Quebec has ended its program of funding accessibility to metro stations in Montreal. A thirty‑first station’s elevators will be completed in 2026, and that will be that. A protest was held at Papineau station Wednesday evening.
Updates from October, 2024 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Every five years a survey is made of how people are moving around in town, and the pandemic seems to be the cause of a dip in these trips the likes of which haven’t been seen in 35 years. A drop of more than 200,000 trips on a typical weekday has been seen despite the addition of 117,000 households in the greater metropolitan area. The survey is currently carried out by the ARTM, presumably picking up in 2017 when it took over from the AMT.
…Even so, half of CBC’s morning radio show consists of detailed traffic reports.
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Kate
The city has unveiled a new nightlife plan in an attempt to protect the existence of nightlife at all, but there’s no new noise policy that would protect small venues from having new neighbours move in and getting them closed down.
DeWolf
Meanwhile, some residents near Duluth Street have banded together to lobby the city to end the summertime concerts that take place during the pedestrianized period (if not to end the pedestrianization outright) because there is music… in the afternoon.
Kate
insert head clutch here
Joey
@DeWolf I happend to pass by the corner of St-Laurent and Duluth during one of those performances this summer (I’m pretty certain it was mid-afternoon on a weekday). There was a *very* amateur musician doing an impression of a decent performance; taste is relative, but I remember thinking I was glad I didn’t live nearby because the music was both really lousy and really loud. Kind of like what it must be like to live next to one of the public pianos.
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Kate
A body was found in Île-de-la-Visitation park in Ahuntsic on Wednesday morning. Police have confirmed that it was a homicide but could not discern whether it was man or woman. TVA says it’s the 32nd homicide of the year.
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Kate
L’actualité has a sad requiem for the Village as it used to be.
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Kate
The Gazette headline Northvolt executive confident it won’t ask for more government funding automatically telegraphs that yes, it will.
Here’s another one: François Legault fait toujours confiance à Lionel Carmant. How long we figure till he’s gone?
Joey
Carmant is a close friend and confidant of Legault’s, he’s never going anywhere as long as the CAQ is in power.
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Kate
Ottawa has announced that it will go ahead with a project that’s been discussed for years – a fast train between Quebec City and Toronto. A top speed of 300 km/h is mentioned. A new track will have to be built for this electric train service. Thoughts on possible consequences from CBC.
I saw a tweet saying that 40 flights go between Montreal and Toronto daily. It would be good to cut those down for the people who want to move between the cities in three hours.
Dizzying estimates in the billions are being cheerfully tossed around.
Joey
What does Pierre Poilievre think? Because the next PM will decide whether we have a high-speed train, a high-frequency train, a high-frequency/high-speed train, or a subsidy for single-passenger gas-powered vehicles and the end of Via Rail.
Blork
That will be fantastic if it ever happens. One promising thing is that it uses all new tracks; there is no way they can run high-speed trains on the existing tracks because (a) they’re in bad shape, (b) they’d need to share with freight trains, and (c) too many level crossings.
The level crossings thing is huge. You simply can’t have a 300kph train whizzing across roads, and the existing tracks cross hundreds of large, medium, and small roads between here and Toronto. If they run a new line, and run it north, away from most major highways, it eliminates the need for most of those, and the ones that remain will cross via tunnels or bridges. (Check the high speed rail lines in Europe; hardly any level crossings, and those that exist are close to towns where the train slows down.)
But oh, the billions to do that!
Blork
…tunnels, bridges, and under/overpasses. (To be precise.)
Anton
I wonder how this train would go between Gare Centrale and Laval
Nicholas
Anton asks a good, simple question with no simple answer, now that the REM has taken over the Mount Royal tunnel. Fortunately we’ll have at least the rest of the decade to ponder it as this project is likely to be killed by the next PM, and only potentially revived after that.
MarcG
Shuttle bus from Laval
Ephraim
To cut down on cost they could build just the Montreal/Toronto at extreme high speed and other parts of this at lower speed and make the areas outside of that high speed but not extreme high speed, connecting in Montreal to Toronto. At 300 k/mh we could bring down the time between Montreal to Toronto to about 2.5 hours which would be fast enough to kill a lot of car, bus and plane traffic between the two. Prioritize overpasses rather than underpasses, which can flood. Remember to put in some underpasses though, for wildlife. Have the stops at Ottawa and Peterborough less frequently in order to maximize speed between the two cities.
This will clear up a lot of car and bus traffic. If you can leave early in the morning, sleep on the train, do your work, and sleep on the train back, you have a winner of a combo for many businessmen, who can also work on the train with wifi. Being how long you have to spend in an airport pre-flight, it’s likely at 2.5 hours to cut down on the travel time.
Now, to see who’s trains they are going to buy. Also, since they are building new, they can certainly properly bank the track and they can look at the best gauge and electrical systems for these trains. Europe hasn’t even standardized their electric trains.
Joey
Assuming the CPC wins a majority sometime next year and shelves the project, best-case scenario is that a new government comes in five years later and begins five years of work to plan the project (unless the folks at Via keep working in defiance of a Poilievre government) that will take several years to build, right? So we’re, what at least 10 years away from shovels in the ground? Given the kinds of impacts we’ve seen from increasingly not-extraordinary climate events all over the world, it’s hard to imagine what our geography will look like 10+ years out; I wonder what the implications for a new rail line would be.
James
A very exciting project that has been talked about many times over the past several decades. It has never been this close to actually happening. If done correctly,thousands of car trips could also be eliminated because of the intermediate stations. Currently if you live in Peterborough (perfect example for this demonstration) you could drive to one of the Toronto airports and then fly to Montreal or, more likely, simply drive from Peterborough to Montreal. If HFR happens could could get on a train in Peterborough and travel to Montreal. This doesn’t mean that all trains would stop – there likely would be through-running trains with the fastest Toronto to Montreal times mixed with trains stopping at the intermediate stations.
As anton correctly notes, actually getting to downtown montreal reasonably quickly is a challenge! Running at 300km/h in the country-side doesn’t help too much if you crawl along for ages in the approaches to the city cores. Even the french TGV uses conventional tracks on the approaches. I expect that the three consortiums involved in this phase (my company is a member of one of them) have made some interesting proposals…Kevin
If I were to build this thing, I’d just give up on actually coming to Montreal and hook up with the Concorde train and metro station in Laval.
It’s got minimal expropriation impact, it’s already a transit hub, and it appeals to all the swing voters in the suburbs.As an alternative you could dump people at the Deux-Montagnes end of the REM line, but that’s much more of a psychological burden.
Either way, you avoid having to build another tunnel through the mountain.
Mark
Assuming that the new tracks of this train would run somewhere around the 401 corridor, I’m wondering why a south shore route wouldn’t be considered. It could follow the path of the 20 to Les Cèdres, then follow the path of the 30, which has large swaths of less developed land around it (aka less costly expropriations). Then land somewhere on the south shore in connection to a REM station.
I guess getting to Quebec City would be more complex from the south shore, but realistically, if this gets built, it will be MTL to Toronto, then who knows.
carswell
If, as it should be in this era of global warming, one of the main reasons for investing in a high-speed train is to lure travellers away from the airport and out of their cars for trips between corridor cities, particularly Toronto and Montreal, adding a half-hour REM or metro ride plus connection time is a deal breaker. The three-hour downtown TO to downtown MTL travel time would be closer to four hours and involve the hassle of making a connection (not always fun with luggage, especially during rush hour).
For the short to medium term, the obvious solution is to run occasional trains between Toronto and Quebec City with stops at Dorval, Jean Talon Station and/or Concorde (but not Central Station) and more frequent trains between Union Station and Central Station with a stop in Dorval until such time as a tunnel can be built between Central Station and Jean Talon Station, ideally one that also accommodates a new metro line.
Travellers between downtown Montreal and Quebec City would still have no option other than taking the metro, bus or REM into and from the centre city, but they’re a much smaller group, a higher percentage won’t necessarily be heading downtown (as opposed to the suburbs) and the train portion of their trip isn’t as long.
Kate
I haven’t seen anything about surveys or studies asking people flying between the cities whether they would take a train if it was almost as fast as a flight, and (ideally) going from downtown to downtown, or as close as we can manage.
Also, with all the billions being airily spent on this project, when it’s completed is there any chance it would be cheaper than the cheapest plane ticket?
I suspect it will have to be both cheaper than a plane and more convenient, or the kind of people who fly between Montreal and Toronto won’t consider it. And there are definitely people who feel themselves to be the kind of people who fly, the train being for the hoi polloi.
carswell
I have a vague memory of reading about studies, Kate. Maybe on Agora MTL? Work, book hauling and hosting the book hauler for dinner will keep me from looking today but I’ll do so later if someone doesn’t beat me to it.
France recently banned short-haul domestic flights between cities that have fast train connections. Nothing to prevent Canada from following suit. Similarly, tolls can be implemented on major intercity highways.
Forget 1.5C. Unless things change (and not only are GHG emissions not currently falling, they’re increasing — we are all in denial), global warming is now forecast to reach 3.1C by the end of the century. A recent Guardian article asked a bevy of climate experts what are the top five things ordinary people can do to fight global warming; stop flying was at the top of every expert’s list. Either we get serious about cutting GHG among other actions or life as we know it is doomed.
Joey
Hard to imagine the feds building a flagship high-speed/high-frequency rail line that doesn’t go all the way to the downtown stations in Montreal and Toronto.
Kate, I think it would – in ideal circumstances, door-to-door travel time by air from downtown Montreal to downtown Toronto is about four hours. Figure 30 minutes to arrive at YUL an hour before your flight, 90 minutes gate to gate, and another 45 minutes from landing to downtown (YYZ or the Island airport are more or less equivalent, given the UP Express train). Realistically, it’s a four+ hour trip and would cost upwards of $450 for a round-trip flight ticket. Put in comfy seats and fancy amenities in business class and you’ve got a compelling offering to businesspeople.
If the train can (likely) save you some time, (definitely) save you some hassle, and (probably) save you some money, it’s a no-brainer. High-frequency will be critical, it can’t just be three trains a day with the last leaving at supper time, though.
John B
Last I saw something about the HFR, (not this new HSR), proposal that used this route I think the plan was for the Montreal station to be somewhere north of the mountain, maybe a revival of the Parc station, or maybe even north of the 40, both of which would obviously suck and eliminate half of the time gained from high-speed rail by adding last-mile time and inconvenience.
On the other hand, maybe the tunneling machine used for the REM is still around somewhere and they’ll punch another hole through the mountain. Coming in via the existing rail corridor to the west, then leaving to the north would make a ton of sense. The western corridor already has no level crossings west of the Turcot interchange.
anton
Globally, there’s a clear relationship between HSR travel time and market share. So you don’t really need to do a study specific to Toronto-Montreal to know it’ll probably work (quick Google gave for example this: https://hotrails.net/2024/04/rails-market-share-against-air-a-global-review/)
In general, a 4h travel time can get at least a 50% market share, a 3h travel time around 70% and more. Montreal-Toronto should definitely do well within a global comparison, because both cities are strong public transit cities where the downtown station is the most important center in the metro area.
Of course you need the capacity to move those people. And at those ridership levels, there would be so many people traveling that prices should be competitive with flying (i.e. cheap earlier, expensive on the day of travel). This presumes the project is set up for high capacity and frequency (cf. in the States, the Acela between NYC and DC wasn’t set up for high capacity, it’s an expensive premium service).
Within that framework, only a downtown station works. A station anywhere else will effectively slide down along the market share graph. In effect, it is likely more useful to cut Quebec city out altogether but connect Montreal-Toronto downtown-to-downtown, rather than have some suburban station in Montreal.
This was discussed at length 8 years ago when the REM proposal came about. Ironically, Quebec may have cut itself off by not asking CDPQInfra to accommodate Heavy Rail. For example by sharing the tunnel (dismissed by CDPQInfra because they said they don’t have the time to implement more complicated signalling technology, they wanted to start operation in 2020 or 2021), or even leaving accomodations in place during the reconfiguration of gare centrale to allow the insertion of a second tunnel. Now it will be very difficult.
Through-routing at Gare Centrale, the ideal operationally ideal scenario, may require not just a new tunnel, but also a new tunnel station under Gare Centrale. That is where the real cost will come from.
Perhaps the most feasible, but also operationally annoying, and also a bit slow, would be to use Gare Centrale as a terminus. Trains would come in from Toronto or Quebec from the south side, turn around and back out on the south side to go to the other city. It would also mess with all other trains (commuter trains).
Mark
Thanks for that detailed information Anton. So basically, a South Shore or north of the city station ends up losing billions in fares and riders, but a downtown station costs billions more, presumably. I guess seeing some of the numbers being thrown around (60B, 100B, 180B), what’s an extra 5B?Although considering how expensive the blue line is, I’m worried that the technical hurdle of getting this line to downtown is 10B or more.
What about downtown Toronto? Isn’t that a challenge too? There isn’t a dedicated track going straight to union station….but in that case, they build a new line to as close to downtown then jump on existing tracks?
anton
Toronto is currently electrifying the GO commuter rail network, I think it involves a lot of dedicated track as well. Afaik VIA Rail was gonna share track with GO. The issue then is more about what platform heights should be chosen. GO tends to use low platforms, i.e. the lower floor of their bilevels. Then again, it is conceivable to share tracks but not platforms, meaning there need to be dedicated platforms at the few stations where HSR stops.
I think it would make sense, if there was a dedicated electric HSR line, to combine that with some electric commuter rail / regional rail updates. HSR generally only runs once an hour, maybe twice, so there should be some room in the schedule in the metro areas for local services.
Orr
The last time a Windsor to Quebec City High-Speed Rail project was costed, at least a decade ago, the total system cost/total distance, it was $10,000 per metre.
Per metre.
The new proposal stops at Toronto, so watch out for fudged numbers for this plus “cost increase” to inevitably add HSR west of Toronto, where obviously it needs to also go, not least to link up to the inevitable US HSR network that will happen sometime between 2050 and 2200.
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Kate
La Presse, which hasn’t been as hysterical about the Maison Benoît Labre in St‑Henri as some media, now reports that criminal acts are rising in the surrounding area: “Crimes against the person have almost doubled (+93%) within a radius of 250 meters around the centre.”
That’s pretty damning, as is the rest of the article.
jeather
“la hausse est calculée en comparant la période du 1er janvier au 14 avril avec celle du 15 avril au 28 juillet, soit après l’ouverture de la Maison Benoît Labre.”
That’s interesting but it feels like weather also plays a role; what was the difference between Jan 1 – April 14 2023 and 2024 vs April 15 and July 28 2023 and 2024? I also do suspect there is some “if I complain about things I otherwise wouldn’t have” going on that is increasing the rate, though probably not for the more serious crimes.
bob
Weather? Seriously?
Have you been to the area? I passed by just an hour ago. It isn’t the weather, it’s the junkies.
jeather
I’m sure there’s an increase; I believe there is a seasonal component as well, and I think it would be more informative to show both. Who knows, maybe I’m wrong — it’s easy to show, either way.
Yes, I’ve been to the area (the specific one where the shelter is). I haven’t noticed it any worse than before, but I don’t live in the very close surrounding area so it could have been timing or me being distracted. (I definitely haven’t noticed an issue where I live a slightly less than 10 minute walk away, which fits with the article anyhow.)
walkerp
Does it say who the victims are? I suspect most of these crimes are within the community of addicts.
bob
Every time I pass by there are ten or fifteen people milling about outside, including passed out in the doorway of what seems to be an emergency exit, lining the side wall of the McDonald’s on Notre Dame, filtering out into the streets nearby – the people running the place have no control over anything, don’t seem to want any, and the cops do nothing about it. Promises about how it would be discreet and quiet and that neighbourhood safety was a priority and so on have not been respected at all.
A notable statistic – “Les appels pour personne vulnérable ont subi la plus importante hausse dans le secteur du site de consommation supervisée Benoît Labre depuis son ouverture, soit 586 %, comparativement à 60 % pour le reste du PDQ 15. … personne dans le besoin (50 mètres : 2700 % ; 100 mètres : 264 % ; 250 mètres : 280 %) et surdose (250 mètres : 300 %)” *Safe* consumption site indeed.
Google Streetview still has imagery pre-dating the building, and the difference is obvious.
If there is any “complain about things I otherwise wouldn’t have” it is because there was so much less to complain about than before.
Ephraim
Don’t you love when they present statistics without the relevant statistical data? Is that increase statistically relevant? Do we have enough data to actually call it significant? What happens when you go to 500m from there? Is this crime by these people or TO these people or crime between these people that has just moved from it’s previous location. For example, is it significant if they have a fight between themselves because someone borrowed the other one’s property?
Also, the crime numbers will have been influenced by the fact that we are looking for crime statistics. For example, the number of rapes likely didn’t change during the “me too” movement, but the number of reported rapes did, because it’s an extremely underreported crime.
As I have mentioned before what the police have statistics on, is NOT crime, but REPORTED crime. And then we have convenience reporting numbers. For example, Child Find of America reports that 2300 children are missing each day in the USA. So why aren’t there 2300 Amber alerts in the US daily? According to the US government in 2023 there were… 155 Amber alerts for 196 children. You’re Wrong About had an entire podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQiXgYsxTiM about how wrong the numbers are and why.
Joey
A lot of the things being wondered about are, in fact, included in the article.
Ephraim
Didn’t see anything showing standard deviation, p-levels, correlation, regression.
Ephraim
And for example, they compared January 1 to April 14 with that from April 15 to July 28. Well, those aren’t comparable periods. For one thing, crime outside naturally decreases in the winter. American data shows more violent crime in summer and more property crime in winter. Not much to easily pickpocket in the winter. Also the fact that it’s there has increased reports… same as how so many more people hear the noise of airplanes as soon as they start talking about it on the news.We constantly talk about crime, especially because one the federal political parties likes to talk about it and yet basically crime per capita hasn’t really changed in a long time.
When you look at reported crime statistics, you start to wonder about certain things. Like why Nunavut and the NWT (and Yukon and Newfoundland and Labrador) seem to have a LOT of mischief while it’s a very small category in Quebec and Ontario. The largest category, other than the “Other” category is “Total Fraud” followed by “Breaking and Entering”. BTW “Total Fraud” is actually: general fraud, identity theft and identity fraud.
And if you want to see the effect of crime over seasons in Canada, you can look at https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2022001/article/00013-eng.htm and look for Chart 4. Interestingly enough, in Canada, property crime climbs in the summer, which makes me wonder even more… what are people stealing in the summer or is it that people are away and it’s easier to break into homes? But you can clearly see that February and March are definitely lower for crime stats.
Joey
A lot easier to make a getaway when there’s no snow and ice and the homeowners are on vacation. Anyway, yes they didn’t publish P values in the newspaper, but they did publish the basic descriptive date (e.g., number of incidents, not just percentage change) and they added qualitative data from local residents that make clear there’s no ‘correlation is not causation’ happening here. There may not be a better solution, and the growing problem of homelessness, mental health decline and addiction, might only be treated by this approach, which presumably improves the overall state of things while making certain peoples’ lives considerably worse.
jeather
No one is disagreeing with the “crimes have gone up a lot” descriptive data; we’re saying the numerical data is missing information.
Ephraim
Crime goes up always when people report it… because it’s reported crime. I’m not saying it hasn’t gone up, what I’m saying is that the data is spartan and basically not helpful. It’s like the Tories forever talking about increasing punishments for crimes as a solution. But we know that the correlation is NOT between crime and punishment, it’s between crime and apprehension. So, if there was a LOT of data, we could tell what kind of crime, even if we don’t know why and then increase apprehension.
But we need to realize that our justice system no longer has an immediate connection between apprehension and punishment. You get arrested on day x, you get release on bail/recognisance and then months later, you get to jail and then even further down the line you get the judgement and punished. People don’t naturally connect the crime and the punishment anymore. It’s like trying to train a dog, punish it 3 days later and it doesn’t understand why it is being punished. And reward it a few days later and it doesn’t understand why it’s being rewarded. When you just got a ticket to come to court a few month down the line, it feels like you got away with it. And the punishments don’t make sense. Going to jail for writing “I like cheese” all over Montreal doesn’t really make sense. Society pays to remove your tagging and society pays to keep you in jail. If the punishment was financial or work related, it might click more. Having to clean publicly all over town might make you realize how you made people feel when they walk by and make comments.
MarcG
Man I haven’t thought about that “I ♥ cheese” graffiti in years – did the artist really go to jail?
Orr
While the “Disappoint a few people” guy is still running around free.
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Kate
CBC Radio reported this morning that metro police want to be armed, but TVA wades right into it with the headline that special constables should be armed. The idea of bullets ricocheting around a metro platform is not a pleasant one.
bob
My concern isn’t richochets, it’s why they need to be armed. Do they? What is the threat that arming them addresses? Has there been a single incident where an armed constable needed to kill someone? Or do the boys just want more toys?
rob
Lets arm them with cameras.
Ramsay
Plus when officers are armed they get much more sensitive about people getting close out of fear that they will grab their gun.
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Kate
CBC’s Antoni Nerestant digs into the legal details why the city is appealing a recent ruling on racial profiling by the SPVM.
EmilyG 22:11 on 2024-10-30 Permalink
Montreal can be such a disabled-unfriendly city. I don’t know if many non-disabled people realize it.
Annette 01:04 on 2024-10-31 Permalink
Most cities can be challenging – but in Montreal it’s a choice. The blue line was built elevator-free in the ’80s. The very designers/engineers would be quite elderly now, maybe have mobility issues. Their own stations are inaccessible to them.
Nicholas 01:06 on 2024-10-31 Permalink
Montreal will soon hold the distinction of having the only public transit in Canada inaccessible to people in wheelchairs or reduced mobility. Toronto has 13 subway stations left to do, with 9 planned to finish next year and three planned for 2026Q1, and one with an unknown date. Toronto also has three train stations left to do, all in various stages of progress. Montreal’s next step for the metro, which is now fully unfunded, was to do five stations through 2030. For $270 million, which is an extraordinary price. Only one train line is accessible, with very slow lifts, and that line, brand new, may be shut down completely. It’s absolutely disgraceful.
But every time I suggest that because no one else will pay for this we pay for it locally, and take our destiny into our own hands, I hear there are other priorities, no one wants higher taxes, etc. I sure hope my body continues to let me climb stairs, and can’t imagine what it’s like for those who can’t. How shameful, all around.
vasi 01:11 on 2024-10-31 Permalink
This is very disappointing, I had no idea this program had an end planned! But 31 stations won’t be all, nevertheless—whenever the blue line extension finishes, those stations will presumably be accessible. 2045, here we come!
MarcG 09:19 on 2024-10-31 Permalink
Disabled people are just another minority who are not welcome in a homogeneous ethnostate.
carswell 09:37 on 2024-10-31 Permalink
Suspecting we’ll be seeing a lot more of this retrograde thinking imposed by the CAQ as they head toward the exit. They know it’s probably their last chance to permanently reshape society. Chunks of the healthcare system that are privatized are unlikely to be renationalized; expressways they build aren’t going to be torn down.
Am also wondering if Legault isn’t counting on Poilievre to save his sorry ass in exchange for the CAQ’s open or tacit support of the Cons in the upcoming federal election. To ensure a Conservative victory and stay in power, Poilievre will gladly grant Quebec many of the powers it’s been clamouring for, as it fits with his provinces’ rights plan to dismantle much of the federal government and gut federal regulations, especially ones affecting big oil. With the Cons in power in Ottawa this year (and, yes, walkerp, it’s not a given but…), the CAQ will have a year or longer to say “Look at what we’ve accomplished — Quebec is in complete control of immigration, has a free hand to do what it wants to anglos and allos and has got the feds to butt out of most of our ‘national’ affairs. Vote for us.”