REM down three times in two days
The REM has had a rough start to the week, TVA blaming winter conditions.
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dwgs 21:27 on 2025-02-04 Permalink
Who could have possibly foreseen that the system would have to function under such conditions???
dhomas 04:43 on 2025-02-05 Permalink
I wonder if anyone has ever considered building transit underground, so as to avoid the elements? /S
roberto 08:36 on 2025-02-05 Permalink
Maybe they read the scientific reports that said the underground tunnels could be used by the homeless for shelter – and they really didn’t want that.
Su 08:57 on 2025-02-05 Permalink
Sounds like Ottawa.
DeWolf 09:28 on 2025-02-05 Permalink
The blue line extension will cost $7.5 billion for 6 kilometres, so assuming similar expenses, building the REM underground would have needed at least… $80 billion.
saintlaurent 10:57 on 2025-02-05 Permalink
> building the REM underground would have needed at least… $80 billion.
And if the choice had been to build an REM tunnel from the South Shore *under* the river, one could plausibly imagine that figure spooling upwards pretty dramatically, like the numbers on an old-timey mechanical cash register display.
Nicholas 12:23 on 2025-02-05 Permalink
I didn’t take the Two Mountains line more than occasionally, but does anyone remember if it suffered problems like the REM? Are Vaudreuil and St Jerome having issues? I get the REM crossed the river, with open space for higher winds, but so do the St Hilaire and Vaudreuil and Candiac lines, and regular trains seem to have fewer disruptions in Sweden, Finland, Russia, Ukraine, Japan, etc. in winter. Maybe we shouldn’t have gone with a bespoke technology that’s most known for running in a Canadian city that shuts down at 2 cm of snow.
Taylor 14:04 on 2025-02-05 Permalink
@Nicholas
EXCELLENT QUESTION!
I took it every day for years, as did several members of my family.
The answer is no, I don’t think so. I can’t recall those trains going out of commission because of snowfall. I have vague memories of trudging through snowdrifts on the platforms.
They were ‘heavy’ rail and stood (relatively) high above the tracks.
The only service outtages I can recall were related to extreme cold, and I don’t think that happened more than a couple times.
DeWolf 14:17 on 2025-02-05 Permalink
You’re making the assumption that the REM is particularly prone to outages, but I’m not sure it is. It performs more reliably than the metro, and its performance has improved over the past year: there were 9 major outages in the first two months of 2025, compared to 20 in the first two months of 2024.
It also isn’t bespoke technology – it’s an off-the-shelf system used in many other cities. The Sydney metro is nearly identical, using the same trains and the same overhead power supply.
A quick Google search suggests that bad winter weather does disrupt train services in Sweden, Finland and other cold countries. Just for example:
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/swedish-public-transport-in-disarray-due-to-snow-chaos/2744877
Purely anecdotally, I was in Tokyo when it snowed 25cm and the rail system was in chaos. Every above-ground line shut down.
DeWolf 14:37 on 2025-02-05 Permalink
Just for perspective:
REM on-time rate in 2024: 98.96%
Deux-Montagnes on-time rate in 2016: 97%
TeeOwe 14:53 on 2025-02-05 Permalink
Thanks DeWolf – where do you find these percentages?
Comparing to Sydney doesn’t seem meaningful, never snows there, but Sweden and Finland OK
FWIW where I am now living (Denmark) tram service in many cities falls apart in (very) cold weather – happens every winter
TeeOwe 15:01 on 2025-02-05 Permalink
PS Very cold by local standards, nothing to Montreal
saintlaurent 15:28 on 2025-02-05 Permalink
> It performs more reliably than the metro
@ DeWolf – are you backing out issues caused by users? I would imagine that the REM suffers far fewer disruptions due to incidents such as track intrusions or discharges of pepper spray. If you looked solely at disruptions caused by mechanical/maintenance/electrical issues, how would the two systems compare?
DeWolf 18:36 on 2025-02-05 Permalink
The stats come from media reports. The REM one was fairly widely reported last year, the Deux-Montagnes one is from a 2018 article talking about how service had been steadily deteriorating year after year.
As for the cause of outages, this article doesn’t say what proportion is caused by equipment failure or maintenance issues, but it says those have increased by 133% over the past 10 years:
https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/grand-montreal/2024-11-14/degradation-du-metro/les-pannes-liees-aux-bris-d-equipement-grimpent-en-fleche.php
Anyway, I’m not setting out to say the REM is great or they’re managing things particularly well, but there’s a perception out there that it’s a dysfunctional system which just isn’t borne out by reality. And it’s also unreasonable to expect everything to work perfectly in the winter which is tough on every single mode of transport.
dhomas 05:47 on 2025-02-06 Permalink
@Roberto the fact that homeless folk use the metro as shelter is not a reason to not have metros. Maybe we should look at the root cause and try to determine WHY there are so many unhoused people and try to reduce that number by, I dunno, giving them places to stay that aren’t the metro? Otherwise, you’re basically saying “go be homeless somewhere else”.
To Dewolf’s point, the cost of the blue line extension is, I agree, ridiculous. I think it could and should be much cheaper. For reference, the initial 26 stations (including the yellow line to Longueuil) cost 213.7 million dollars to complete by 1967 . Again, this included a river crossing to Longueuil. Accounting for inflation, that is less than 2 billion in 2024 dollars. For 26 stations. And a river crossing.
I don’t really understand why the cost of construction projects has so outpaced inflation. I think we are getting fleeced with the blue line extension. In any other city, I’m quite certain the price tag would have been much less.
saintlaurent 09:28 on 2025-02-06 Permalink
> In any other city, I’m quite certain the price tag would have been much less.
Yes, and no. The Globe and Mail’s Decibel podcast covered this topic just yesterday. 21 minutes of your time, and it is quite illuminating. tl;dr: governments in the anglosphere (including Quebec) are just too damned risk-averse, project creep is indeed a thing, impacted residents and businesses get all uppity and try their hardest to gum up the works; and the cost of projects is oftentimes deliberately low-balled from the start because it’s convenient for the government of the day to do that.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/podcasts/the-decibel/article-whats-stopping-canada-from-building-better-public-transit/
dhomas 10:26 on 2025-02-06 Permalink
Thanks, saintlaurent! I will give it a listen when I can. Sounds interesting!
DeWolf 12:53 on 2025-02-06 Permalink
One of the reasons countries like France and Spain are able to build new metro and tram lines at relatively low costs is because they are continuously building them. Because of our funding models, we’re stuck in a situation where we have a major transit expansion every 20 years or so, and when it’s done, all that expertise and equipment gets packed away until (maybe) there’s another project at some undetermined time in the future.
Meanwhile, Paris is building 6 new metro lines and 68 stations for €42 billion (!!) by setting up an autonomous infrastructure agency that has long-term, ongoing funding from the government, as well as the ability to raise extra funds by itself:
https://www.grandparisexpress.fr/sites/default/files/2023-01/Pr%C3%A9sentation-investisseurs_%20jan%202023_3.pdf
saintlaurent 13:32 on 2025-02-06 Permalink
@DeWolf – one of the topics covered in the G&M podcast I referenced above is that, since North American cities do big-ticket transit projects so infrequently, there are no opportunities to build-up of institutional knowledge. So, they then turn out outside engineering & consulting firms and hey, somebody’s got to pay for those cushy salaries. In cities like Paris or Hong Kong, they’re doing it all the time, so they can challenge the consultants with some degree of confidence.
Also, the podcast mentioned North American transit agency’s institutional reluctance to build commercially on top of transit stations and monetize those development possibilities, so they don’t get the revenue they otherwise could. On several trips I’ve taken to Hong Kong, it’s amazing how integrally the MTR is woven into the fabric of commercial life on top of transit stations.
DeWolf 19:00 on 2025-02-06 Permalink
Ironically we were doing that kind of thing before Hong Kong even had a metro: Alexis-Nihon opened in 1967 and was the first vertical shopping mall in North America.
(If you’re interested in the history of the MTR, here’s a bit of self-promotion – Google my name and MTR, and you’ll come across some recent articles I wrote about its early days.)
The STM has started a property development arm to build things on top of the new blue line stations. I hope it goes well because building shops and housing on top of rapid transit stations is the more surefire way to make sure lots and lots of people use transit. Just look at Vancouver, which has invested heavily in transit-oriented development and now has the only metro system in North American to fully recover its pre-pandemic ridership.