Two more metro stations become accessible
Villa-Maria and Pie-IX metro stations are now equipped with elevators. Eight more stations are in the process of being upgraded, but it’s an expensive business, Pie‑IX having come in at more than $81 million.
Taylor C. Noakes 21:49 on 2022-11-18 Permalink
That’s absolute insanity. I’m having a hard time imagining that the cost of retrofitting all the stations with elevators is less than adding staircase-mounted lifts, or just providing adapted transit services.
PO 10:06 on 2022-11-19 Permalink
Criminal. Going by Wikipedia, the Tour des Canadiens cost 230m. The Icône complex cost 120m. The Tom Condo building at 90 million.
One metro station elevator retrofit costs almost as much as a 40 story tower?
3 retrofits and you can build the seventh tallest tower in Montreal?
Taylor is right, absolute insanity.
Joey 10:44 on 2022-11-19 Permalink
The Pie-IX work was more than just a couple of elevator:
C’est à la station Pie-IX que les travaux étaient le plus imposants. Au-delà de l’installation d’ascenseurs, le chantier, lancé à l’automne 2020, impliquait également d’agrandir les édicules principaux et secondaires de la station, d’élargir le corridor souterrain, de revoir plusieurs systèmes électroniques ou encore d’ajouter un puits de ventilation naturelle.
Kate 10:49 on 2022-11-19 Permalink
I’m not sure it’s so wacky. Every station is different and is set in different geological conditions, so there’s no standard template for adding elevators. It has to be worked out in detail every time.
Also, the article did specify that the changes around Pie‑IX were also to align the station with the SRB Pie‑IX.
It’s a pity that, even if they hadn’t wanted elevators at the time, designers of the original stations couldn’t at least have engineered them to allow for potential future elevators to be implanted, but it seems not.
And as Joey says, other work’s been done.
DeWolf 11:43 on 2022-11-19 Permalink
Saying the Pie-IX elevator cost $81 million is like saying it cost $60 million to build a bike path on Pine Avenue, when it’s actually a complete reconstruction of the street and all of its underground infrastructure.
As for Taylor’s question about whether elevators are really needed – chair lifts are not a replacement because they only serve wheelchair users and only one at a time at that. And given that they are very slow, they need to be supervised by a metro employee and there are many, many stairs in the metro, it would be a pretty torturous process to use them.
Elevators aren’t just for people in wheelchairs. They’re for anyone who isn’t able to walk up a bunch of stairs: people with bad knees, people with lots of shopping bags, people with suitcases, cyclists taking their bike on the train.
Kate 12:09 on 2022-11-19 Permalink
People with kids, too, whether in strollers, walking or being carried. It’s a modern truism that you have to have a car before you can have a kid, but one way to push back at that is to make it easier for parents to use transit.
carswell 12:31 on 2022-11-19 Permalink
In case others interested in this issue missed it, the AgoraMTL thread on metro elevators has an interesting map in which all the stations are ranked by the technical challenges involved in making them universally accessible.The number of problématique stations is depressing.
https://forum.agoramtl.com/t/installation-dascenseurs-dans-le-reseau-du-metro/266/95
Kevin 12:51 on 2022-11-19 Permalink
I think the Villa Maria station is a good example of the problems faced.
It took three years to install 3 elevators, extend a building, extend platforms, move ventilation, move the bus loop… and all without shutting down the orange line because of some hiccup.
Retrofitting is very hard. It is always cheaper and faster to build new from scratch
mare 15:04 on 2022-11-19 Permalink
The way our metros are build, with the ticket checking on a separate level of the actual platform doesn’t help with the installation and engineering of the elevators. Especially is some stations were there are stairs up and down to reach the platforms (example Mont-Royal), or where the platforms are far away from the entrance (Beadry, Beaubien).
Building two longer elevator shafts directly to/from the platforms to a small edicule above the ground would have been *much* cheaper. An automated opus card reader would open the elevator door, and the setup would also be easier for the actual users who wouldn’t have to descend with one elevator, go through narrow turn styles and then find another elevator.
A few downsides I can see, of the top of my head:
1) how do users without an Opus card enter, but with the availability of Opus cards in other places than the metro it’s less of an issue, and future technology might put Opus cards directly on phones.
2) The elevators have to be longer. Two elevators going to ‘deep’ stations like Lucien-Lalliers, will cost more so there a three tier approach might be better.
3) You can’t go from one platform to another one without paying again (although there’s an easy solution for that, swiping your Opus card when you exit gives you a 5 minute window to enter another metro entrance. Yes, can be abused.)
4) people might use the elevator entrances to “jump the stiles”, by sneaking in at the same time as a another user, but that can be done with the current installations too. (It also won’t cause millions in losses.)
Ah well, the expensive solution was chosen, maybe because of the unions that didn’t want the job of ticket booth attendant have competition. Or other reasons.
Taylor C. Noakes 16:46 on 2022-11-19 Permalink
@DeWolf, that’s a fair point
I understand that a lot of these stations are getting other work done, and/or that the jobs are way more complicated than initially anticipated, but to me it still feels like a misuse of funds. I don’t want to sound insensitive, but my thinking is that every public transit dollar needs to be prioritized for system expansion and electrification, with a clear aim towards reducing CO2 emissions from other forms of transport. All of this elevator money could have been used to buy more electric buses (which are accessible), or getting going on a new tram line (which would allow more buses to be rededicated to the suburbs, where they’re more useful).
DeWolf 18:59 on 2022-11-19 Permalink
That’s fair enough Taylor, but I think it’s more of situation where we need the expansion you describe along with retrofitting stations to be accessible.
jfc 12:44 on 2022-11-20 Permalink
This is how drivers design transit systems.