumbling with cash and tickets as they wait to board. It’s absolutely not bus rapid transit, despite the STM’s promise that it would offer metro-like service – buses coming every few minutes, quick all-door boarding, a seamless show-up-and-go kind of experience. The STM has said they will reevaluate the service offering if ridership increases, but ridership won’t increase if service is bad.

  Meanwhile, Exo still isn’t restoring commuter train service cut during the pandemic, and commuter train frequencies were already awful.

  So yeah, you’re absolutely right. But… I’m not sure what any of this has to do with the tunnel. The tunnel isn’t being closed to make life difficult for drivers. It’s being closed because it’s falling apart.

• Kate 12:36 on 2022-10-15 Permalink

  No ticket machines in the SRB stations? What kind of sense does that make?

  Speaking of transit, on a different scale, I just found out that the Amtrak Adirondack has still not resumed its one departure per day.