Six complaints made against water taxi
Six formal complaints have been made against the water taxi that links Pointe-aux-Trembles and the Old Port, because it’s not wheelchair accessible. On this morning’s radio news, it was pointed out in its defense that the boat system is still in an experimental phase, and will be made accessible eventually.
qatzelok 08:18 on 2019-08-15 Permalink
And they don’t have a high enough proportion of gay or First Nations drivers.
Tim S. 08:28 on 2019-08-15 Permalink
It shouldn’t be wheelchair accessible – how would you evacuate a wheelchair if it starts sinking or has another emergency?
jeather 09:45 on 2019-08-15 Permalink
That’s not much of a defense. Why did they not start by making it accessible? It isn’t as if they weren’t in the middle of a huge “let’s try to make the metro system accessible” plan and were going to be surprised by this. Instead of starting by building something accessible, they started by building something inaccessible, and then have to redo/remake/repurchase/rebuild.
So no need to have accessible buildings either, how do you evacuate a wheelchair if you can’t use the elevator. We’ve solved accessibility by just making everyone stay in their homes.
Kate 10:11 on 2019-08-15 Permalink
jeather, I imagine they began this experiment by using existing boats and piers and accesses to the piers, which were not conceived from scratch to be accessible to wheelchair users. The operators want to see how much demand there is, I imagine, once the service is no longer a novelty. If there is ongoing demand then there will be a basis for a public transit budget to upgrade all the elements to make the service more accessible.
Forgive me if I have my doubts how many wheelchair users will actually use this service even if the money is found for improvements. Six orchestrated complaints? I think this is more in the nature of a statement.
Blork 10:10 on 2019-08-15 Permalink
It’s not easy to make small boats wheelchair accessible. Since this project is still experimental, it’s normal that they start with a minimum viable product instead of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on all those special modifications before they even know if the thing will be successful. That’s how things are developed when you’re starting from scratch on a shoestring budget.
Bear in mind that to be accessible it means the launch points at both PAT and the Old Port need to be extensively retrofitted (AFAIK the launch point in PAT is pretty crude), plus the boat has to be redesigned and retrofitted, plus there needs to be some kind of bridge built between the dock and the boat that both holds the boat steady and somehow enables the wheelchair to be moved from the dock and then lowered into the boat.
Not easy. Not cheap. And not worth doing until you know if the whole project is going to be successful or not. That’s just common sense. It might be different if this boat were an essential service, or if there were 30 or 40 wheelchair-bound people in PAT who really want to use the service. But that’s not the case, so let them see if this thing is viable before they start putting more money into it.
thomas 10:45 on 2019-08-15 Permalink
Is it just me that thinks the water taxi is a government subsidy for wealthy commuters?
Kate 11:33 on 2019-08-15 Permalink
Pointe-aux-Trembles isn’t exactly one of the city’s wealthier enclaves.
Blork 11:33 on 2019-08-15 Permalink
Yes, it’s just you.
Joey 11:59 on 2019-08-15 Permalink
I imagine the point of these complaints is to ensure that any permanent water taxi plan does not neglect accessibility. Now seems like the appropriate moment to make that point – consider it a reminder to the agency overseeing the project in the long term that wheelchair users should not be ignored. The article quotes the president of the company operating the taxi, who points out that in the meantime they are already making efforts to improve accessibility.
thomas 12:18 on 2019-08-15 Permalink
@Kate Someone who isn’t wealthy can afford to spend an extra $140 for their monthly commute?
Blork 14:16 on 2019-08-15 Permalink
FFS @thomas. Your $140 assumes these people use the water taxi twice a day, five days a week. I’m willing to bet that many (most?) people only use it occasionally, not every day.
You also forget about the money that’s saved. Some (many? most?) of the people taking the water taxi use that instead of driving, so when you subtract gas and parking, they’re actually spending LESS on their commute by taking the boat. There might also be people who only use their Opus card for their commute, so they cancel the card for the months that the water taxi is running. (These are people who have a car for local use but use buses for commuting — many people do that.)
And finally, even if it is $140 on top of all other expenses, that’s hardly an amount that’s only accessible to “the wealthy.”
CE 15:50 on 2019-08-15 Permalink
Also, I think you can buy bulk tickets at a lower price.
thomas 16:14 on 2019-08-15 Permalink
A $7M subsidy for the hundred or so people who occasionally commute between Pointe-aux-Trembles and their job in Vieux Montreal hardly seems cost effective.
DavidH 16:23 on 2019-08-15 Permalink
140$ monthly is cheaper than most places will charge you for indoor parking downtown. People are saving money using it. It’s more expensive than the subway… but the metro is not an especially good option for PAT anyways.
Uatu 17:27 on 2019-08-15 Permalink
I’m glad these complaints are being made as accessibility in this province is an afterthought or at the very least a bare minimum. I work in a hospital that’s only 4yrs old and the accessibility is terrible. Stairs everywhere, lousy signage, floor tiles that get slick when wet, barely accessible washrooms for the disabled. it’s as if they forgot a hospital serves people who are sick. And on that note, the more consideration for the disabled the better as this province in the next ten years will be populated by a majority of elderly people with mobility problems. Not just wheel chairs, but canes, walkers, wheeled walkers, crutches etc. So more accessible the better.
ant6n 20:43 on 2019-08-15 Permalink
Commuter rail users get like 10x the subsidy that bus+metro users get. I do wonder whether the users of the water taxi only get as much subsidy as commuter rail users, or 10x as much.
Faiz Imam 22:21 on 2019-08-15 Permalink
Jarett walker has a very good analysis of ferries and why they work (or don’t) https://humantransit.org/2016/12/ferries-opportunities-and-challenges.html
On equal footing, boats are dramatically more expensive, slow and inefficient than any form of land travel, so they only really make sense when geography or other factors make land travel particularly indirect.
The pet ferry goes parallel to flat clear land the whole way, so in theory it should not exist.
But the transit connections to the east(both the mascouche train and the local buses) are so poor that it’s found a niche.
It’s a pretty barebones service, with small boats and only a few employees, so I can see it not being massively expensive to operate.
If they do end up making it permanent, I have to imagine they’ll make it accessible. These sorts of small ferry boats are used in many cities and many of them are totally wheelchair accessible,so it’s not about doing more research or pilot projects. It’s as simple as spending the millions of dollars on new boats. That only makes sense if they have a long term plan.
Kate 09:35 on 2019-08-16 Permalink
Faiz Imam, I always figured this boat would suit 2 groups of people: those who, fortuitously, happened to live somewhere near the riverside in PAT and work somewhere near the Old Port – there must be some people fitting this description, but not a lot – and folks trying out the trip from curiosity. I believe you can bring bicycles aboard, which would extend the area at both ends that would find it worthwhile to get to work by ferry.
It’s also worth considering the simple pleasure of being out on the river in a boat. Nice, chilling way to get to work, if it fits your personal geography.
The downside is that it will not be running between October and May.
CE 10:14 on 2019-08-16 Permalink
I took it a couple weeks ago. My girlfriend works about 5 blocks from Quai Jacques-Cartier so we biked over and took it to PAT and biked home. I definitely recommend taking it and if you don’t take a bike, you can get a return ticket. It’s an amazing way to see the city from different angles, especially the port. If I lived within a 20 minute bike ride of the landing in PAT and worked around Old Montreal or downtown, I would definitely commute via this ferry.
Blork 11:59 on 2019-08-16 Permalink
I agree with CE; we live on one of the world’s great rivers, but so many of us never actually get onto the water.
There’s also a shuttle between the old port and Ile Ste-Helene, which also goes all the way to Longueuil. It’s no good for commuting for various reasons (the schedule, the landing point in Longueuil, etc.) but I always make it a point to ride it a few times every summer. Cost is something like $7.50 between the old port and Longueuil for a ride that takes about 15 minutes. It’s a spectacular way to go home for work on days when I ride my bike to work in the morning and then bike/boat to get home in the evening.
CE 12:27 on 2019-08-16 Permalink
Now that you mention it Blork, I realize that I moved to Montreal in 2006 and the only time I had ever taken a boat on the Saint Lawrence was to take the ferry from Hudson to Oka. It’s crazy how little we get to use our rivers in this city so I’m happy to subsidize these types of ferry services.
Blork 14:02 on 2019-08-16 Permalink
You’re still batting zero on the St. Lawrence, CE. The Hudson-Oka ferry crosses the Ottawa River. 🙂
Blork 14:07 on 2019-08-16 Permalink
…Easy to fix. Here’s the cheapest boat tour in town: take the Metro to Jean-Drapeau. Walk to the shuttle terminal. Take the shuttle back to the old port ($4.25 per person).
It’s a very quick ride, but the views are excellent.
http://navettesmaritimes.com/schedule/
Blork 14:10 on 2019-08-16 Permalink
…or bike to Ile Ste-Helene and take the shuttle back. The boat can carry at least 50 bikes. (BTW, I recommend taking the shuttle FROM the island instead of TO the island just because it’s more dramatic to approach the old port than to take the boat away from it. The views are the same, but the effect is different.)