This weekend will see a full shutdown of the STM as bus drivers and metro operators strike.
Updates from November, 2025 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Video report here from CBC on the state of homeless shelters under the early winter conditions.
The item cites the Old Brewery Mission estimating that about 1000 people are living in encampments, and they’re about 20% of the homeless population.
Also some promises from the new mayor. She wants to make assessments first.
Ian
Those are some interesting estimates as the total homeless population of Montreal is at last count 42% of the 9 307 throughout Quebec, so about 3900. Homelessness was reported by that 2024 survey as increasing 10% a year… so maybe 4300? I’m curious where OBM is getting their implied 5k from.
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Kate
Projet Montréal has chosen Ericka Alneus as interim leader.
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Kate
The Gazette on how the Deux‑Montagnes REM will change commuting patterns when it opens.
Uatu
Heh. Sure. It’s going to make commuting like rollin’ craps. You hope you don’t get snake eyes when the weather is bad lol
Kate
I’m waiting for the moment when the elevators at the REM Édouard-Montpetit stop working, and people have to climb the equivalent of 20 storeys to get out.
patatrio
it undoubtedly will change lifestyle and residential density along its path, orienting life way from cars and distances towards point to point living. I suspect that this does not necessarily tell the whole story – urban densification around transit also pulls people from more central areas where living costs are higher (or in our current situation, where home ownership is no longer viable). So essentially providing an option for people to move outward without having to accept a car-centric lifestyle, while still remaining connected to the rest of the city.
But this quote irks me:
> “That means developing the real estate around each station on this vast territory. And this will encourage the use of public transit because it’s all planned around access to the station.”What I am seeing from developers like Broccolini is that these new urban hubs are being defined by real estate developers rather than comprehensive community planning. The outer boroughs are ill-equipped to take on this role as they have never done anything of the sort before. And from looking at impact studies of medium-distance transit networks around Vancouver, without proper planning and public investment into housing and local services, these denser neighbourhoods expanding around REM stations will very quickly rise in value, making a car free lifestyle out of reach again – lower income households will still continue to get pushed away from public transit and have to rely on endless buses or accept a car-centric lifestyle. The overheated market cannibalises supply housing wherever it is created. We just need so much affordable housing at the moment to cool the market (and regulatory measures to prevent investment funds and various forms of real estate companies to profit from what should be a basic right for citizens).
Thinking long-term though the end result is a very slow multi-generational disincentive to own a car, as these medium-distance networks begin to reshape local transit in these neighbourhoods. The Kirkland set with their swimming pools will slowly cash out and different scales and types of housing will replace them. Maybe Carney’s Build Canada initiative will yield some tools for VdM to implement more responsible planning practices and non-profit forms of housing at the heart of these projects but again, decades away before we see any procedural change.
Kate
Undoubtedly there will be long-term shifts, patatrio, but the article was more about changes in the short term – how getting downtown from the blue line could be much faster, for example.
Ian
Getting from Mile End to Ste Anne de Bellevue currently takes about an hour and a half, at best. You get yourself to Lionel Groulx then catch the 211or the express bus depending on the time of day.
When the REM finally works, because of the REM station’s location north of the 40, it will take about 20 minutes on the as-yet nonexistant shuttle bus that has been promised. So, travel time to a REM station, then the REM, then a bus… will take about an hour and a half.
The REM station’s new location was very much intentional as the Ste Anne mayor was very excited to create development opportunities to expand the tax base, and Broccolini was only to happy to help out. There are already Broccolini subdivisions by the Ecomuseum, built in anticipation of this new residential boom in what is currently mostly a light industrial park.
This may sound like idle complaining but the existing EXO train station is actually in Ste Anne, within walking distance of the McGill campus, CEGEP John Abbott, and the MacDonald High School … which, combined, have over 4000 people coming in every day. Now, all those people will be waiting for a shuttle bus? From a station that is north of the 40, when the town and campus are south of the 20?
I think most people will stick with the existing bus lines from Dorval – assuming the REM allows it to continue to run. Of course if the REM is down they will still have to take the bus all the way from Lionel Groulx.
Uatu
Yes. Hopefully they won’t get angry when it breaks down and security says to get off the train and wait outside in cold rain for a shuttle bus only for them to say 40 minutes later that the train is now fixed and to come back inside. This happened to me on Halloween morning and now you too can experience this…
Joey
This is what happens when the province’s investment agency plans a transit project – the real focus is on real estate development around the new route. Basically, we can always build a REM but we’ll probably never build a pink line.
Ian, I imagine you are the only Mile-End to St-Anne daily commuter who is not eligible for the McGill shuttle bus, which I assume handles most of the downtown-to-Mac travel needs… Anyway, how long is the REM ride supposed to be? It’s maybe 10 minutes by 51 to Edouard-Montpetit, then 10 minutes of elevators, then the REM, then the shuttle, but hopefully less than 90 minutes total…
Mark
The REM folks have always been claiming that they are pursuing Transit Oriented Development (TOD), but very little of the the REM stations can be considered TOD. TOD is (stolen from another site): focus is not on real estate assets, but on mapping the activities of residents and workers along rail corridors and establishing assets and businesses that capture a high daily proportion of passenger spend.
The successful TOD projects around the world (Hong Kong and Toyko have several) look at existing density and develop housing and transit around those parameters. TOD would have been funding the the Pink line by building and density around the new stations, within the fabric of the city. Find underutilized and underdeveloped sites along the route, build housing and services around those stations to generate revenue and improve transit overall.
TOD is not plunking a station in the middle of a field (aka the REM station in St-Anne) far away from existing development and housing and just diverting people to your mode of transport. Condos around a station isn’t enough, you need services and you need to be close to where people already live.
Density around stations is better than nothing, but it misses the mark if it keeps people dependent on cars. The irony is that the one REM station that could have been closest to a TOD model is the one that hasn’t been built yet (Griffintown).
DeWolf
Yes and no, Mark. TOD can be both of what you describe. The Vancouver SkyTrain’s success (high ridership and the only North American metro system to fully recover from the pandemic) comes largely through TODs created in suburban sprawl: strip malls and light industrial areas that are now dense mixed-use neighbourhoods. You mention Hong Kong, but three major MTR lines (Tung Chung, Tseung Kwan O, Ma On Shan) were built mostly on reclaimed or brownfield land that was developed after the lines opened. That’s all in the past 30 years. If you look at New York, pretty much the entire borough of Queens was developed only after the IRT, BRT and IND subway lines were built by their respective companies.
Even when you consider the REM, a majority of its stations are along the old Deux-Montagnes line, which is exactly the kind of ideal situation you describe. The parts of VSL next to the REM stations are already quite dense.
Ian
Effctively the denser parts of Montreal that are already more or less well-served by transit will not see much change except maybe less reliability, and the more far-flung regions will remain reliant on cars. I guess that’s PPP for you, the point is profit, infra-as-service is only one of several potential profit drivers.
To be fair the stretch of WI along the 20 really did build up becasue of the train, my stepmother remembers her Dad going to work when they lived in a new subdivision near Pine Beach when she was a kid. I am sure the REM will drive whole new swaths of ticky-tacky along the swamp north of the 40.
patatrio
Kate you’re right, it’s pretty great for our corner of the world. Also for hopping to the airport.
Ian
Having direct, speedy transit to the airport is way overdue, it really is categorically good that is finally happening.
GC
I agree, Ian, but we also need it to be RELIABLE. And experience like Uatu’s will have people missing flights.
Ian
Also a very good point – but if the rail line is in place that’s one huge hurdle out of the way, the rest is administrative. I have litle to no faith in REM management but if they get seized by the government when they prove to be incompetent, things can improve quickly. That this is a line to the airport is important here becasue now it’s not just public tranist, it’s commerical infrastructure of critical importance, so the provincial and maybe even federal governement would be more inclined to step in (I hope).
CE
@Mark, a lot of what gets marketed as TOD is as you describe and is referred to derisively by planners as TAD (transit adjacent development). It’s better than nothing but is still very car dependent and tends to offer the worst of both city and suburban living.
Mark
Thanks everyone for the additional information, always learning things on this blog. I should have specified that I was mostly referring to the three or four stops in the WI that seemed to be plunked in the middle of nowhere. Canora, Mount Royal, VSL, all those are close to the city fabric.
I guess my concerns are mostly for those stations. The rem around du quartier on the south shore is certainly desifying but it’s still very car centric and I worry that the west island stations will just follow a similar pattern that doesn’t really encourage active transportation.
DeWolf
That’s a fair concern, especially since development around the West Island stations will be overseen by the various demerged municipalities, which increases the likelihood the development will be poorly planned/managed (given their relative lack of experience and resources compared to larger municipalities).
@Ian — I’m not sure how you can say residents along the DM line will see “not much change.” If you live in next to Montpellier station — a pretty dense area with tons of big apartment buildings — you will have gone from being next to a train that had hourly service for most of the day to one that will run 3–5 minutes all day. That’s just one example. There’s a whole chunk of Montreal that is being massively shrunk in terms of public transit travel times, not just because of the high frequency but because, unlike the old DM line, the REM has connections to the blue and green metro lines.
patatrio
Mark the stations you mention were essentially ‘inherited’ from the old Deux-Montagnes line. TMR won’t change much as it is a designated historical site. But yeah some of those stations do seem a bit superfluous. Around VSL though will change, 20 minute trains to downtown will mean higher density residential and other mixed use at least.
roberto
All the forced developments will iron themselves out organically with time. You don`t build towns overnight. One day they`ll get a school buit in griffentown.
Ian
Probably around the same time they put in bus stops in Upper Westmount & deps in upper Outremont.
Ian
…also hilariously I saw this train stuck on the line Tuesday and wondered what was up. Doesn’t bode well.
https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/pointe-claire-rem-trains-stall-snow-testDeWolf
Isn’t that the whole point of testing? To see how things might fail in different conditions? If the West Island line was ready it would be opening on Saturday like the DM line.
Ian
Sure, you could look at it that way. You could also note that the trains have been running for a while now on other lines, the failure was a stall, and it took them two days to clear it out.
Uatu
As an experienced REM user I advise never to ride with a full bladder. Lol
Ian
@DeWolf “I’m not sure how you can say residents along the DM line will see “not much change.” What I actually said was “the denser parts of Montreal that are already more or less well-served by transit will not see much change except maybe less reliability, and the more far-flung regions will remain reliant on cars.” I stand by that. You describe a place that already has a station as now having another station. That’s absolutely wonderful. The train situation will improve as long as it’s reliable, which it’s not. Can people still take the bus? Maybe not, as we can see with the south shore. Of course this only really applies to the DM line, the line out west is intentionally going to areas that people don’t live in yet.
@Joey “Ian, I imagine you are the only Mile-End to St-Anne daily commuter who is not eligible for the McGill shuttle bus” you have to be a McGill student or faculty to take that bus, so it doesn’t actually replace public transit. For one thing, it doesn’t do stops – it’s a campus-to-campus shuttle. Students that live closer to LG than McGill (for instance) would just take the city bus as travel times would be similar but run more frequently. Of course none of the students or faculty at the CEGEP are elgible, and many of them come in from east of Dorval, with many from central Montreal or even further out. You go to a school for its programs, and most CEGEP age students still live at home. FWIW since the STM strikes I have had a regular crew of carpoolers coming in with me just from Mile End.
DeWolf
A train running every five minutes, with a connection to three different metro lines, is vastly different than an hourly commuter line with a single metro connection at its terminus.
You make it sound like the REM is down most of the time but even with its major issues last winter and the periodic outages (absolutely not acceptable but also not even as bad as the metro’s reliability), it offers exponentially more service than the old DM line.
Ian
A train that runs reliably is vastly different from a train that is, as Uatu, an actual user of the REM puts it, a crapshoot – no matter how often it is scheduled to run.
I think I’ll take the opinion of a regular user of the REM over your apologia, thank you. Even if the train is down a couple of times and makes me late for work, that’s not a method of transportation I would rely on. Who would?
Ian
addendum:
The metro does go down often, but not for nearly as long, and there are other ways to get around where the metro runs. Even thoguh I took the metro to work every weekday fo ryears, I cannot recalla single instance where I had to wait outside in the rain for 40 minutes for a shuttle bus that did not arrive, because it broke down, with no alternative transportation choices. The REM is unique in the regard.
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Kate
Mayor Martinez Ferrada has sacked seven city hall staffers contracted by Projet and apparently felt to be too loyal to the old regime.
GC
I find it interesting that that same article says she’ll be sworn in tomorrow (unless it’s my French?), but is already firing people. I guess the swearing in is just a formality.
Also, the contracts were ending in about six weeks, anyway, but she terminated them early? Why not just not renew the contracts?
Ian
A special Merry Christmas ‘screw you’ to political enemies? It wouldn’t be the first thing a newly elected leader did out of sheer pettiness.
CE
I lived in Bogotá colombia for a few years and about a year after I arrived, there was a municipal election. For around 9 months after the election, very little got done because nearly the entire bureaucracy was fired and replaced by the new mayor’s people (usually friends, family, or donors). Since all the institutional knowledge is lost and everyone has to learn how to do their jobs, the civil service becomes completely ineffective. Since mayors can only run once for four (or five?) year terms, this happens after every election.
I mentioned to the person who was explaining this to me that after an election, this doesn’t really happen in Montreal, civil servants generally work under various administrations. I hope our new mayor doesn’t move us over to this type of system of patronage because it doesn’t do anyone any good (except for the mayor’s lackeys).
Joey
There’s an implication in the reporting that there’s something nefarious going on, when it’s clear these seven individuals wound up in city hall to provide political counsel to Valerie Plante (or perhaps to give them a landing spot that would allow them to continue to work on municipal issues after they had lost council races). In reality, Soraya (who we learn actually donated to Projet in 2022) has chosen not to replace Benoit Dagenais, the city’s executive director – even though doing so is common practice. If anything, Soraya is being more conciliatory by keeping the ED and turfing the political hangers-on, but you wouldn’t know it from the lede and the tone of the piece.
(Also, the seven individuals had contracts that ran out at the end of 2025…)
GC
The fact that their contracts were running out just makes it seem all the more petty to me, Joey. I.e., just let them run out.
But, I agree that the article makes it sound like she’s the only mayor who ever fired some people when coming into power. And, I highly doubt that’s true.
Joey
@GC it’s not clear that that’s not what they’re doing, i.e., your contract says we pay you for the year but please don’t come in because we don’t need you any more. I’d be very surprised if that weren’t the case… Anyway, I don’t think it’s petty to start your new administration without the political advisors inherited from the outgoing mayor whose party you just beat. Best for all involved to move on…
GC
I agree it’s not clear how their contracts were ended. They probably are getting paid until the end of the year, so why not get some work out of them before they go? Though, granted with the holidays coming up that might not be many hours of actual work. (I have no idea how long City Hall closes over Christmas.)
As for the level of pettiness, we apparently disagree but we can do that. These were “non partisan” positions, per the article. “Des notes sur les finances, mais aussi sur les infrastructures de l’eau, sur les grands parcs, sur l’habitation ainsi que sur les sports et loisirs” don’t sound like party-specific things. If she were going to fire everyone who’s donated to Projet over the years, she’d have to fire herself.
But, as I said, I doubt she’s being any worse than most mayors before her. As the article notes, she’s keeping Dagenais even though he was hired by Plante.
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Kate
Sonder, the hotel company that was founded in Montreal in 2012 but spread to the U.S., has abruptly declared bankruptcy and evicted its customers.
CBC says the company got millions from Investissement Québec in 2020.
DeWolf
I’m really surprised it took local media so long to report on this given that Sonder has its second headquarters here, plus seven hotels. This has been all over US media for a few days now.
Nicholas
CTV says they got a loan, but what they actually got was an agreement for a loan and facility, subject to certain conditions. They never fulfilled all those conditions, so never got any money, and terminated the agreement in 2024, as per SEC filings (search for Quebec). So the only taxpayer dollars that went into this was the staff time and expenses to set this deal up.
GC
I wasn’t really aware of their existence before they interviewed me for a possible job around 2022. Maybe I dodged a bullet there.
All the same, I can’t imagine being in a situation where I’m travelling and get evicted from my temporary accommodations.
jeather
I’ve seen a lot of reports of people who are not only locked out, but their belongings are locked in.
GC
I hadn’t even thought of that :(. I could definitely see it, though, if you didn’t happen to be “home” at the time they locked everything out.
Ian
I remember when the dot com collpase happened some people I knew in Toronto got locked in thes tairwells when their offices suddenly closed down without warning. Note that this was before cellphones, too. I had applied at that office a year before and was turned down, I was sore about it at the time but in retrospect I dodged a bullet.
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