STM chief Éric Alan Caldwell said Tuesday that he doesn’t want to see the blue line stations at Viau, Pie-IX and Langelier named for those streets, because there are already stations with those names on the green line. He’s hinting we may see names of women or indigenous people. A committee is working on it.
Updates from February, 2023 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
The STM says it’s cutting expenses for 2023 but aside from saying this doesn’t mean cuts in service, no details are given about what will be cut.
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Kate
The cost of the ticketing system for the REM has risen from $35 million to $56 million and is bound to be more expensive yet once the system starts running. It’s mentioned here that CDPQ pushed the development of the ticketing system off on the ARTM, which then pushed it off on the STM.
Thomas
We are not happy when CDPQ Infra does it themselves, and we are even less so when they delegate to the ARTM and the STM. They just can’t get a break. I can’t wait until the REM goes into service and people realize that actually getting transit built is better than the alternative of the last 30 years.
I guess it’s a good thing that the government has pushed CDPQ Infra out of the REM de l’Est project and delegated it to the esteemed aforementioned ARTM and STM, noted experts on getting transit built on-time and on-budget. Just look at the Pie-IX bus lane that only took a decade, and the Blue Line extension that is on track to be built in well under a half century. Compared to that stellar record, the CDPQ look like absolute amateurs in taking a whole 5 years to build out an entirely new 67km light metro system (the current Montreal Metro is 71km long).
Kate
Didn’t say I wasn’t happy. It was more that I hadn’t been aware of that particular detail.
Obviously if the ticketing system is meant to be seamless, one entity should oversee the whole thing. I was just wondering whether the STM, which is broke, is expected to cover the bill.
Orr
Pie-IX rapid-bus-service project & complete street rebuild did not include a separated bike lane, which says something about Montreal roads dept commitment to safe active transport.
DeWolf
@Orr the whole project took so long it’s basically a relic from another era. It reflects the political priorities of the 2000s, not the 2020s.
I know the REM is deeply unpopular around here but I tend to agree with Thomas. We will have effectively doubled the size of our metro system in the time it took the various levels of government just to agree on funding for the blue line extension. Transit planning in Quebec is broken and it really needs to be fixed, but in the meantime I’m not going to waste my energy being angry about a project that actually delivers much-needed transit. Because, realistically, in our messed up political environment, the alternative to the REM would have been waiting decades for nothing.
Kate
It’s not so much that the REM is unpopular as a system, it was how Quebec simply imposed the thing on Montreal, with no discussions about what the city itself, or transit experts, felt we needed. And it clearly favours the suburbs and risks extending sprawl.
Myles
There’s just not much in it for people who live in the city other than the airport extension, which still feels like it could fall through at any moment. I’m glad people from the suburbs will have more options, though.
DeWolf
@Myles I’m not sure how you can say that when the REM will connect the orange, green and blue lines, as well as serving Griffintown and some very densely populated parts of Côte des Neiges and Ville Saint-Laurent. Unless you only define “the city” as areas east of the mountain.
Thomas
I agree with DeWolf, transit planning in Quebec is broken. And given that we need more of it and nothing was getting built directly by the government or the relevant agencies, I’m fine with mandating the Caisse, which is still a crown corporation at the end of the day and not some evil corporate banking entity, to get something built.
And since the West Island and Couronne Nord sprawls already exist, I would rather those people use transit over their cars. You may think it favours the suburbs Kate, but that’s how regional transit works. And their cars still come into our city and make things worse for the rest of us, so any reduction there is beneficial to all of us. Same with the commuter buses — I used to work near where the South Shore buses come into the city on Bonaventure and it was a pedestrian nightmare with literally hundreds of them every morning making crossing the street risky proposition due to careless driving and agressive turning. Not to mention the diesel fumes.
Meanwhile, the East and North Ends are complete transit deserts full of disadvantaged people that would have greatly benefited from the REM de l’Est.
If this were 1967 and we were still able to get things done in a more orthodox way, we wouldn’t need to enlist the Caisse. But it isn’t, and we aren’t.
DeWolf
I’d also add that the distinction between suburbs and city is mostly artificial. It’s all one contiguous urban area that is very interconnected. Building rapid transit throughout the urban area is a good way to turn “suburbs” into “city.”
Ephraim
We should try to remember that the reason that REM is/was built by the CDPQ is to circumvent the Buy Quebec clause that causes the excess costs for building the metro.
anton
Well, so far the REM people haven’t delivered any transit, they’re mostly just 3 years late for their project that was supposed to take 4 years. Which is unfortunate, because back in 2016, there was so little interest in making improvements to the project (in particular the tunnel sharing aspect), due to, supposedly the need to get it done by 2020. I might have gotten used to the idea of privately planned/owned transit, despite its large ongoing costs to the public (2-3x of the metro), if it had been planned better and, well, shared critical infrastructure.
The discussions around the REM de l’Est and long distance rail Queebc-Toronto make the loss of the Mount-Royal and possible capacity in Gare Centrale especially hurtful, because there would be many synergies possible…
Lets also remember that on paper it does look like the doubling of the system – in terms of system km. But the system is pretty suburban-centric, with very large interstation-distances, and relatively small capacity, so few passenger per km of system length. So in terms of passengers, we’ll probably only increase the Metro system by 15%.
…but I guess all issues become meaningless details when one compares to the performance of the STM and the ARTM when ti comes to transit construction. Kinda makes all discussion on transit in Montreal moot.
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Kate
Mayor Plante has told opponents of the Ray‑Mont Logistics project that they can count on her support.
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Kate
Montreal figures on CNN’s top ten list of cities to see on a bicycle.
Orr
My first ride of the spring season is always over to the see the Olympic Stadium. A tourist attraction & monstrosity of the first order. After that I’ll do north on St-Denis REV and then take Gouin west or east which has lots of riverside parks. We are a great city for cycling, except sadly to traverse the downtown core which is never not a shitshow.
Visited the Botanical gardens greenhouses and Insectarium last week, although not on bike (some people did though), but because it is February & in February the greenhouse tour is one of the best things to do in Montreal in February. Access Montreal card makes it really affordable vs regular price. There’s a banana tree, with bananas on it! New biodiversity pavilion with art & multimedia was really interesting too.shawn
Maybe it’s just the sheer novelty of it as a boomer but I love cycling the piste Claire Morrisette thru downtown.
JaneyB
@shawn – I didn’t know the Maisonneuve bike path had its own name. Piste Claire Morrisette – great name for that path. Now I will think: how will I get downtown? Oh, I’ll take The Claire.
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Kate
Only one third of the social housing units promised by the Legault government since 2018 have been built.
Spi
How many of the ones promised by the mayor have been built?
Kate
I haven’t got any numbers, but it resurfaces constantly that the city needs provincial funding to go ahead with social housing projects, and it’s clearly not really a priority for the Legault government.
DeWolf
The city builds social housing in two ways: directly through the OMHM and indirectly through community groups like co-ops. If you read the history of the OMHM, it has basically been the story of scrambling for whatever funds it can get ever since the federal government stopped funding social housing in 1994:
https://www.omhm.qc.ca/fr/a-propos-de-nous/historique
Now there’s federal money flowing again but Quebec is holding things up. And the city can’t even afford to over the OMHM’s basic operating costs, let alone capital investments.
Incidentally, as far as I can tell, the mayor hasn’t promised any specific number of social housing units. She has, on the other hand, promised 60,000 “affordable” units from now until 2031, but that’s exactly the kind of slippery thing politicians like to say, because what is “affordable” anyway?
The city has been pretty productive recently at acquiring land for social housing, thanks to its right of first refusal and the 20/20/20 law that came into effect at the end of 2021. But that’s just land – Quebec needs to cough up money for actually building the housing.
Kate
Building the housing, but also operating it and maintaining it. Over the last year there were several items about the amount of social housing in the city that’s standing vacant because it’s too decrepit to live in.
I live opposite a social housing building. And I had a neighbour who told me – rather nastily, but she seemed to be well informed – that social workers call on almost everyone, every week, to make sure they’re functioning. A cleaning service van also shows up weekly, so presumably not everyone there is capable of keeping their apartments clean.
It’s not a building for physically disabled or frail people either, because it has a big flight of front steps. But it’s clear that at least some of the people living there not only get a break on rent, they also need help with daily life, which is provided. So some level of government has to pay for that ongoing support work as well, at least in the case of some residents, or the building is bound to deteriorate over time.
EmilyG
With me not having a lot of money, social housing sounds like something that might be ideal for me. However, even when you don’t consider the long waiting lists, there’s the fact that a lot of social housing allows smoking. I try not to be judgmental of smokers, but for health reasons, I can’t live in a building that allows smoking.
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Kate
Temperatures have fluctuated even more than usual here this winter, meaning damage to asphalt and concrete and mucho potholes to come.
Blork
XREF to the item about CNN saying this is one of the top ten cities to see on a bicycle. Not in winter or spring!
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Kate
Montreal is by far not the only city with a housing shortage and a surplus of office space right now. Can we learn from experiences elsewhere, or is transforming one to the other an expensive bad idea?
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Kate
Concordia University is mulling plans for changes to the Loyola campus but not much is given away in this brief piece.
mare 23:09 on 2023-02-21 Permalink
This is by far the best public transit topic of the day. Let’s hope the committee chooses well.
shawn 18:37 on 2023-02-22 Permalink
I’d still prefer names based on historic district names where possible but yes this is interesting…
Kate 19:30 on 2023-02-22 Permalink
I agree that it would be best if the station names have some connection to the terrain. However, while the Pie‑IX station could be Petit-Maghreb, the ones at Viau and Langelier are a poser. They’ll be in the middle of essentially faceless suburban strips. Métro Canadian‑Tire? Métro Tim‑Hortons?
DeWolf 19:51 on 2023-02-22 Permalink
Pie-IX could be Le Boulevard, in reference to the shopping centre, but this might be tricky because there is already a The Boulevard/Le Boulevard in Westmount. Langelier could be St-Léonard.
I don’t think it’s a good idea to give stations names that aren’t tied to the local geography, but there’s nothing stopping the city from renaming a random side street after somebody and then using that as the metro station name.
DeWolf 19:53 on 2023-02-22 Permalink
I actually really like the idea of calling the Pie-IX station Le Petit-Maghreb, but that would also spit in the face of the Chinatown merchants who lobbied for their station to be called Place d’Armes-Quartier Chinois.
shawn 20:20 on 2023-02-22 Permalink
I think I’ve said this here before but there HAS to be a St-Léonard station imho. It’s so rich with its own history.
carswell 20:27 on 2023-02-22 Permalink
The problem with naming a station after an ethnic neighbourhood is that demographics change. Back in the ’70s, had there been a station on Park Avenue between Laurier and Van Horne, a case could have been made for calling it Greektown/Village grec or Papendreou or some such. These days, not so much. When I moved to a flat on De Bullion just south of Prince Arthur in 1973, the ‘hood could have been called Little Portugal, and the Portuguese had just replaced the upwardly mobile eastern European Jews. Etc. Chinatown and Little Italy seem to have staying power. Not so sure about Le Petit Maghreb.
Personally, I think one of the first three stations east of St-Michel should be named St-Léonard and I don’t buy the argument that it’s ruled out by there being more than one station within the borough limits. Since Pie-IX is often referred to in the area as the Boulevard and one of the édicules will be located on former Centre commercial Le Boulevard land, go with Boulevard. Make the station on JT and Viau St-Léonard. Lacordaire and Anjou work as is, leaving only Langelier nameless. Name it after someone, preferably not another straight white male and absolutely not yet another politician. Doesn’t matter if there’s not a namesake street around; as with every other station, whatever name it’s given will soon become second nature for locals and outsiders will be consulting a map or their smartphone.
Kate 21:31 on 2023-02-22 Permalink
carswell, it did briefly cross my mind, as I wrote that, that Little Maghreb might not be forever. Merchants have already voted to dissolve their SDC.
Also, as has been pointed out here and elsewhere, there’s already the confusing anomaly that Lasalle station is not even in Lasalle, so having one St‑Léonard station should be fine – at least it’s in the area of the name.
Surely there’s some woman connected with the general area that can be found to name the Langelier station.
DeWolf 11:54 on 2023-02-23 Permalink
@carswell, strong branding is one of the reasons Chinatown and Little Italy have staying power even as they change. Little Italy in Toronto really isn’t Italian anymore, aside from one or two businesses, but the name has stuck. Chinatown in Portland is not at all Chinese, but its name is a reminder of the community that used to be there.
It’s not that different to any neighbourhood name, really. Villeray is just the name of the original landowner, which would have been a historical footnote if it hadn’t been enshrined in the toponymy. Only in this case, you’re enshrining a community rather than just one person.
Incidentally, Little Portugal would still describe that part of the Plateau, albeit a little further north, around Duluth instead of Prince Arthur.