A lot of buses are to be put into service as of Thursday morning to replace the REM.
Updates from February, 2025 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Quebec is tickling its sleeping union dragon with the tabling of a bill to limit strikes and lockouts. This would go beyond the Essential Services act and automatically force strikers back to work.
The CAQ may be choosing its moment, as Quebec City’s blue collar workers plan to strike on Thursday and the politicians may think they have public feelings on their side.
roberto
Can the media be more responsible in differentiating a strike and a lockout? I found it very unfair that the Canada Post lockout was reframed as a strike.
Nicholas
A general strike would be a strike to see. This would make the red square student strikes seem quaint.
roberto, you and me both.
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Kate
Mayor Plante is asking Montrealers to be patient: only 15% of the snow was cleared as of Wednesday morning.
MarcG
It’s pretty fun out there but I feel bad for folks with mobility challenges.
Ian
I’m very surprised the sidewalks on major streets haven’t been cleared. Parc is still a single-file goat path, I had to help an older person just step down from the main sidewalk trail to the shovelled out area in front of a pharmacy. I had seen the excuse made that no sidewalks were getting plowed as the drifts on the sides were too high, but the main streets have been plowed…. I noticed the parking meters on PArc were all neatly cleared, presumably by the city’s contractors…
Kevin
At least once a winter the city gets really stupid about snow removal. Now is that time.
In NDG only one direction of Sherbrooke is cleared and the other direction hasn’t been scheduled.
There has been no clearing around the four schools closest to my home.
And one block over from me, the city is trying for the third night in a row to clear a normal residential street.
Tim S.
I’ve seen a few spots where the sidewalk plows have given up in the middle of the block, left a big pile of snow and turned off into the street. I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that there was simply too much snow to continue rather than that they suddenly became incompetent mid-block.
Kevin
Tim S.
On Sunday I was walking to a store and saw a sidewalk plow coming toward me. On the way home I could only tell it had gone by because of two tire-sized ruts in snow up to my knees.The city put out a video today https://web-cdn.bsky.app/profile/montreal.ca/post/3likgo3lb6s2z
walkerp
The city being stupid? How about maybe we have a record quantity of snow and it is a significant logistical challenge to remove it. Also, what about the citizens being stupid? How many idiots put out their garbage and recycling on my block last night, which is now going to make snow removal that much harder.
Read this to maybe have some empathy and understanding for the challenge the city and its workers are facing right now:
L’enfer du déneigement, vu de l’opérateur.Tim S.
Thanks walkerp, that was an important read. And good to see so many supportive comments.
Kate
Good piece, walkerp. Thanks.
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Kate
The prime minister has just announced that the project for a fast train between Quebec City and Toronto will go ahead.
Meantime, Via Rail has cancelled trains on that corridor Wednesday,
Joey
If we start actually doing things like high-speed (or high-frequency, or ideally high-speed and high-frequency) rail between Montreal and Toronto, we’ll run out of longstanding things to bitch and moan about. Anyway, this concluding paragraph from CBC is worth keeping in mind:
“It’s expected to take four to five years to design the future high-speed line. Funds are to be allocated at the end of that time period, so it’s possible a future government could modify or cancel the project.”
jeather
I have faith that we could find new things to bitch and moan about.
Alex L
Finally, this is happening. Or should I wait before rejoicing?
Bert
Trudeau initiating a project that will undoubtedly result in a bunch of expropriations, including in regional and farming reasons. Man, this year of 1969 is just wild!
Ephraim
Meanwhile, I’m looking at the partners… “the consortium Cadence — made up of CDPQ Infra, AtkinsRéalis, Keolis, SYSTRA, SNCF Voyageurs, and Air Canada”
For those who don’t know:
Keolis is 70% SNCF and 30% CDPQ.
SNCF Voyageurs is the division of SNCF that actually runs the trains.
AtkinsRéalis is the new name for SNC Lavalin
SYSTRA is 20% SNCF and 20% RATP (The Paris region transit company)I’m particularly happy to see SYSTRA involved, they have been involved in the majority of tram development in France and a lot of the high speed rail as well. They bring in a lot of experience.
Joey
I can’t imagine getting into the details on this unless, at the very least, Mark Carney is on board. Otherwise, it’s just a waste of energy.
Anton
So, uh, how are they gonna get from gare centrale to North of the river.
Taylor
@Anton
I have an article in development on this issue, it’ll come out soon
The answer: it likely won’t
Not using Gare Centrale is an option apparently. Having the HSR station located ‘outside the downtown core’ is an option too.
Also worth noting who isn’t involved in this project: VIA
This is basically the REM of national passenger rail
Tee Owe
I have done Que-Toronto and vice versa both by train and plane, I am not an expert, just a user. Overall, train works well, air travel is compromised by airport travel time and time spent in the airport. My gut feeling is that the connection in Montreal is going to compromise this whole plan. As Anton and Joey refer to, there will need to be a new station, and then connections to downtown – not optimal. To be competitive, this needs to whizz through Montreal to get to TO fast – wonderful for the Que-TO traveler, politically incorrect otherwise. I agree about high-frequency mattering as much as high-speed. I am not optimistic.
Blork
Maybe they will install a train station at Mirabel? 🙂
Tee Owe
Sorry, Anton and Taylor 🙁
SMD
Anybody know what Air Canada is doing on that list, instead of VIA Rail? I don’t get it.
CE
I remember this being discussed in the media last summer. https://globalnews.ca/news/10675060/air-canada-tgv-train-company-bidder-electric-fast-rail-project/
bob
” jusqu’à 300 km / h ” – but not really. Three hours from Montreal to Toronto is about 170km/h. An hour and a half from Montreal to Quebec is about the same. That is not high speed rail – it is a little faster than the speed of Via Rail’s LRC that was in place in the 1980’s-90’s. Those Via trains could do Montreal to Toronto in 4 hours (and did so in the 80’s and 90’s) – so we will spend $100 billion so shave an hour off that?
Assuming that $100 is a valid esitmate – “Dans le passé, Transports Canada avait initialement évalué le coût d’un TGV Toronto-Québec à plus de 100 milliards de dollars. ” — but that was then and this is now. Will it be $150 billion? $200 billion? “la phase de conception du projet s’élèvera à 3,9 milliards de dollars” – $4 billion to design the project, before they start actually designing the railroad – which is supposed to happen in six years, if you believe that. The Tokaido Shikansen took five years to build *sixty* years ago. The first TGV (Paris-Lyon) in France took four years to build – *fifty* years ago. French TGV rail costs about $20 million per km. Spanish TGV costs about $15 million per km. At the French rate $100 billion would buy high speed rail from Vancouver to Halifax. But we don’t get the French rate, we get the Canadian rate, which includes corruption that would make the dictator of a banana republic blush.
Anand – “The existing transportation system has not kept pace.” Kept pace with what? The near complete absence of demand for train travel between Montreal and Toronto? Ridership has stagnated at 4 million for *thirty five* years, while the population has increased by 50%.
This is pure pork – a multi-billion dollar parting gift from Trudeau to the usual suspects (like SNC whose prosecution for fraud he scuttled). It is not high speed rail, it is looting.
Orr
Looking at the map that traces the route through the Montreal region, it appears to follow existing commuter train lines (sort of) bypassing downtown, and appears to go past the parc metro station & nearby EXO commuter train station and where there happens to be a closed building that was at one time a very nice train station.
GC
Where do you see the map?
Kevin
@Taylor
Via is involved.
The Via subsidiary that was planning high-frequency rail has been renamed Alto, and is in charge of overseeing whatever Cadence plans.MarcG
I don’t follow this stuff but I guess there’s a reason it can’t follow the existing VIA route through Montreal to Quebec City (Dorval->Bonaventure->Victoria Bridge->South Shore rail line)?
Also interested in Orr’s map.
carswell
@MarcG The north shore route is considered preferable for several reasons. It doesn’t have to cross a major river twice. It includes a stop at the Jean Lesage Airport and in Quebec’s third and fourth largest cities (Laval and Trois-Rivières respectively), increasing the potential passenger pool; Drummondville, the only city on the south shore route outside the metropolitan areas, is about half the size of Trois-Rivières. It also provides train service to Trois-Rivières, which has had none since 1990.
Those are the arguments I recall but there may well be others, such as the relative ease of expropriating land.
carswell
Also, with the south shore route, the HSR trains would have to cross the St. Lawrence on the existing bridges, the Pont de Québec and the Victoria Bridge, meaning it’d have to share rails with and be subject to delays imposed by freight rail operators on at least part of the line. But one of the big arguments in favour of a dedicated HSR line is precisely that it won’t be subject to such delays.
MarcG
That all makes sense, thanks carswell.
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Kate
The lineup for Osheaga has been announced.
MarcG
Lasso, evenko’s country music festival, as well.
EmilyG
I see Shaboozey is playing both festivals.
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Kate
One person died in a residential fire in St‑Henri on Tuesday evening.
On Thursday, the victim was identified and the building’s lack of smoke detectors reported.
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Kate
I enjoyed reading this Le Devoir piece in which the city’s urban planning point man, Robert Beaudry, gives Hydro-Quebec a subtle nod for the substation on the library block. The city is not in a position to force Hydro to set up shop elsewhere. There you have it.
mare
I haven’t seen this mention, but there’s also the practical problem of the existing underground power cables. It’s certainly can’t be easy (nor cheap) to just extend them to a location many blocks away without opening a lot of roads and weave them through the existing underground infrastructure. Preferably well insulated from other cabling and ductwork.
Kate
It was mentioned here previously that the location has to be 500m or less from the existing substation on Berri. That’s not a huge perimeter and it’s virtually all built up.
Orr
Dream big Hydro-Quebec, and build it on top of the bottom half of the Berri street hill between Sherbrooke and Ontario streets. Bottom half of Berri hill would therefore become a tunnel.
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