REM de l’Est: $36 billion
A report is in on a possible approach for the REM de l’Est: totally underground and costing $36 billion.
TVA talked to a man who’s been waiting for the start of the REM because he wanted the Deux‑Montagnes line back, but who’s given up and retired instead, and to a woman who’s bought a car because she’s also tired of waiting.
Thomas 08:47 on 2023-07-01 Permalink
La Presse sent this to my phone this morning as a ‘breaking news’ notification, and I was like yep that’s how much it would cost, what’s your point?
The REM wasn’t planned as an above ground project just for funsies, but rather because it was way cheaper. If we had 36 billion lying around we should have been building metro expansions. But we didn’t, so the government mandated the Caisse to figure something out and they came back with the above ground REM. But now we’re back to studying an underground system. And around and around we go, weeeee
dhomas 10:20 on 2023-07-01 Permalink
If it’s going to be underground anyway, why not just make the part east of Honoré-Beaugrand an actual metro? This would avoid unnecessary switching. Or is the REM cheaper to build/operate (even underground)?
DisgruntledGoat 13:37 on 2023-07-01 Permalink
Yeah considering the original REM came in around $7 billion, this report is just an exercise in demonstrating how an underground solution is not feasable.
The REM de l’est (for now) is dead on arrival just like the Ligne Rose.
@dhomas – As far as I understand it, the metro also has the disadvantage of having really old train control systems from the 1960s, and the entire network needs to be redone for modern features like automated trains (which would present a cost savings).
So with any potential metro expansion/underground REM light rail, you have the issues of digging being extremely cost-prohibitive.
Ephraim 14:38 on 2023-07-01 Permalink
Why not just build from the end of the metro overground or trams with light controls and protected track. Cobblestone underneath. We don’t really need the CDPQ to do this. From Radisson or Honore Beaugrand. Along Dubuisson/Souligny, the highway, Prince Albert and Rue Victoria
Kate 15:10 on 2023-07-01 Permalink
DisgruntledGoat, it was announced in January that half a billion dollars was going into modernizing the control system for the blue line, getting it set up in 2028, presumably in sync with building the extension.
Then they can find the dosh to modernize the other lines…
Blork 16:43 on 2023-07-01 Permalink
$36 billion is an astronomical amount for anything, but for a transit line that only serves part of the city it is purely mind-boggling. It’s easy to think of “the government” as being this bottomless source of money but let’s not lose sight of the fact that it’s our money they’re spending, and maybe there are other priorities if they had that much to spend. How much housing could you build? How many doctors and nurses could you hire? You could literally build TEN CHUM megahospitals with that much money.
That’s more than $4000 for every human being in Quebec. More than $20,000 for every human being in Montreal. Probably about $75,000 for every person in the area served by that line, and about $400,000 for every person who would actually use it on a regular basis.
And that doesn’t include the indisputable fact that if they actually built it the final cost would be at least double.
All that talk about the value of public transit kind of flies out the window when we’re talking that much money. I’m not saying that cars and highways are the answer, but surely there’s a solution that doesn’t cost THIRTY SIX BILLION DOLLARS.
OK, here’s the countdown to when “bumper carz” inserts one of his sarcastic and incredibly dumb comments that says something like “if they all just sold their SUVs it would pay for the REM” or whatever. 3…2…1…
DeWolf 17:20 on 2023-07-01 Permalink
It’s a cliché but it’s true: perfect is the enemy of good. I’m sorry some people find aerial trains offensive, but to me it’s not as offensive as hectares of land devoted entirely to parking, and soul-sucking, environment-destroying suburban sprawl. Surely there can be a compromise. I really don’t see why the entire line needs to be underground, especially in Pointe-aux-Trembles. It’s absolute nonsense.
That said, we should indeed be spending a fortune on transit. France is currently spending 100 billion euros on the Grand Paris Express, which will knit together underserved parts of metropolitan Paris with four new automated, mostly underground metro lines. But we need to be smart and get the most value out of capital expenditures as possible. Especially given this country’s notoriously tight pursestrings for infrastructure.
Anders 17:42 on 2023-07-01 Permalink
It’s kind of ironic that you have some people mad that the REM is late, others surprised how quick it being built compared to similar projects, while some bureaucrats are mad that CDPQ are working too fast.
This is going to be a little pedantic, but “REM” is just branding. The Metro de Montréal, the REM, and the PSE (formerly know as REM de l’Est) are all metros. A lot of Montrealers have a hard time grasping that. Most metros around the world actually have substantial part of their network above ground. Maybe this is due to the choice of rubber-tyre that makes the legacy STM network impossible to expand above ground, or maybe it’s the word subway, somewhat of a misnomer, that confuses people.
Light rail is just a catch-all term for a bunch of modes like streetcars, modern trams, stadtbahn, medium capacity metros, etc. All with their own advantages and disadvantages. By talking about so much things it kind of says nothing.
In theory, the PSE (REM de l’Est), and even the Pink line, should have a lower price tag — per kilometre — than the old STM metro, as they are planned with smaller stations (under 100 m). High frequency thanks to automation allows European and Asian cities to build new lines comparatively smaller than North America (that oversize a lot of things in general).
There’s also an issue of layering; multiple modes overlapping for for different needs. The Montreal metro has an exceptionally high station density; that’s great for accessibility, not so much for performance as distances increases. The Montreal Metro is actually pretty slow for a metro, because of short spacing between stations, it’s a concern that the STM brought up when considering orange and green line extensions.
New metro lines like the REM or the Pink line, with stations slightly further appart than the current network average gives another layer of service, but we also need other layers (tram, regional and intercity trains, etc. Sadly a big problem in transit discussions is that people pit one mode against another (we need all of it).
Tunnelling is absolutely feasible, but it can’t be a network wide solution. It has to be used strategically.
Thank you for reading my rambling.
Tim F 12:30 on 2023-07-02 Permalink
Putting this out there. I’ve been following a number of urbanism YouTube channels like Paige Saunders, Oh The Urbanity and RMTransit (not Montreal-based but talks a lot about the REM) and they were all YIMBY/pro-REM, but I’m interested in for a francophone or at least more long-established Montrealer’s take. Anyone have a suggestion? There was a contributor here a while ago who did an in-depth analysis of the decision of light-rail… forgot their user name.
Kate 13:36 on 2023-07-02 Permalink
Tim F, I think you mean ant6n, who wrote a good deal about the mistakes he felt were being made in the conception of the REM. He still occasionally comments here but I believe he’s gone back to Europe so isn’t as involved in Montreal matters as previously.
This is my take. Montreal hadn’t had much new transit in years, and even the blue line extension had been nothing but talk for decades. Quebec would occasionally throw in a few bucks for another study on the extension, but nothing like the amounts needed to get started on the work.
So Quebec pulled a fast one. Without asking the city, or the agglomeration, or the ARTM, what it felt was needed, it simply decreed the REM and where it would go. And that means service to certain suburbs, for the most part.
At this point as a long-established Montrealer I can only hope the thing works and actually does get a fraction of commuters to use it, rather than driving. I’m not wishing ill on it. After all, nobody could’ve predicted that a pandemic would cut transit use as much as it has.
(And I’m still annoyed about Griffintown-Bernard-Landry, but what can you do.)
Pamela J 13:48 on 2023-07-02 Permalink
Salut @Tim F. Le fossé du débat concernant le mode métro léger est surtout générationnel plutôt que linguistique. Il y a bien des acteurs de la société civile plus jeunes qui n’ont pas vraiment de réserves envers le choix de ce mode pour le projet du REM et du PSE (ou REM de l’Est comme l’appellent encore certains).
Je pense par exemple à Christian Savard, Pierre Barrieau, Sarah V. Doyon, Marco Chitti. Leur critiques sur le REM porte plutôt sur le financement, l’architecture, l’implication d’une société d’état comme CDPQ (para-publique) plutôt qu’un opérateur proprement publique, et les relations publiques. Sinon pour plusieurs, le mode métro (léger) est une option valable. Bien sûr, ces jeunes sont très portés sur le développement durable et la transformation des banlieues par la constructions de modes à grande capacité, mais surtout fréquents et rapides (les tramways et toutes ses déclinaisons, les métros légers et les métro lourds). On peut qualifier bien des jeunes urbains et environnementalistes comme YIMBY, mais honnêtement les termes YIMBY/NIMBY sont un peu réducteurs et leur utilisation suit malheureusement bien souvent la loi de Godwin.
De l’autre côté il y a la vieille école; Michel C Auger, Gérard Beaudet, Phyllis Lambert, Jean-François Lisée, et d’autres. Ils ont une préférence marquée pour le train de banlieue, et une vision part bout idéalisée du tramway, et une haine profonde du REM, pas seulement pour les lacunes spécifiques au projet (aucun projet n’est parfait), mais l’idée même du métro léger. Gérard Beaudet est une sommité et un des plus gros critiques du métro léger. En même temps je me souviens dans ses cours, il disait des trucs comme la piétonnisation de l’avenue Mont-Royal détruirait son attractivité ou encore qu’il faudrait protéger les banlieues tout-à-l’auto et le patrimoine des bungalow.
Pamela J 14:10 on 2023-07-02 Permalink
Kate, the projects that gave rise to the REM (south shore link, DD improvements, VH/Train de l’Ouest) were being studied for decades (had to go through a lot of those cancelled plans for school). Across those decades, the City, the agglo, the predecessors of the ARTM either rejected those plans because it was « not what was needed » or the feds and the province was not willing to pay. With all the scandals with the AMT, the city ans its suburbs, and with the ARTM just beginning at that time. I’m weirdly glad that m CDPQ stepped up and Quebec let them. Now the ARTM should be a well oiled machine and take its rightful place. I’d hopped that the ARTM and STM learned from CDPQ’s project, take their best practices will doing away with the more problematic ones, but with the mess that was their last PDI, and with this PSE proposal at $36B (over a billion per km) they seem unable to plan transit at reasonable cost.
Anton 03:48 on 2023-07-04 Permalink
This proposal is just comically bad and ridiculous, one wonders whether this has to be intentional to set up the cdpq as our saviors.
My main criticism with the rem was that it uses existing ROW and infrastructure ineffectively, that the East and North (and VIA tgf) can not be served via Gare Centrale and the Mount Royal Tunnel in the future. One way in which the REM was affordable was the utilization of a lot of existing infrastructure. The privatization would make fixing that mistake very difficult, cuz the public has no control.
And now we see the result of this problem, ridiculous proposals to serve the east, that could’ve been mitigated if the REM had been planned with more foresight.
And remember, one reason for the rush planning back in 2016 was that they wanted to open the line in 2020, and didn’t have „enough time“ to do it properly.
Eric Louvain 07:43 on 2023-07-04 Permalink
My friend working at the ARTM told me it’s not to bring back CDPQ. She says that senior staff are not interested in pursuing metro extensions anymore (legacy STM lines or REM style lines) and are deliberately presenting a project that will effectively push the government to put a moratorium on grade separate systems because too costly. According to her, senior staff aren’t as much interested in the ARTM’s transit planning mandate but rather are on a political mission to push tramway as a one size fits all by presenting the most egrigious metro proposal possible within the PSE mandate parameters. When she asked her boss why much of the PSE was buried even in the least controversial industrial parts, he told her “le train aérien est incompatible avec notre culture” (elevated rail is incompatible with our culture) and when she asked him to expand on that he told her “c’est pour les asiatiques et les pays sous-développés. Nous autres ont mérite mieux” (its for the asians and third world countries. We deserve better.). She didn’t push further because she didn’t want to lose her job.