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The story of Montreal’s airport train is one of competing proposals by different organizations, bad planning, and letting private entities dictate our transit policy.

Montrealers have been waiting for years, decades, for a proper transit connection to the airport. Most large cities have one, and Montreal has been lagging behind. The Caisse’s REM may be just the answer to our prayers, yet it isn’t the first proposal that has been put forward in the last few years.

So what happened to the previous proposals?

The AMT vs Aéroports de Montréal

Back in 2010, the Quebec government allocated $200 million for the construction of a direct rail link to the airport. This prompted the public Agence métropolitaine de transport (AMT) and the private Aéroports de Montréal (ADM) to come up with a common transit project. They couldn’t agree on a proposal, so both organizations made separate proposals trying to secure that funding.

The AMT proposal

The AMT proposed the “Train de l’Ouest” to connect the Airport to Downtown via the Vaudreuil-Hudson commuter rail line. At the same time, the Vaudreuil-Hudson line would have been upgraded with dedicated tracks from Lucien-L’Allier to Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, to remove conflicts when sharing tracks with CP freight trains.

The AMT’s plan was to use the funding dedicated for the airport connection to not only build that airport connection, but also to improve the existing diesel rail line to the West-Island to benefit everyday commuters. Projected cost: $789 million.

Despite the projected improvements, the frequency of the line was still counted in trains per day. There was no ambition displayed to have all-day frequency service, no mention of electrification and no new urban stations in NDG, where too many transit-starved residents have to cram onto buses to get to work. Overall, the project was rather underwhelming.

However, it was relatively good value for the money, and did try to combine different goals (airport, West Island), using as much existing infrastructure as possible.

The ADM proposal

Aéroports de Montréal, on the other hand, insisted on an express train that would reach Gare Centrale. ADM assumed most users will be business travelers going directly downtown, and claimed that a terminus at Gare Centrale would bring in 22 to 30% more riders, despite its worse connection to the Montreal Metro. Some have theorized that the ADM got this number by surveying passengers, asking them where they’d rather take a train.

The ADM considered the AMT’s proposal inadequate largely because the train was to “only” end at Lucien-L’Allier, even though it’s only an 8-minute walk from Gare Centrale.

The airport intended to connect to Gare Centrale by routing along the CN corridor, a set of tracks currently used by VIA passenger trains and CN freight trains. This option was more expensive and projected to cost around $1.1 billion.

This stubborn focus on Gare Centrale seems arbitrary, especially if you consider the distribution of hotels around downtown:

Given how strongly the ADM insisted on Gare Centrale, we would expect a clustering of hotels around that station. However, looking at the map, we really can’t see anything special with that station. In fact, hotels are pretty evenly distributed within walking distance of downtown metro stations. Which means what really matters is a good connection to the metro, and maybe a taxi stand. A good connection to the metro would also benefit Montrealers in general, who come from the airport and want to go home, not downtown, The connection to the Metro is actually better via the AMT proposal, which has two transfers to the Metro, at Vendome and Lucien L’Allier. Both of these transfers are better than Gare Centrale.

The ADM hoped to operate their proposed line at a profit, despite only connecting downtown, by charging high fares, even though this being a bad idea for ridership. Generally, ridership of airport connectors is low, so running the line profitably often turns out to be optimistic at best.

In the end, the AMT and ADM were unable to come to an agreement, and in October 2010, Aéroports de Montréal decided to simply go ahead with their own project, with no consideration for commuters in the West-Island and little consideration for non-downtown airport travelers.

And, for a while, it seemed their proposal had won.

The ADM Project is Slowly Transforming

There was close to no news on the AMT project for years. Meanwhile, the ADM’s project got a boost with the rebuilding of the Turcot interchange, which made made special accommodations for the proposed airport train, at an estimated cost of $136 million.

Since the REM now proposes a different route, this money would be completely wasted due to lack of foresight and proper planning.

And speaking of lack of foresight and proper planning, it eventually turned out that working with the CN would be difficult, if not impossible. There is actually not enough space along the CN corridor to add dedicated tracks for the airport train, and the CN would not allow tracks dedicated to the airport train on their right of way. So over time the ADM turned their original heavy rail project into an elevated light metro à la Vancouver’s skytrain.

In 2012, the ADM proposed an actual skytrain, moved the routing partially away from the CN corridor, and added extensions into the West Island. Two years after shutting down the AMT proposal, it seems they came to realize it would be easier to secure funding if the train had more purpose.

The ADM’s new plan included intermediate stations between the airport and downtown, although they still wanted the airport train to be an express somehow. At that point, it was unclear where the downtown terminus would be; maybe Gare Centrale wasn’t so important after all.

The plan used the rail corridor that is being built as part of the Turcot project, and it even included a station there, labelled “NDG”. Except a station there is not very useful, being sandwiched between a river, the highway and a cliff. Up on that cliff is where the actual populations are, where the existing AMT lines run along the CP line, but where there is no station.

At this point, this project fell into somewhat of a limbo.

The Caisse’s REM project

In January 2015, the Caisse de dépot et placement du Québec took over Montreal’s airport train project. The liberal government gave them the mandate to build an airport rail link, a connection to the West Island, and a rail connection to Brossard via the new Champlain bridge.

In late 2015 the Caisse realized that the Turcot rail corridor would not be available until 2022 or so, so they looked for an alternative path to get downtown. They came up with the idea to built a 5km connection from the airport towards the north, to reach the existing Deux-Montagnes line, rather than connecting just a couple of hundred meters South.

Looking at the REM project as a whole makes it appear much more sensible than the previous ADM proposal. Rather than connecting 10,000 people, we’d get a regional network that would get 150,000 riders per day, at a much more “reasonable” cost of $46,000 per added rider.

Proposer	Line	Cost	Distance to airport	Downton station	Total Ridership (vs today)	Cost / New Rider
AMT (2010)	Train de l’Ouest	786M	16.7km	Lucien L’Allier	50K (14K)	22K $
ADM (2010)	Aerotrain	1,100M	19.6km	Gare Centrale	10K	110K $
CDPQ (2016)	REM	5,500M	~23.5km	Gare Centrale	150K (30K)	46K $

But just because the project looks okay as a whole does not mean every section makes sense. In fact, just the airport spur may end up being as expensive as the previous ADM proposal. The problem is the long connection to the to the existing rail right of way, which consists of several kilometers of tunnels and elevated tracks. The image below shows 3 options the Caisse is currently considering to reach the airport.

There is already a station shell under the airport, built by the ADM back in 2009 for 25$ Million. Unfortunately this station points south, because it was always assumed that any rail connection would connect to one of the rail corridors to the South. The Caisse may end up not using the station, because looping around the airport to reach the station may end up being more expensive than building a new one – meaning more millions may get wasted due to improper planning.

How much just the airport spur will cost is unclear, as the Caisse didn’t give any detailed construction costs. In a previous post, I tried to estimate the construction costs for all the different segments of the REM projects. The estimate for the airport branch came out to about a billion dollars, although it could also be a bit cheaper (update: new numbers by the CDPQ show it could cost around half a billion dollars). Nevertheless, it appears just the airport spur will cost an amount similar to the original 768M$ Train de l’Ouest proposal by the AMT. Yet that project also included new tracks along the entire Vaudreuil-Hudson line all the way up to St-Anne de Bellevue.

Basically, we’re giving up building a line used by 50K riders per day so that the Caisse can have an airport connection that will hopefully bring in 10K riders instead (update: new numbers by the CDPQ show ridership to be 2,700 with future potential for 4,200).

Some Questions to the Caisse

When I asked the Caisse’s people how their project relates to the original AMT project of use the existing CP corridor and only building a couple of kilometers of new track to the airport, I got the distinct impression that they never considered it. They kept going back to saying that the construction on the Turcot project means the corridor won’t be available until 2022, when that is only true for the CN corridor.

They also talked about grade crossings – when in fact there are only two grade crossings between the airport and downtown, whereas there are 14 along the Deux-Montagnes line, which will all have to be removed due to the choice of using an automated light rail technology.

Finally they said they want the lines to form one connected network, and better combine operations.

This part I don’t really understand. Why can’t the airport connection just be combined with the AMT network’s operations? What matters is that all the different transit lines of Montreal form an overall network, not who exactly operates which lines. What matters is the connection to the metro, which is actually best along the CP line, at Vendome.

The dismantling of the AMT

Just days before the REM project was proposed to the public, the government announced that the AMT would be split up into two organizations, one doing regional planning and the other engaging in operation of suburban lines. The new planning organization will be governed by a committee mostly made of Montreal region mayors.

Given the timing with the REM project, and the history of not listening to the AMT, one has to wonder how all these events relate to one another.

Conclusion

The airport project has been a mess. While Toronto simply went ahead and built their airport using their commuter rail infrastructure, we’ve been shuffling around competing projects.

The whole transit planning process has become way too politicized on the one hand, but way too influenced by private interests on the other — Rather than letting the public agency that is tasked with regional planning do the actual transit planning, we let private entities that have no business planning transit do that job instead. And it seems that these private entities, the Aeroports de Montreal and now the Caisse, have more power than the AMT.

The AMT meanwhile is getting quietly dismantled. Then again, while the AMT still had ‘power’ of sorts, it was engaged mostly in suburban-centric park-n-ride-centric commuter rail planning, that’s what got us the ineffective Mascouche line.

In effect, the shift of transit planning towards private entities is effectively removing planning from democratic control.

We really need better, integrated, regional transit planning; done by the public. We need to stop the hodge-podge of competing proposals, or proposals that undo hundreds of millions of previous investements. We also need to prioritize projects based on cost-benefit, but still always work towards a long-term vision of building a large network. We should consolidate the number of technologies, to achieve good expertise and economies of scale. Finally, we should try to leverage existing infrastructure and investments as much as possible.

Article de blog du 18 mai par Ant6n, traduit par Jérémie Dunn. English Version

Update: This analysis includes a couple of simplifying assumptions based on the little information provided by the Caisse at the time. For those interested in a more deep analysis included the information that was made available at the BAPE, refer to my memoire, section 4 (for capacity of the Deux-Montagnes line), and section 6.2.1. (Impact on existing Mascouche line). Note the ridership study revealed the St-Anne branch will have the same ridership as the existing Vaudreuil-Hudson line. The St-Jerome line connection may have been dropped from the plans.

Un second regard plus objectif sur le « REM » de la Caisse qui propose de remplacer la ligne de train Deux-Montagnes par un SLR: Comment la Caisse est en train de rater l’exécution d’une bonne idée en surchargeant ses wagons dès l’inauguration de son réseau?

Le projet de REM de la Caisse semble susciter principalement deux catégories de réactions: ceux qui sont excités que Montréal aille de l’avant avec un nouvel outil de transport collectif moderne et tout neuf, et les sceptiques qui sentent que la Caisse nous mène en bateau. À ma première réaction, j’étais plutôt dans le premier camp, néanmoins un regard plus posé me fait douter de l’idée que le SLR soit la meilleure façon de faire.

Premièrement : qu’est-ce qu’un train léger?

Même si le terme semble précis, l’expression « train léger » fait référence, en réalité, à une catégorie très large d’équipements allant des trolleys aux trams, en passant par des technologies très proches des métros. On le décrit léger en comparaison avec le rail « lourd » ou conventionnel que l’American Public Transportation Association définit comme un chemin de fer électrique avec la capacité de transporter un lourd volume de trafic.

Le détail le plus important ici c’est que les adjectifs « léger » ou « lourd » réfèrent à la capacité du système et non à son poids.

À ce propos, si on compare les poids de chaque wagon, certains métros légers similaires au REM ont des véhicules qui sont en fait plus lourds que ceux du métro de Montréal. Certains même sont aussi lourds que les wagons vieillissants de la ligne Deux-Montagnes :

Bien sûr, puisqu’elle comporte moins de wagons, le poids total d’une rame du REM est évidemment moindre que celui de ses cousins. Cependant, la rame de REM n’ira pas plus vite ! Le REM, qui sera un système électrique comme l’indique son nom, utilisera la  technologie EMU (« electric-multiple-unit ») qu’on peut observer dans le métro de Montréal ou sur la ligne Deux-Montagnes. Les systèmes EMU n’ont pas besoin de locomotive frontale pour tirer tout le train. Les moteurs sont plutôt distribués de façon uniforme à travers tous les wagons qui peuvent ainsi se propulser eux-mêmes.

Un demi-train possède deux fois moins de moteurs qu’un train normal, donc la moitié de la puissance pour tirer la moitié du poids. Mathématiquement, on se retrouve avec la même vitesse.

C’est donc bel et bien en terme de capacités que le REM est plus « léger ». La Caisse envisage 4 wagons pendant l’heure de pointe (et seulement 2 hors pointe), cela  correspond, en termes de capacité, à la moitié de la longueur d’une rame standard de notre métro et au tiers d’un train de la ligne Deux-Montagnes.

Quelle sera la capacité du REM ?

La capacité d’un système de transport en commun est calculée en multipliant la capacité de chaque train (ou bus, tram, métro etc.) par le nombre de passages à chaque heure. Cette méthode nous donne le nombre de « passagers à l’heure par direction » (PHPD).

Une rame du REM pourra transporter 600 passagers, avec une fréquence maximale de 3 à 6 minutes dans le segment central (10 à 20 trains/heure), ce qui correspond à une capacité maximale de 6000 à 12 000 PHPD.

En comparaison, la ligne Deux-Montagnes a 4 passages/heure pendant l’heure de pointe, avec 2000 personnes dans chaque train. La capacité est de 8000 PHPD.

De ce point de vue, le REM a fière allure. On passe de 8000 à 12 000, c’est une bonification du service de 50% !

Mais pas si vite…

Nous venons de faire une rapide comparaison avec une seule des lignes existantes. La vraie question qui demeure c’est : de quelle capacité avons-nous vraiment besoin, maintenant et dans le futur ?

Si on analyse le réseau existant, le REM veut cumuler la capacité de quatre lignes de train actuelles de l’AMT durant les heures de pointe.

À ce titre, le REM devra :

• Remplacer la ligne Deux-Montagnes, qui est d’une des principales raisons d’être du REM;
• Remplacer la ligne de Mascouche pour la section du tunnel du Mont Royal. Puisque les trains de la ligne Mascouche ne pourront plus traverser le tunnel (la nouvelle technologie du REM est incompatible avec les trains de cette ligne). Les utilisateurs de la ligne Mascouche devront débarquer à la gare affublée du nom original de « Gare A-40 » pour emprunter une correspondance avec le REM afin d’accéder au Centre-Ville.
• Remplacer la majeure partie de la ligne Vaudreuil-Hudson qui dessert l’Ouest de l’Île jusqu’à Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue et au-delà. Les gens de l’ouest demandent depuis longtemps une amélioration du service de cette ligne ou son remplacement par une meilleure alternative. C’est ce que leur offre le REM avec sa banche Ouest de l’Île.
• Les usagers de la ligne Saint-Jérôme vont devoir prendre une correspondance à la nouvelle gare Canora, qui aura alors un nouveau quai sur cette ligne, pour arriver au Centre-Ville 20 minutes plus vite.

Mais quelle est la capacité actuelle de ces 4 lignes ?

Le graphique ci-dessous compare la capacité quotidienne du REM, de ces quatre lignes existantes de l’AMT et de la ligne Orange du métro :  

On constate que les quatre lignes actuelles atteignent une capacité combinée d’environ 25 000 PHPD à l’heure de pointe et que cette pointe est… très pointue. En effet, le réseau doit assurer le transport d’un nombre énorme de personnes aux alentours de 8h00. Le reste de la journée, les trains de banlieue offrent un service anémique; ils n’offrent pas de services de transport en continu. De son côté, le REM, lui, offrira un service continu durant la journée, mais d’une capacité insuffisante à l’heure de pointe. La ligne Orange, quant à elle, assure un service continu toute la journée et parvient à fournir une capacité trois fois supérieure à ce qu’offrira le REM durant l’heure de pointe matinale, ce qui est beaucoup plus que tous les trains de banlieue montréalais réunis.

Les documents de marketing du REM revendiquent une amélioration de 50% de la capacité quotidienne, mais cette amélioration est toutefois inutile pour ceux qui ont besoin d’utiliser le service entre 7h30 et 8h30 le matin. C’est pourtant à ce moment que la majorité des gens ont besoin de se rendre au travail, et les horaires de travail ne vont pas changer pour s’adapter à l’incapacité du REM à absorber son trafic.

Et il ne s’agit ici que de la situation actuelle et que des lignes de banlieue existantes. On ne considère même pas la demande supplémentaire que provoquera l’entrée en service du REM, qui devrait encourager les gens troquer leurs automobiles ou leurs lignes de bus plus lentes pour un système REM plus efficace et attrayant. Il y a aussi les usagers de la ligne Bleue qui pourront y voir un moyen plus facile d’accéder au cœur du Centre-Ville.

Quels sont les effets concrets du REM ?

1. Sur-achalandage des voitures de train.

C’est l’heure de pointe. Entre 8h00 et 9h00, sur la ligne Deux-Montagnes, plus de 7000 usagers doivent se rendre au travail ou à l’école. La branche Deux-Montagnes du REM aura une fréquence de près de 6 minutes qui procurera une capacité de 6000 PHPD. C’est déjà 1000 en dessous des besoins actuellement comblés par les trains actuellement en service. Les trains seront très rapidement pleins à craquer et les usagers devront s’entasser pour attendre sur leurs quais.

En passant : pensiez-vous que le fameux « 3 minutes à l’heure de pointe » était pour tout le réseau? Détrompez-vous, c’est seulement pour le petit tronçon entre le Centre-ville et Ville Mont-Royal, là où toutes les branches se rejoignent. La vraie fréquence sera bien inférieure à cela pour la majorité des usagers.

La branche de l’Ouest de l’Île atteindra probablement sa capacité maximale d’environ 6000 PHPD, puisqu’il représentera pour beaucoup une alternative plus intéressante à la ligne Vaudreuil-Hudson (dont la capacité est de 7500 PHPD).

Sur le chemin vers le Centre-ville, les rames du REM auront aussi à embarquer les usagers de la nouvelle ligne Mascouche (présentement 3000 PHPD) avant de s’engager vers le tunnel. En effet, la ligne Mascouche qui amène présentement ses usagers directement au Centre-ville par le tunnel du Mont Royal sera raccourcie pour avoir son nouveau terminus à la rencontre du REM, quelque part dans Saint-Laurent, puisque ses trains sont incompatibles avec la  technologie du REM.

Le REM aura aussi à faire de la place pour les usagers qui débarqueront de la ligne Saint-Jérôme à la nouvelle gare intermodale Canora et qui économiseront 20 minutes de trajet en évitant, par le REM, le détour que leur ligne prend via Côte-Saint-Luc avant d’atteindre le Centre-ville.

Dans tous les cas le REM a besoin de doubler sa capacité actuelle simplement pour assurer le transport des usagers des lignes actuelles.

Tout ça me permet de passer à mon deuxième point :

2. Des quais sur-achalandés  

À la gare intermodale « A-40 », chaque train de la ligne Mascouche y déversera jusqu’à 2000 passagers. Ces usagers devront attendre en ligne pour s’entasser dans des wagons de fin de ligne déjà pleins du REM. Considérant que les plateformes auront une longueur maximale de seulement 80 mètres (moins de 30% de la longueur totale d’un train de banlieue) et qu’elles sont faites pour des trains de seulement 600 passagers on peut se demander où et combien de temps les usagers devront attendre.

Un peu plus loin, à la gare Canora, les usagers de la ligne Saint-Jérôme arriveront aussi par tranche de 2000 pour attendre encore plus longtemps des rames de REM encore plus surchargées. Considérant l’achalandage actuel déjà considérable, on peut comprendre que certains usagers préfèreront rester fidèles à leur ligne de train actuelle.

Certains peuvent penser être l’un des chanceux à vivre assez en périphérie pour embarquer en premier et avoir même droit au confort d’un siège tout le long du trajet. Ces gens devront faire face au retour du balancier qu’est l’heure de pointe de fin de journée. En effet, ils devront s’entasser sur les quais, avec la foule des usagers des trois autres branches du REM. Et puisqu’au Centre-ville il n’y a que deux gares, avec des zones d’embarquement de chacune 80 mètres de long, l’entassement des usagers leur offrira quotidiennement des scènes dignes d’un concert d’une star pop… dans les premières rangées.

3. Le surplus d’usagers déversé dans le métro

Le plan du REM propose une nouvelle option intermodale à Canora qui permettra aux usagers de la ligne Saint-Jérôme de se rendre au Centre-ville via le REM. Dans le contexte actuel, il est communément admis qu’il est crucial de soulager la ligne Orange. Présentement, déjà plusieurs usagers de la ligne Saint-Jérôme empruntent la ligne Orange à partir de la station intermodale De la Concorde. Malheureusement, à cause de la faible capacité projetée du REM, ces usagers continueront probablement d’utiliser ce transfert vers la ligne la plus sollicitée du métro.

Pire encore, le plan de la Caisse comprend une « intermodalité améliorée » à la station Sauvé qui permettra à plus d’usagers de la ligne Mascouche de s’ajouter à la ligne Orange. Ceci serait peut-être la solution de la Caisse pour diminuer la pression sur leur propre réseau.

Compte tenu de tout cela, il est raisonnable de croire que le REM n’aura pas la capacité suffisante pour prendre les usagers de la ligne Bleue qui voudraient se rendre au Centre-ville en utilisant la gare intermodale prévue sous la station Édouard-Montpetit. Puisqu’il ne s’agit que d’une gare « projetée », il y a des chances qu’elle ne voit jamais le jour. Dans ce cas, les usagers de la ligne Bleue vont continuer à s’entasser sur la ligne Orange à partir de Jean-Talon au lieu de soulager cette ligne en prenant le REM comme des optimistes pourraient l’espérer.

En effet, au lieu de soulager le segment le plus sur-achalandé de la ligne la plus sur-achalandée du métro de Montréal, le REM y déposera encore plus d’usagers.

« Faites-le passer aux 60 secondes! »

Les estimations qu’on vient de faire tiennent compte de la fréquence maximum proposée dans les documents de la Caisse (3 minutes sur le tronçon principal). C’est improbable qu’on ajoute plus de trains sur ce réseau puisque 3 minutes semble très proche de la capacité maximale théorique du système.

La Caisse prévoyant construire les gares de 80 mètres de long, les rames ne pourront jamais excéder cette longueur. Dans ce cas, la seule façon de générer une capacité suffisante pour absorber ne serait-ce que les lignes de banlieue actuelles, sans considérer les transferts depuis la ligne Bleue et la demande additionnelle crée par le REM lui-même, serait d’assurer un service à toutes les 90 secondes.

Cela veut dire de doubler la fréquence maximale proposée (et je le répète : seulement pour absorber l’achalandage actuel !), et pose des problèmes à plusieurs autres niveaux.

Le projet comprend une commande initiale de 200 wagons (chaque départ à l’heure de pointe aura 2 wagons). Même en utilisant tous ces wagons en même temps, nous ne pourrions pas dépasser une fréquence de 135 secondes, même avec un temps de trajet toujours optimal (basé sur des temps de trajets minimum sur toutes les branches, un temps d’aiguillage pour le demi-tour des REMs, divisé par 100 rames à deux voitures et un coussin de 10%).

Même s’ils commandaient plus de voitures, ce serait extrêmement difficile d’arriver à une fréquence effective de 90 secondes.

Au Canada, la fréquence de service la plus élevée atteinte sur rails est sur les lignes Expo et Millenium : 108 secondes. Une fois qu’on a atteint ce maximum, chaque seconde supplémentaire devient plus dure à sauver car l’intervalle entre chaque train doit être plus longue que ce que prend le train pour arriver à son arrêt, s’y arrêter et repartir ; tout cela sans compter les périodes tampon pour la sécurité et le respect de l’horaire.

Puisqu’il y aura peu de gares REM au Centre-Ville et que les trains seront pleins à craquer, il y aura beaucoup d’usagers en attente à chaque arrêt. Les rames auront donc à s’arrêter plus longtemps pour embarquer-débarquer les usagers, notamment en considérant la petite taille des quais qui auront de la difficulté à canaliser les foules.

De plus, une fréquence de 90 secondes est extrêmement difficiles à maintenir sur de longues périodes de temps et imposera au système une discipline de fer. Chaque délai aura un effet domino sur le système car la distance entre chaque rame est trop petite pour s’ajuster ou rattraper un délai.

Mais la crainte principale vient du tunnel du Mont-Royal. Si des trains s’y engagent à toutes les 90 secondes, il y aura jusqu’à 3 trains engagés en même temps. Si une urgence devait survenir, le train pris au milieu n’aura pas d’issue et les passagers n’auront pas de sortie d’urgence à leur disposition.

 

Afin de fonctionner en toute sécurité à travers le tunnel, seule une fréquence maximale de 120 secondes permet de s’assurer que pas plus de 2 REM s’y engagent en même temps dans une direction donnée et offre un coussin suffisant pour éviter qu’un effet domino affecte tout le réseau en cas de retard.

Néanmoins, étant donné la longueur réduite des REM, même une fréquence de 120 secondes résulterait en un manque à combler de 6000 usagers à l’heure en heure de pointe, seulement pour absorber le trafic ferroviaire actuel de Montréal.

Fondamentalement, même en étirant les capacités du REM au-delà des limites prévues, le plan ne permettra pas d’ajouter d’utilisateurs supplémentaires au transport collectif du Grand Montréal.

Pour certains, le REM, c’est le retour à la voiture

Malgré tous les points positifs que j’ai soulignés dans mon dernier billet, il semble que malheureusement le REM échoue sur l’aspect le plus important d’un projet de transport urbain : amener les gens du point A au point B.

Pour les usagers quotidiens, ceux qui seront les plus grands utilisateurs, le REM est une déception. Au lieu d’être un moyen de transport moderne, rapide et efficient, il offrira une expérience étouffante dans des wagons sur-achalandés. La capacité assise peut être légèrement plus élevée que celle du métro mais sera certainement moins importante que celle des trains de banlieue qui roulent en ce moment ; plus de la moitié des usagers n’auront d’autre choix de se tenir debout du début à la fin du trajet.  

Le matériel promotionnel de la CDPQ annonce « un nouveau moyen de transport » et « un nouveau mode de vie », pour remplacer un « système de transport saturé et limité ». Et comment la Caisse pense résoudre nos problèmes de transport ? Avec du Wi-Fi, de jolies portes-palières et de l’air climatisé pour inciter les automobilistes à faire le saut vers le transport en commun.

La Caisse devrait sérieusement se demander comment elle compte s’attendre à ce que les automobilistes adhèrent à un nouveau réseau alors qu’il aurait à peine la capacité suffisante pour répondre aux besoins des usagers actuels du transport en commun. En fait, même les usagers actuels risquent de laisser tomber leur moyen de transport.

Je ne crois pas qu’il soit aventureux de croire que la Caisse soit tentée d’imposer des frais plus élevés pour l’utilisation de son REM afin de limiter le nombre d’usagers et évider d’excéder la capacité de ses infrastructures.  Après tout, la CDPQ est un fond de retraite et elle cherche une part des gains d’opération de ces services. Des frais supérieurs aideraient à atteindre cet objectif – La Caisse peut très bien construire le réseau avec une capacité inférieure à la demande et ensuite augmenter le coût du passage jusqu’à ce que les usagers qui refusent de payer le prix fort renoncent au REM. La Caisse s’en sortirait avec plus d’argent, un système opérant avec un taux d’efficience élevé et la population se retrouvera avec moins de transport collectif que ce qui leur a été vendu (le coût de construction étant séparé entre le gouvernement et la Caisse).

Pourquoi la Caisse aime tant son SLR (et que nous ne le devrions pas)  ?

Alors pourquoi la Caisse veut mettre fin à tout un système de transport collectif électrifié et le reconstruire en utilisant des trains qui ont moins du tiers de sa longueur originale?  La réponse se trouve dans les projets similaires déjà réalisés par la Caisse. Il semble que la CDPQ veut tout simplement copier-coller le succès qu’elle a connu à Vancouver avec le service Canada Line, sans égards pour ses flagrants problèmes de capacité.

La Canada Line est une ligne de métro léger automatisée qui rejoint le centre de Vancouver, la banlieue de Richmond et l’aéroport via un embranchement en Y et un tunnel. Elle utilise un système sur rail très « léger » composé  de seulement deux wagons (40 mètres). Le réseau repose sur l’automatisation et une fréquence élevée pour compenser la dimension modeste de ses rames, exactement comme le REM. Dans l’ensemble, ça fonctionne très bien et offre une capacité suffisante mais la petite taille de ses stations provoque un problème de surcharge des quais, même si les usagers sont répartis sur plusieurs stations où embarquer et débarquer.

Alors que la Canada Line fonctionne assez bien en tant que ligne unique dans le réseau vancouvérois, le principe est clairement inadéquat pour Montréal, où le REM prétend remplacer un réseau complet.

Étant donné l’échelle du projet et la quantité d’argent à y investir, il est beaucoup plus prudent et sensé de construire un réseau à l’épreuve de nos besoins futurs et qui pourrait éventuellement être agrandi et amélioré pour atteindre une capacité supérieure, au lieu de construire un réseau qui sera déjà incapable de fournir dès le jour un.

J’espère que la Caisse retournera à la planche à dessin et reconsidèrera son choix du SLR au profit d’une technologie offrant des capacités plus élevées, qui peut s’intégrer aux lignes existantes et qu’on pourra étendre plus loin dans l’avenir.

Et nous, le public, qui avons toujours à payer directement pour la moitié du projet pour ensuite s’embourber dans le REM, devrons tenir tête à la Caisse et à son choix.
Publié en version anglaise le mercredi 18 mai 2016 à 5h53.

Thanks to JC for her help in writing the article. Et merci a Jérémie Dunn pour le traduction.

A look at the REM project that reveals the giant project mixes good investments and bad investments, but the caisse will make us pay for them all.

Ever since the Caisse published their REM proposal, I have been trying to figure out whether their project makes sense. This post takes a hard look at the cost/benefits.

With the REM, the Caisse wants to take over the electrified, 30km long Deux-Montagnes commuter rail line, which is owned by the public, expand and convert it into a 67-km automated light metro, and have the public foot half the bill.

Not only does the project require 2.5 billion of direct public financing, it also includes a lot of implied financing and costs:

• taking over public assets, for example the Deux-Montagnes line, and the existing busway in the Champlain Corridor
• having the public provide infrastructure, like the right of way on the newly built Champlain bridge
• causing the government to write off hundreds of millions of assets, such as the Pointe-Sainte-Charles maintenance center, or the existing Deux-Montagnes line rolling stock
• pocket a percentage of real estate taxes from developments near the line, via a scheme called tax-increment financing

Given all this, we should ensure that the project is a good investment. A project of this magnitude should only receive public support if it can show a good cost-benefit ratio.

The easiest way to gauge whether a project is a good investment is to look at the projected ridership relative to the construction cost. Every dollar spent on transit should give us as many riders as possible. If another project can attract more riders per dollar, then that should be built instead.

The cost-benefit ratio should also be considered for every constituent part of the project. The REM is a huge project made of various parts that have very different ridership levels and probably different cost-benefit ratios.

The Caisse only ever talks about the REM as a whole. And as a whole, it’s very hard to get a sense of the costs and benefits, which is why it’s worth splitting it into individual parts for analysis:

• The Existing Deux-Montagnes line from Central Station to Deux-Montagnes (30 km)
• The Brossard Branch Central Station to Brossard (15 km)
• The West Island Branch to Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue (16 km)
• The Airport Branch (5.5 km)

The Benefit: Weekday Ridership

The Caisse has refused to provide their ridership study. When I asked them about it at their town-hall meeting, they said they will publish it this fall, or maybe next year.

Their documentation only gives us a high level view of the projected ridership, which unfortunately (and probably intentionnally) combines the West-Island Branch and the existing Deux-Montagnes line under the “Deux-Montagnes” heading:

The table does not provide the current ridership numbers for the individual West-Island and Deux-Montagnes branches. So how do we find out the ridership for each of them?

To further complicate things, the Caisse provided the following map, which only shows the ridership increase for each branch:

So there’s no easy way to see what the total ridership is going to be like in the West Island. Luckily for us, we can actually combine the two sources to get a better picture of what’s going on.

The map tells us that the ridership along the West Island branch will increase by 11K riders per day. If we add up the numbers from the map and the table, we see:

Ridership projection for 2021 (Deux-Montagnes and West-Island line)
Today’s ridership on the Deux Montagnes line, from table: (According to the AMT it was actually 31K in 2014, and 30.4K in 2015)	27,000
Additional Ridership on the Deux Montagnes line, from map:	22,000
Today’s ridership on the West-Island line:	???
Additional Ridership on the West-Island line, from map:	11,000
Total:	60,000

The numbers we have add up to 60K, which is actually the same as the total projected ridership for both branches! This essentially means the Caisse assumes 0 riders on the West Island Branch today and the given +11K ridership on that branch is actually the total ridership on that branch.

11K, for 16 km of new track?!

There are bus lines in Montreal that get three times that ridership! For example, the 121 and the 141 get a weekday ridership of 30K (see page 24).

And in this context, when we say ‘ridership’, we’re actually counting trips. Since people, especially commuters, will generally make two trips per day, 11K means only 5500 people will be served by that line.

I’ve been staring at these documents for 3 weeks, and I hadn’t noticed this number trick until now. Combining the ridership of the two branches in the table is quite clever, it effectively hides how low the ridership is on the West Island branch.

The low ridership is probably due to routing the REM along a highway that is surrounded by a semi-industrial area, which in turn is surrounded by low-density suburban housing. It’s so far from where people live and the access will be so miserable that not many will take it.

In any case, we get the following estimated weekday ridership drilldown:

• Deux Montagnes branch: 49K (including 30K today)
• Brossard branch: 80K
• Airport branch: 10K
• West Island branch: 11K

The Cost: Construction Cost

The Caisse provided no drilldown of their construction costs either. I asked several people at their townhall, and they told me they will publish no information about that. I asked Denis Andlauer, their operations director, whether I could assume 100M for elevated lines and 200M for underground lines, and he gave me a non-committed maybe to that. At least he didn’t disagree.

What we do know is the total cost of the project, approximately how many kilometers will be underground, overground, on ground level, on existing track, and on an old freight track. We also know how many new grade crossing removals there will be, and how many stations.

I created a spreadsheet to collect the cost in a model to add up all the numbers we have. The idea is to create reasonable estimates, that are not too far off from what the Caisse is working with, to get an idea how much each branch will cost. This gives us the following drill-down for the branches:

Items
Collecting all the expenses required for all the branches: the various kilometers built either underground, overground, elevated, or by just rebuilding track (for the Deux-Montagnes line). Note also the separate items for stations, removing of crossings, and vehicles.

	Deux-Montagnes Branch	Brossard Branch	West Island Branch	Airport Branch	total
underground track	0.0km	2.9km	0.0km	3.0km	5.9km
elevated track	0.0km	6.6km	9.2km	2.5km	18.3km
at-grade track	0.0km	5.5km	7.1km	0.0km	12.6km
upgrade track	30.0km	0.0km	0.0km	0.0km	30.0km
vehicles*	84	42	42	32	200
stations	13	4	5	2	24
crossings	14	0	6	0	20

*I calculated the number of vehicles per line by taking the travel time for each branch (20min-40min) and the trains knowing the frequency on the Brossard and Deux-Montagnes branch will be twice the frequency of the airport and West Island branch.

Cost Assumptions

We can get some some ideas about construction cost and rolling stock cost by referring to similar existing systems. The following shows the cost assumptions. All costs are given in millions.

underground cost/km	200$
elevated cost/km	100$
at-grade cost/km	30$
upgrade cost/km	10$
vehicle cost	3.5$
station cost	30$
grade separation	15$

Resulting Costs

In million dollars:

	Deux-Montagnes Branch	Brossard Branch	West Island Branch	Airport Branch	totals
underground track	0$	580$	0$	600$	1,180$
elevated track	0$	663$	920$	250$	1,833$
at-grade track	0$	164$	213$	0$	377$
upgrade track	300$	0$	0$	0$	300$
vehicles	294$	147$	147$	112$	700$
stations	390$	120$	150$	60$	720$
crossings	210$	0$	90$	0$	300$
totals:	1,194$	1,674$	1,520$	1,022$	5,410$

If the cost assumptions are changed, the cost for the branches will change. But since they always have to add up to 5.5 billion, the variation is actually not that big.

It turns out that the cost of the four branches are surprisingly similar, the biggest number isn’t even double the smallest..

It also appears that the cost of the West-Island Branch and the Brossard branch end up being fairly similar, although the Brossard branch gets more than 7 times the ridership!

The updates on the Deux-Montagnes line may also end up being relatively expensive, all those stations rebuilds and grade crossings will add up. And even if rebuilding the actual line is cheap per kilometer, there are many kilometers on that line.

The Cost/Benefit

If we divide the cost per ridership, we get the following table.

	cost	ridership	cost/rider ($)
Brossard branch	1,674M$	80K	20,926$
Deux-Montagnes branch	1,194M$	19K	62,842$
Airport branch	1,022M$	10K	102,200$
West Island branch	1,520M$	11K	138,182$

Compare this to other transit projects:

	construction cost	weekday ridership	cost/rider
C-Train (lrt)	582M$	187K	3,110$
Edmonton lrt	404M$	70K	5,774$
Pie-IX Busway (brt)	316M$	70K	4,514$
Laval Extension (metro)	829M$	60K	13,825$
Canada Line (light metro)	2100M$	135K	15,441$
Blue Line Extension (metro)	3000M$	80K	37,500$
Spadina Extension (metro)	3184M$	100K	31,840$
Pearson Express (heavy rail)	456M$	5K	91,200$
Mascouche Line (heavy rail)	671M$	6.5K	107,692$

Basically, the airport and the West Island branch are very expensive compared to their utility, and are bad investments. Both branches are as bad and worse in terms of investment than the Mascouche line and the Pearson Express, the worst transit projects I know of in Canada.

The upgrades to the Deux-Montagnes line are not a very good investment, since we could most likely achieve those extra 20K riders by keeping the existing technology and upgrading it incrementally to reach service that runs every 15 minutes.

By contrast, the Brossard branch will be a very good investment.

If we look at the table again, we see that the Brossard branch will basically cost the same as the West Island branch, although it will bring more than 7 times the ridership!

By throwing all these disparate investments into the same project, the Caisse is effectively using Brossard to prop up the West Island and airport branches.

It’s also using the most profitable (self-financing) line of the AMT, the Deux-Montagnes, line to support the West Island and airport branches.

Taking over the Deux-Montagnes line was not part of the government mandate given to the Caisse – it was actually quite a surprise when they announced the project. It’s possible that without it, the REM may not be profitable overall, with the West-Island and Airport branches having such low ridership. It seems like the Caisse decided to take over the line to sweeten the deal for themselves.

In the end, it is the Deux Montagnes and Brossard riders who will subsidize the operation of the other branches. That is, if the REM even turns out to be profitable overall.

And every taxpayer will subsidize their construction, because the Caisse will take over existing infrastructure, which are public assets, and because half the line will be paid directly by our taxes. And our public money will pay for the bad investments along with the good ones.

It comes down to the Quebec government mandate that was given to the Caisse, a checklist of three items: Brossard, West Island, airport.

But this checklist approach to transit planning doesn’t work; we need an integrated regional plan that considers all of the Montreal region and will improve transit for everybody, incrementally, starting with the most cost-effective projects.

 

 

Thanks to JC for her help in writing the article.

In order to inform the public about the REM project, the Caisse is holding six town hall events in different boroughs. I went to the first of those events on Wednesday, June 1st, and managed to talk to several politicians and CDPQInfra people. Or better, I talked to a bunch of people, all of whom were happy to talk to me, and they all turned out to be some big shots:

• Virginie Cousineau: The CDPQ Media Person
• Sylvain Ouellet: The Projet Montreal Councillor
• The Green Space Coalition
• Justine McIntyre: The Chef of Vrai changement pour Montréal
• Alan De Sousa: The Borough Mayor of Saint-Laurent
• Louis Trudel: The CDPQ Real Estate Guy
• Denis Andlauer: Finally the CDPQ Technical Guy
• Concluding Thoughts

I was expecting a big presentation, town-hall style with people sitting down and some asking questions in front of everybody, but instead it was more like a poster session. I guess this way it doesn’t give a podium to critics, and you can show up a bit late no problem.

Virginie Cousineau: The Media Person

When I got there, they asked me whether I’m with the media. With uncertainty I said that sometimes write about transit, so I was put in front of Virginie Cousineau, who I later found it is the directrice affaires publiques. I wonder whether they’d done the same if I had said that I write a blog; although they were all very open and friendly. I had so many questions I didn’t know where to start. So I tried something simple, I asked Ms Cousineau about the Deux-Montagnes line, whether any stations will be removed if they are not considered profitable. She assures me all the stations will remain, and they will remain in the same location. That’s a relief, I guess, especially for those living along those barely used stations.

I ask her whether the Deux-Montagnes line will shut down during the complete overhaul. She says it won’t, or at most it will shut down for “one or two weekends”. That seems strangely optimistic, given they have to build an automated line with a completely new signalling system, build a whole new set of stations, probably reconfigure gare centrale, remove 15 or so grade separations, hook up to the new branches, etc.

On the topic of grade separations, I ask her how that’s going to work, replacing them all while operating the line, isn’t that expensive? She says the CDPQInfra is consulting with the municipalities along the line to figure out these issues. I also ask whether there’s any details about how they arrived at the 5.5 billion construction cost figure, she says nothing public.

At this point we get interrupted by a concerned/angry citizen, who engages in a long rant rather than asking questions, I think he wants to vent. I move on.

Sylvain Ouellet: Projet Montreal Councillor for
Villeray—Saint-Michel—Parc-Extension

I come across Sylvain Ouellet, whom I had previously met. He has a large set of concerns with the project that echo mine, about capacity, hurting transit in the rest of the island, fare integration, financing, and safety. He was the one who raised the fire hazard issue when the AMT start running diesel/electric dual mode trains through the tunnel. Undoubtedly he’s also concerned that the REM project is shifting government priorities away from the Blue Line extension, which is now stalled.

Mr Ouellet shared some of the concerns I had about capacity, and found the CDPQInfra people had unsatisfactory answers to his capacity questions. We discussed the existing commuter rail system, and he mentions there’s a danger that the other commuter rail lines will shut down. He thinks the Candiac line will be toast because people will prefer driving to the Dix30 terminus, rather than stick with their four rush hour trains. Then the Vaudreuil-Hudson line will get all this competition from the West Island branch of the REM, so that may get shut down. After all, that line is expensive to operate. Once those two lines are gone, the St-Jerome line will be the only train going to Lucien L’Allier, which may not be worth it, and it may get cut to terminate at some other station.

The CDPQInfra has some laptops set up, with a scrollable map of the REM proposal, where we were finally able to see the exact location of the Bridge/Wellington ‘potential’ stop. Their original marketing material seemed to indicate that the stop was actually several hundred meters away from that intersection, in the direction of nowhere, joining the adjacent stop of Du Havre in being nowhere.

Turns out, the stations really are in the middle of nowhere.

The Green Space Coalition

One group of people I recognize as related to the Greenspace Coalition, Sierra Club of Quebec, les Amis de Meadowbrook and coalition Sauvons l’Anse-à-l’Orme — groups that want to protected Montreal’s very sparse green spaces. They’re very concerned that the Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue station is far from existing populations, so it require parking spaces, which will destroy nearby green space and it will give more ammunition to developers and the central city to destroy l’Anse-à-l’Orme, a conservation zone in Pierrefonds, just a few kilometers North.

Justine McIntyre: Chef of Vrai changement pour Montréal and
Counsellor of Bois-de-Liesse

While I’m poring over the REM maps, a woman sits down next to me at another laptop, studying the map with interest. I ask her what she thinks about the project. She turns out to be the chef of the Vrai Changement party (remember Mélanie Joly?). Justine McIntyre is also the Counsellor of Bois-de-Liesse, that’s the part of Roxboro that includes the Roxboro and Sunnybrook station along the Deux Montagnes line that the REM will replace. She takes the train every day.

She seems largely concerned about the A-13 highway station, wondering why they’d put a stop near a green space that she’d like to see protected. I surmise it’s because they want to put a parking lot there, to bring in people from Laval along the highway; this station has been on AMT maps for a while. She’s really not so happy about that, would prefer if people didn’t drive into her district to park’n’ride. I mention I personally don’t like the park’n’ride either, I’d much prefer if a station connects to people and bus corridors, like it would be possible on Boulevard Toupin, a couple of kilometers to the East. She thinks that’s a great idea, and she’d prefer that as well.

One of my concerns is that the whole project is way too highway centric, and all the confirmed new stations will be on or along highways, except for the airport stop.

Given that I’m talking to somebody who works for Roxboro, I figure I’d ask her what she thinks about my crazy idea to run the transit line two kilometers north, along the Hydro Quebec overhead line corridor.

Running a train there would bring it much closer to people in the north of the Island, many people would be within walking distance of the stations, and the North-South boulevards on the West Island would be much better connected, allowing densification there.

I expect her to dismiss the idea outright, but she actually thinks it could maybe work. She currently works on a project to densify the northern portion of St-Jean Boulevard, hoping to creating a more urban density node where people could live and work, and walk, and understands the importance of trying to densify certain areas in the suburbs.

She has to catch her Deux-Montagnes train home soon. It runs only every hour. I suggest that even without rebuilding the whole line, it would be possible to run the train every 15 minutes with only relatively minor upgrades. For example, at 15 minute frequencies, one may not have to remove all the grade separations. On that note, I ask her whether the CDPQInfra has consulted with her about the grade crossings, like they claimed. Ms McIntyre hasn’t been consulted on anything. She doesn’t quite believe me when I mention that there are fifteen grade crossings on the line, so we end up going through the line on Google Maps, one by one, and count 13 crossings. Every crossing may cost tens of millions to remove, so that’s quite an expensive project.

Alan De Sousa: Borough Mayor of Saint-Laurent
For Équipe Denis Coderre pour Montréal

After Justine McIntyre left Alan De Sousa sits down next to me on the other side. He’s actually the only person I recognize here without having met him before. Alan De Sousa is a friendly guy, and he’s really excited about the REM project. He has the aura of a winner around him.

Ville Saint-Laurent is along the trunk of the line, so his district will get direct connections to the airport, the West Island and Brossard, and very frequent service to boot. He claims he actually proposed the routing to the Aéroports de Montreal people himself, to try to get them to access the airport 5km from the north, rather than connecting via existing lines a few hundred meters south of the airport.

He doesn’t really seem to mind that the only new stations in his area are in a suburban office park (Technopark St-Laurent), at a parking lot to a highway (A-13) and at another highway (A-40), for riders to transfer from the Mascouche line that will be cut. Instead, he points out all the great stations we’re going to get, which are basically the ones that already exist today. He goes through them one by one, pointing out connections to the other transit lines, and what’s nearby.

At du Ruisseau he points to the highway north of the station, and how it will be a great connection for people driving in from Laval. I disapprove, great, more parking. Undeterred, he insists that the du Ruisseau station parking lot is not full; he’s certain about it, it’s his district. ‘Go look it up,’ he urges. (I looked it up, the parking utilization is “only” 84%).

What about consultations between the Caisse and the city? He indicates there hasn’t really been any yet.

On capacity issues, he says ‘well just extend the orange line to Bois Francs, and that’ll empty the trains there’. I ask him who will get off, given that people want to go downtown. He says that there are 400,000 workers downtown, but there are 350,000 workers in Saint Laurent, and they’d use the REM.

I try to explain that the capacity issues are due to existing riders who go downtown, they won’t be emptying the trains at Bois Franc, because they want to go downtown. I am not successful, I think that argument is a bit too complicated for this setting. Maybe he also hopes that the capacity issues will force the Orange Line extension to Bois-Franc, which would be another great project for his district.

He suggests I talk to the CDPQInfra people about these of issues.

Still poking, I mention that the project seems really expensive, 5.5 billion for 150K riders, of which 30K are using the Deux-Montagnes train today. What about the Blue Line Extension, which would bring in 80K people for 3 billion?

He laughs.

The Blue Line! He says it keeps getting more expensive, now it’s at 3.9 billion (I couldn’t find that figure). He says originally it was supposed to be around 2 billion (or something along those lines), then 3 now 3.9, tomorrow it’s gonna be 4.5, then 10. He’s basically saying the cost will keep rising and it will never get built.

Ok, so de Sousa doesn’t like the Blue Line extension, fair enough. But what about fares? Are they going to charge STM fares, is it going to be integrated? He says they just passed a law, all the fares in the AMT are going to be integrated now. So does that mean we’ll pay the STM fares when travelling within the city. He doesn’t know what the fares will be, but they will be integrated. I point out that right now you could get a AMT zone 2 ticket and ride the STM and AMT trains. He repeats but now there’s a law, and the fares will be integrated. So does that mean that it will cost the same amount of money to take the bus as the train when travelling from the same location? He doesn’t know.

I give up. I figure that maybe there are some people from the Caisse here who are the experts and can answer some questions.

Louis Trudel: The Real Estate Guy

Looking for some experts, I come across Lious Trudel, who turns out to be the directeur immobilier for the CDPQInfra. He used to work for CN, just like Michael Sabia, the President of the Caisse.

Trudel is standing standing next to the guy who’s responsible for the environmental concerns, so I’m jokingly asking who’s getting more flak these days. So far it’s still the other guy, those green space people are really on top of their stuff.

The first thing I ask Mr Trudel is about the Historical Buildings, there was a threat to the New City Gas and the Rodier Building. He says, oh, they found a way to not touch New City Gas, so it will be protected. I ask about the Rodier building, he says that building may yet have to come down. I guess they know which building has the loudest people behind it.

Next I ask about the odd placement of all these stations in the middle of nowhere, beyond populations. I say it kind of looks like they’re built just for development opportunities.

Mr Trudel explains that the CDPQInfra is not about development. They’re not building the line for development. I ask that surely there must be some benefit. He says, they will only sell development rights, and will get any additional real estate taxes from those developments. Oh, like Tax-Increment-Financing? He’s apparently never heard the term, and is concerned that the term may imply that taxes go up. He’s careful to point out that it doesn’t mean taxes go up, just that they will collect additional tax revenue due to developments near the line.

Apparently they’re very careful to not appear like they will raise taxes. But apparently it’s been no concern to anybody he spoke to that the Caisse will basically collect real estate taxes as their profit, so these new developments won’t add to the city’s tax base. But the city still has to provide a bunch of other infrastructure besides just the transit connection. In effect it will shift money away from the city; and with it will shift power away from the city.

He talks about several of the developments, mentions one near Fairview, another by Devimco right next to the dix30 station in Brossard. On that Note, I ask about the terminus, on the far side of the 30. As I understand it that area was supposed to be undevelopable, supposed to be agricultural, to prevent sprawl.

He says they’re getting the area re-zoned, but they won’t develop there, they’ll use it for the parking of the trains. And to build a bus station, and to move the Chevrier parking lot there from Brossard. Apparently the city wants the parking to be moved away from the city. He’s not very categorical about it, so I’m not entirely convinced.

What about using maintenance center that the AMT is building in Pointe-Sainte-Charles, can they use that? He says they’re looking into it. On that note I ask him why they are not using the existing rail line further south, but instead are building a ramp in downtown and tunnel under canal Lachine. He mentions they’ve been talking to the CN, the formerly public now private freight railroad company that owns the tracks and gare centrale. The CN offered them the use of the corridor, but apparently the Caisse could not make the connection work. Although the explanation doesn’t seem very satisfactory, because it seems they insist on building a tunnel in the area.

Trudel says that CN even offered to sell that corridor to the Caisse, because it’s only used by passenger trains anyway. I’m incredulous, because I was under the impression that the public has been wanting to get it’s hand on this infrastructure for years, because the CN, the formerly public railroad, is charging the passenger railroads like the AMT lots of rent every year, and now they want to sell it to another private entity instead?! Trudel makes it clear that the Caisse is also public; but I’m not convinced. They’re not really under direct control of the government.

I talk about how the privatization of the CN in the nineties was basically throwing away infrastructure, and the loss of control is still hurting the public — especially when wanting to run passenger rail. I’m concerned the same thing will happen again, now with the Caisse, where we’d loose control for example over the Mont-Royal tunnel and the Deux-Montagnes line, which the AMT finally acquired from CN just two years ago. Usually for a Public-Private Partnership, there will be a concession for some number of decades, and eventually the ownership will revert to the public. In case of the REM, the Caisse will keep owning the infrastructure.

Being a former CN employee, Trudel has a different view, that the share-holders bought and paid for the CN fair and square (which isn’t really relevant, it was government’s mistake). He also says that there will be an option for the government to buy back the line at some point. I haven’t seen anything in any of the documentation about that, but I make a mental note check whether that’s true.

Denis Andlauer: Finally the Technical Guy

I finally meet the guy who has a lot of technical knowledge. I looked him up later, he’s the director of operations of the CDPQInfra. He used to work for the Quebec City transit agency (RTC), and worked several years in Lyon, France for Keolis. He’s very French. Andlauer talks very precise and annunciates carefully. My questions center around the apparent lack of capacity, how the light metro doesn’t seem to be the right choice.

He tells me about the choice to go for the LRT. He talks about automated metros in Lyon and Lille in France, how they reach 85 second headways, how this is the future and everybody is building automated systems. His choice for the system seems to be very much colored by this experience, like often I’m getting the impression that Quebec is too much looking to France and not realizing how things are done elsewhere. The systems he mentions for Lyon and Lille run in cities that are smaller than Montreal, and they don’t have any branches, and don’t rely on having a single station downtown where everybody will get off.

When I worry that the capacity won’t be enough, he says he’s got a ridership study that tells him the REM will have 150K riders per day. But the Caisse won’t publish this study yet, maybe in fall, or early next year (maybe only after they secure the government funding). But it does seem that his study mostly pertains to the ridership coming from the branches of the line, and the transferees from the Mascouche line and St-Jerome line and the Blue line weren’t considered. I ask about all the other possible other extensions, he says the government gave them the mandate for three things: the airport, the West Island, and Brossard.

Continuing on capacity, he points to Paris, where the metro is running at 90 second frequencies now. When I point out that this is a last resort, that running at these crazy frequencies is what you do when your physical infrastructure can’t keep up, and that you should have larger stations, he says that it is a waste to build large stations now, and that in twenty years, when we need the extract capacity, we should extend the platforms. I argue that this seems backwards, because extending platforms of a running system once it is in place will be very expensive. He says ‘no, this is exactly wrong’. He explains that it will be more cost efficient to extend platforms later, rather than waste money on over-dimensioned stations. He keeps going back to saying that the existing heavy rail stations are 300 meters long, and that’s ridiculous, and large stations like that are very expensive. But surely, there must be a compromise between the 80m toy train and the 300m monster?

Speaking about the tunnel station at Edouard-Montpetit, he says the station ‘has to be built’. It is a very complicated station, he said it would be 80m underground. CDPQInfra would have included it in their proposal, but the studies weren’t done. They wanted to go public with their proposal now, so they included the line without those stations. The 5.5 billion cost does not include the potential stations, funding for those will be found later. It later occurred to me that maybe they wanted to get the proposal out before the public funding went to the Blue Line.

I ask Andlauer whether they will shut down the whole line once they get funding for the Edouard-Montpetit station. He says that most likely they will put accommodations in the tunnel to be able to more easily add the stations later, like putting platforms. I ask him whether that means they’ll add a second tunnel for the length of the station. “Tunnel, what tunnel? There will be no second Tunnel.” I explain him the plan the AMT had, to build a second tunnel along the first one for the length of the station, and use each for a platform and a track. He is genuinely surprised, never heard of this plan and it sounds crazy to him.

I ask him about safety in the Mont-Royal tunnel. It is 5km long, and has no emergency exit. Right now the AMT only allows one train per direction, so two trains in the tunnel. In case of emergency, no matter where along the tunnel there is an issue relative to the train, that means people will always have access to an exit without having to pass another train.

Andlauer explains that AMT trains can have 2000 people each, so two trains would have 4000. He says that with the REM, they will allow six trains in the tunnel at once. Given that the REM trains will have a capacity of 600, this will result in 3600 people in the tunnel at once – less than today. I argue that sounds like a simplistic calculation, given that trains will block each other, and that egress will be difficult and emergency vehicles won’t have access. He counters that nowadays, you don’t use egress, you use containment. He says there will be caverns in regular intervals, in case of emergency people will go there and be safe for an hour, until the emergency is resolved. And then they can get rescued.

There’s also the alternative idea of building a wall in the tunnel between the two tracks, which would basically create two tunnels – so there would always be one for egress. In any case, the Caisse will issue a tender to provide security in the tunnel, and it will be performance based. So the Caisse will basically just say ‘make the tunnel secure’, and it will be up to the creativity of the market to provide.

I have many more questions, but at this point we’ve run out of time.

Concluding Thoughts

Overall, I don’t know how to feel. Initially I was excited about this project, then as I delved deeper it didn’t add up. I got more and more suspicious as I realized the capacities seemed too low, the tunnel safety issue seemed completely ignored, and virtually all the confirmed new stations are along highways, some of them at locations where there are no people, and there will never be people. Then the issues with never letting the Mascouche line or the St-Jerome line into the tunnel, it all just seemed not to make any sense.

Now that I have talked to some of the group, I’m more ambiguous again. They don’t seem to be nefarious, they seem genuinely excited. But so many questions remain.

I sort of want to believe we have a great project. But there just so many issues. The lack of regional planning. Screwing over the people in Laval and Montreal East, who live along the St-Jerome line and the Mascouche line, which both should become branches to a new line going through the Mount-Royal tunnel. The REM is essentially taking one of the crown jewels of infrastructure from public control and kicking out all other lines, and trying to dump those extra riders on the full Orange Line.

Then there’s the question mark around all the other commuter rail lines, and to what extend that very flawed, but existing network will shut down, rather than be improved.

Then there are the weird locations of stations downtown, placing them nowhere, essentially depriving people who live or work in the old port, Pointe-Sainte-Charles and Griffintown, to get better access to transit. There’s the anti-urbanism with stations along highways, almost all of them. The uncertainty around the very important McGill and Edouard-Montpetit stations.

And more potential issues: the claim that the Deux-Montagnes line won’t have to be shut down to build the automated line, rebuild all the stations, build all the 13 grade separations, to make preparations for the tunnel stations, and also to build security measures in the tunnel (shutdowns ‘maybe a weekend or two’).

The cost of the airport spur relative to ridership (maybe 800M$? Vs 10K riders).

The cost of the West Island spur relative to ridership (16km, half elevated vs 11K riders).

The optimism around the ridership to the airport, contrasting the lack of considering riders coming in from the proposed transfer stations. Then when it comes to capacity on the line. The planning of crazy frequencies first, 90s frequencies on a heavily branched line. The uncertainty around safety in the tunnel.

The strange financing model, involving the Caisse taking in incremental real estate taxes, direct public funding, and fares. And those fares are unknown, and the share of revenues between bus/metro operators and the Caisse is unknown.

And unlike other public/private partnerships, with this one the private partner will actually own the infrastructure indefinitely. Yet again we’re giving away the control of infrastructure to a private entity, which turned out to be a huge mistake when selling the infrastructure of the CN in the 90ies.

The real estate development questions. Building stations so far out beyond developed areas, which looks like an invitation to build sprawl. The contradiction in the Caisse’s assurance that they don’t do this for development, but the incentives with selling development rights and collecting tax-increment-financing pointing the other way. It appear their assurance just means they won’t actually develop suburban mega-developments themselves, they’ll just collect profit and taxes from it.

The rushed process, where between announcement to the public and tenders and funding and start of construction there will be months; having worked in secret so long, apparently without much consultation of the involved stake-holders, in particular the city of Montreal (although with the current governance, who knows whether that would actually help).

And overall, the lack of a regional plan. The line would maybe work well if the whole of Montreal only had a transit checklist of three items (airport, Brossard, West Island) and those 150K riders they represent. But we have millions of trips across the region, and hundreds of thousands of underserved people, and hundreds of thousands more who drive today and may want to take transit. Is this the best way?

The Caisse’s REM proposal has given Montrealers hope to finally have a rail connection to the airport.

The problem with rail connectors to airports, however, is that they are generally not a very good use of money: they are often expensive and have low ridership. Airport connectors underperform.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of taking a metro home from the airport. I think most people would love that too, which is why everyone is so excited about it. But even if everyone will use it at some point or another, most only go to the airport once or twice a year. Thus, on any given day, not many people will use it. And that means low ridership.

Comparison with airport connectors in other cities

How many people would use the new proposed airport connector? In their marketing material, the Caisse claims 10,000 people will use it every day. But they have refused to provide their ridership study to back up that claim.

Given that the airport express bus is currently used by about 3,000 people per day, is this increase in transit ridership credible? Or are they being overly optimistic?

Since the Caisse is not releasing their numbers, I made my own “study”. Using a simple model, I have compared the ridership of North American airports with rail connections, to see what ridership could be like in Montreal. The assumption is that the proportion of people taking transit vs cabs or cars is similar across different airports. So if Montreal Trudeau is three times smaller than New York’s JFK, then the ridership of its transit line should be three times smaller as well.

To make results comparable to Montreal, the model includes airports with the following characteristics:

• they must be in North America, to have a similar relative use of cars and transit
• the rail connection must be the only major transit connection to the airport
• the rail connection must be frequent (every 15 minutes or better)
• the rail connection must provide a reasonable connection into town

The scatterplot below shows daily ridership of the rail connector vs annual number of passengers through the airport (data). Airports in the upper left have a lot of transit ridership relative to their size, and airports in the bottom right are doing really badly. Note that large hub airports airports will be under-represented using this heuristic, because more passengers transfer to other flights at the airport.

We see, first of all, that some airport connectors really do suck. In a whole day, they could barely fill a couple of trains. Most airport other connectors do ok, and bring in about 3K to 5K riders for every 15M airport passengers per year (i.e. the size of Montreal’s airport).

One airport does exceptionally well, and that’s Vancouver’s Canada Line. But it really is an outlier. It seems that the Caisse wants to create another such outlier with the REM, way beyond the 90% percentile. The ridership relative the total number of airport passengers for those two lines would be really far away from all other North American Airport connectors:

On the whole, their 10K estimate is not entirely outrageous, but leans on the optimistic side. Maybe a more conservative estimate (but still assuming we can do better than the average because transit use is generally higher in Montreal), would be 5,000 to 6,000 riders per day. Definitely one should be concerned that the Caisse is using too optimistic projections.

Lessons From Toronto

One airport-connector project that turned out to have overly optimistic projections is the Union Pearson Express in Toronto.

The Express was initially sold to the public with a projected ridership of 8,000/day during the opening year. After construction started, the number was revised down to 5,000 after the first year and only reaching 7,500/day by 2025!

And once it was built, the ridership was actually declining after a lethargic start, down to about 2,200 raiders per day, as most people were put off by the $27.50 fare. At that point the fare was slashed to $12 and ridership quickly increased to be in line with projections (~5000/day).

The Pearson Express was built at a cost of 456 million dollars. In absolute terms, this is pretty cheap for a transit line, and was made possible by running most of the Pearson Express on existing commuter rail tracks. However, considering that only 5000 people use it every day, that’s a cost of $91,200 per daily rider. In terms of cost/benefit, that turns out to be very expensive compared to other transit lines:

	construction cost (adjusted to 2013$)	weekday ridership	cost/rider
O-Train (lrt)	27M$	14K	1901$
C-Train (lrt)	582M$	187K	3110$
Edmonton lrt	404M$	70K	5774$
Pie-IX Busway (brt)	316M$	70K	4514$
Laval Extension (metro)	829M$	60K	13825$
Canada Line (light metro)	2100M$	135K	15441$
Spadina Extension (metro)	2400M$	100K	24000$
Pearson Express (heavy rail)	456M$	5K	91200$

Transit lines can have hundreds of thousands of users per day. In general, a line that can only accumulate 5000 to 10,000 thousand people per day is not really worth building as rapid transit. In fact, if such a line weren’t an airport connection, most would consider that it only deserves a frequent bus line, or maybe a streetcar.

Comparing to the Metro

To put this in perspective, at 10K riders per day, the REM airport station would be equivalent to the 57th busiest station of the Montreal Metro, out of 68 stations in total. At 5K riders, it would be on par with Georges-Vanier as the second least used station of the system.

Of course, when you build a Metro line, it makes sense to add stations along the way even if their ridership won’t be that great. But would it make sense to build several kilometers of metro just to reach Georges-Vanier? I think not.

Conclusion & Questions

What we see from all this is that airport connectors, even successful ones, may only attract very few riders per day relative to their cost. We shouldn’t spend a billion dollars to help 5000 people, because on another project, those billion dollars could help 50,000 people.

If we do build an airport connector, it should be as part of a transit project whose main utility is not based on the airport connection. Basically, transit lines should be useful to as many people as possible, and an airport connection can be added if the marginal cost increase is relatively small.

The REM appears, at first glance, to do exactly that. But I still wonder, if I start to dig deeper, will the connection that is made to the airport make sense? Will it be cheap enough to justify building a rapid transit line to a terminus promising such low ridership? Is the airport connection that’s included in the REM project an efficient use of money? Is there a way to be more cost-effective? Is it a good use of public money?

A second, more sobering look at the Caisse’s “REM” proposal to replace the Deux-Montagnes Commuter Rail line with an extended light rail line: how the Caisse had good ideas but is executing it badly, which will cause trains to be overcrowded from day 1.
Version française

Update (2016-10-09): This analysis includes a couple of simplifying assumptions based on the little information provided by the Caisse at the time. For those interested in a more deep analysis included the information that was made available at the BAPE, refer to my memoire, section 4 (for capacity of the Deux-Montagnes line), and section 6.2.1. (Impact on existing Mascouche line). Note the ridership study revealed the St-Anne branch will have the same ridership as the existing Vaudreuil-Hudson line. The St-Jerome line connection may have been dropped from the plans.

The Caisse’s REM-line light rail proposal seems to have elicited two main types of responses: those who are excited Montreal will have great new, modern, efficient transit system, and the skeptics who feel the Caisse is taking us for a ride. My initial reaction put me in the first camp, a deeper look makes me doubtful that light rail is the right way to go.

What is Light Rail, Anyway?

Despite its apparent specificity, “light rail” refers to a range of technologies, from streetcars and trams to systems closer to a metro. This is in contrast to “heavy rail”, which is defined by the American Public Transportation Association as an electric railway with the capacity to handle a heavy volume of traffic.

The critical detail here is that “light” or “heavy” refers to capacity, not weight.

Weight-wise, if we look at the weight per car, some existing light metro systems similar to the REM have vehicles that are actually heavier than the Montreal Metro. Some are as heavy as the Deux-Montagnes commuter train cars:

Of course, since there are fewer cars, the overall weight for the whole train is naturally lower. However, the train will not run faster! The REM will be electric and will use electric-multiple-unit (EMU) trains like the Montreal metro or the Deux-Montagnes trains. EMUs have no locomotive in the front to pull the whole train. Instead, the motors are evenly distributed throughout the train and every section pulls itself.

A half-length train has half the motors: half the power to move half the weight. Mathematically, you end up with the same speed.

In any case, the REM is definitely “lighter” in terms of capacity. The Caisse envisions 4 car trains during rush hour (2 cars outside of rush-hour), which is half the length of a regular Montreal Metro and a third of the trains on the Deux-Montagnes line.

How much Capacity does the REM Have?

A transit system’s capacity is calculated by multiplying the capacity of each train by the number of trains per hour. This gives us the the number of “passengers per hour per direction” (PPHD).

The REM can carry 600 people per train, and will have a peak frequency of 3 to 6 minutes in the trunk segment (10 to 20 trains per hour), which gives a planned peak capacity of 6000 to 12,000 PPHD.

Compare that with the capacity of the Deux-Montagnes line: about 4 trains per hour during rush hour, with 2000 people per train. Capacity: 8000 PPHD.

From this angle, the REM looks pretty good. Going from 8000 to 12,000, that’s a 50% increase of capacity!

Not so Fast!

We just made a rough comparison with only one of the existing lines. But how much capacity do we actually need?

If we look at the network, the REM will need to provide the capacity of four (!) existing commuter rail lines during peak hours.

As such, it will:

• Replace the Deux-Montagnes line, which it was designed to do;
• Replace the Mascouche line for the Mount Royal tunnel stretch, as the Mascouche trains will no longer go through the tunnel (new technology for the REM in the tunnel is incompatible with the Mascouche trains). The Mascouche line will therefore terminate at the creatively named “A40 station”, where riders will transfer to the REM.
• Replace most of the Vaudreuil-Hudson line, which serves the West Island up to St-Anne-de-Bellevue, and a bit beyond that. West Islanders have been asking for improved service on that line for many lines, or some sort of replacement with better service. This is what the REM provides via its West Island branch.
• Transport passengers from the Saint-Jérôme line who will transfer to the REM at the newly-built Canora station to reach downtown 20 minutes earlier.

So how much capacity do these four commuter lines have today?

The graph below shows the capacity of the REM versus the four commuter rail lines and the Orange Line throughout the day.

We see that the current commuter lines have a combined morning peak capacity of around 25,000 PPHD, and that the peak is, well… very peaky: the network needs to move a huge number of people during the morning rush hour around 8:00. During the rest of the day, the commuter rail lines provide little service, because they are not all day frequent transit. REM on the other hand will provide all-day frequent service, but not enough capacity during the peak. Compare this to the Orange Metro line, which has all day frequent service, but can yank up the capacity during rush hour to almost three times what the REM line will offer, much more than all of Montreal’s commuter rail lines combined.

The REM marketing material boasts a 50% daily capacity increase, but that’s pretty useless for those who need to use it during the hour between 7:30 and 8:30. That’s when most people need to get to work, and they’re not going to change their work schedule just because the REM can’t handle the traffic.

And this is just the current situation, and just the existing commuter rail lines. We are not considering the added demand that will be generated by the REM as more people ditch their cars or slower bus lines for the more convenient rail system. Or the people along the Blue Line who will have a much more convenient route downtown.

What does that Mean in Practice?

1. Train overcrowding

It’s rush hour. On the Deux-Montagnes line, between 8:00 and 9:00, more than 7000 people need to get to work. The Deux-Montagnes branch of the REM will have a frequency of at most 6 minutes, which provides a capacity of 6000 PPHD. That’s already 1000 below what’s needed. Trains will be super full, people will have to wait.

Quick aside: you didn’t think 3 minutes at peak was for the entire network, did you? Nope, that’s only for the trunk stretch, where the trains from the different branches merge together.

The West-Island branch will probably run at, or close to, its max capacity of 6000 PPHD, since it provides a much more convenient alternative to the Vaudreuil-Hudson line for many West Islanders (current capacity: 7500 PPHD).

As the trains go through the downtown stations, they will have to take on all the commuters transferring from the Mascouche line (3000 PPHD). Indeed, the line, which currently goes directly downtown through the Mount-Royal Tunnel, will terminate at the REM because it won’t be compatible with the new rail system they’ll put in the Tunnel for the REM.

The REM will also have to take on the people who will choose to transfer from the St-Jérôme line at the new Canora transfer station, since this will allow them to reach downtown 20 minutes faster.

At any rate, the REM needs double its planned capacity just to transport the current commuter line riders.

Which brings us to our next point:

2. Platform overcrowding

At the “A40” transfer station, each train coming from Mascouche can offload up to 2000 people. These commuters will have to wait in line to squeeze onto the already-full REM. Given that the platforms in the REM stations will be 80m long (less than 30% of the length of the commuter train) and built for trains that carry 600 passengers, it’s not clear where and how long these people will have to wait.

Further along, the riders from the St-Jérôme line will also arrive in batches of 2000 people per train, who will wait even longer to squeeze into even fuller trains. Considering how crowded the trains are, they may choose to stay on their train and continue on their existing commutes.

You might think you’re one of the lucky ones who live far enough to be the first on the train and maybe even get a seat. But the after-work commute is the great equalizer, and you’ll be stuck waiting on the platform with all 3 branches’ riders going home. And since there are only two stations in downtown, each only 80m long, it will be like pushing towards the stage at a pop concert.

3. Passengers overflowing into the Metro

The REM proposal will have a new transfer at Canora that allows commuters on the St-Jérôme line to go downtown via the REM. This would be great to relieve the Orange Line, as many riders transfer today at De la Concorde. Unfortunately, due to the low capacity, commuters will probably keep using the crowded Orange Line.

Worse yet, the Caisse’s plan includes an ‘improved connection’ at Sauvé, which will allow more passengers from the Mascouche line to transfer to the Orange Line. This may be part of the Caisse’s plan to relieve some of the pressure on their own system, as Mascouche riders may prefer to transfer at Sauvé instead of the crowded “A40” REM station.

Given all the above, there also won’t be enough capacity on the REM for people to transfer at the proposed Édouard-Montpetit station from the Blue Line for a direct connection downtown. Since the station is labelled only as a ‘potential station’, chances are it will not be built at all. So instead of transferring onto the REM line, Blue line riders will continue using the Orange Line to get downtown.

In effect, instead of relieving the most overcrowded section of the most overcrowded line in Montreal, the REM line will instead be dumping more passengers onto it.

“Just run it every 60 Seconds!”

The capacities we just calculated already use the maximum frequencies quoted in the proposal (every 3 minutes on the trunk line). It is unlikely that we could run significantly more trains on the network as it is structured, since the 3-minute frequency is so close to the maximum theoretical capacity of the system.

The Caisse plans to build 80-metre-long stations, so trains can only be that long. Therefore, the only way to provide enough capacity to absorb just the existing commuter rail lines, without even considering the transfers from the Blue Line or any added demand, is to run the trains at 90 second frequencies.

This is double the proposed maximum frequency (and I repeat: just to absorb the existing traffic!), and poses problems on many levels:

The proposal includes an initial order of only 200 train cars (every peak-hour train will be composed of two of these). Even operating all of them would only allow 135 second frequencies, assuming the most optimistic travel times on the whole line (this is based on adding the total the minimum travel times of all the branches, adding a bit of turn-around time, and dividing by having 100 2-car trains, assuming 10% spares).

Even if they were to order more trains, it would be extremely difficult to have 90 second frequencies.

The highest frequency line in Canada is the trunk line of the Expo and Millennium lines, 108 seconds. Once you reach that level, every extra second gets harder, as the time between trains has to be longer than the time the train takes to enter the station, stop at the station and leave the station, plus padding for safety, plus padding to allow maintaining the schedule.

Since there will be very few REM stations downtown and the trains will be very full, there will be a lot of people getting off at each station. The trains will have to wait longer for people to get in and out, especially since the small stations won’t be able to deal well with all that crowding.

Moreover, 90 second frequencies are extremely hard to sustain for long periods of time, as the system needs to run like clockwork. Any delay will cascade through the system, because the distance between the trains will be too small to adjust or catch up to their schedule.

But the really scary constraint is the Mount Royal tunnel. If we run trains every 90 seconds, there will be up to 3 trains in the tunnel at the same time. If something goes wrong, the middle train will be stuck in the tunnel. That’s a bad idea, because there are no emergency exits in-between stations.

In order to safely run trains through the Mount-Royal tunnel, a frequency of 120 seconds will make sure no more than 2 trains are in the tunnel at any time in a given direction and will allow enough padding to sustain a regular schedule without cascading delays.

However, given the short trains, 120 second frequencies mean we will still have a peak capacity shortage of 6000 passengers per hour, or 50%, just to absorb the existing commuter rail traffic!

Basically, even stretching the system beyond its planned limits will not give us enough capacity to add a single new passenger!

For Some, the new Train means Going back to the Car

For all the good points outlined in my previous post, it seems that, unfortunately, the REM falls short on the most important aspect: actually getting everyone from point A to point B.

For commuters, who will be the biggest users, the REM is disappointing. Instead of getting a fast, efficient and modern system, we are looking at stuffy commutes on overcrowded trains. Seating capacity may be slightly better than the Metro, but it certainly will be worse than today’s commuter trains and will mean standing room only for more than half the people on each train.

In the marketing material of the REM project the Caisse announces “a new mode of transportation” and a “a new way of life”, to fix the “saturated and limited system”. And how does the Caisse plan to solve our transit problems? With wifi, platform screen doors and air-conditioning everywhere, to entice drivers to switch to public transit!

The Caisse needs to seriously ask itself how it can expect drivers to actually switch to their new system, when there’s barely enough capacity to carry the current passenger load. In fact, current train riders might ditch transit altogether!

I don’t think it’s a stretch to believe that the Caisse may be tempted to institute higher fares, higher than the normal Metro fare you’d expect, in order to discourage ridership and bring it in line with the built capacities. After all, the Caisse is a retirement fund and wants to make money operating this line. Higher fares would be great for that – the Caisse can build the line with lower capacity than needed, then charge higher fares until those who are not willing to pay find other ways to get to work. The Caisse will end up with more money, a system running at an efficient capacity, and the public will have received less transit than what they were sold (construction cost will be shared between the Caisse and the public).

Why the Caisse is in Love with Light Rail
And you Shouldn’t be

So why would the Caisse want to tear down a whole electrified transit line and rebuild it entirely, using trains that have less than a third of today’s length? The answer can be found if you look at their previous projects. It seems the Caisse wants to simply replicate the success it had in Vancouver with the Canada Line, ignoring glaring issues like the capacity problems.

The Canada Line is a fully automated light metro line that runs from downtown Vancouver, through a tunnel, then splits into two branches: one going to the suburb of Richmond, and the other going to the airport. It uses very ‘light’ rail: the trains are only 2 cars (40m) long. The line relies on automation and high frequency to compensate for the small train length, just like the REM. Overall it works well and has sufficient train capacity, but the very short stations are already causing platform crowding issues, even though passengers are spread across many stations where they can start and end their journey.

While the Canada Line works well enough for one single line in Vancouver, it is grossly inadequate for Montreal, where it’s supposed to replace an entire network.

Given the scale of the project and the amount of money that will be invested in it, it would make more sense to build a system that is future-proof and could be eventually scaled up to much higher capacities, rather than a system that will already be beyond capacity from day one.

I hope the Caisse will rethink their choice to build a light metro, and, instead, opt for a technology with higher capacity, that can integrate with the existing lines, and that we can expand later.

And we the public, who still have to pay for half the project, and who will be stuck riding it afterwards, should hold them to that.

Thanks to JC for her help in writing the article.

Last Friday, the Caisse de Dépôt presented their project to build the ‘REM’, short for ‘réseau électrique métropolitain’. It’s an electrified rapid transit line connecting Montreal with its suburbs in the West Island and Brossard, which includes a branch to the Trudeau international airport.

The proposal is exciting: 67 kilometres and 24 stations, replacing the existing Deux-Montagnes line (30 km) and the bus corridor to Brossard with one large line.

There’s a lot to like about this project:

Electrified, Frequent, All-Day, Rapid Transit

Why it’s good:

Electrified: electric trains accelerate faster, which allows for more frequent stops while maintaining high overall speed. Moreover, electric trains are much cheaper to operate than diesel ones, so transit agencies can afford to run them all day.
Frequent: Frequency is freedom. Taking a train that comes every 30 minutes requires planning ahead: show up too early or too late, and you risk waiting half an hour for the next train. Frequent service means travelers can just show up at the station, knowing there will be a train within a reasonable time.
All-day: Commuter rail provides a very specific service: shuttling office workers between their homes in the suburbs and their 9-to-5 jobs downtown. All-day transit allows anyone to take any trip along the line at any time of the day. Frequent all-day service increases flexibility and reliability. If you can take transit for any trip you need to make during the day, rather than just the commuting trip, you can rely on it more, so you don’t have to rely on owning a car.

Previous proposals to improve transit only focused on 1 or 2 of these criteria. For example:

• Previous proposals to improve transit to the West Island included adding tracks to the existing diesel commuter rail line, allowing more trains during rush hour without providing frequent, all-day transit.
• Before the Caisse’s REM project, the most recent proposals for the new Champlain bridge did not include a rapid transit line, but would instead have replaced the existing bus corridor with just another bus corridor.
• The Mascouche line, the only transit project completed in almost ten years, is served by only 10 trains a day per direction, and looks more like an exercise in drawing lines on a map than providing a transit line that can move around a significant number of people

Integrated Regional Network Using Through-Routing

Through-routing is where a single line goes from one end of a region, through downtown, to the other end. Such regional lines facilitate trips other than between downtown and its suburbs. By making these trips faster and more convenient, more people are encouraged to take transit. In many places in the world, this is how transit systems are designed.

In Quebec, however, such regional interconnected systems have never been a priority, as the practice was to solve each problem with its own technology, its own line, without much concern for designing a network. Need more capacity on the Deux-Montagnes line? Improve the Deux-Montagnes line. Need an airport connection? Build an express airport line. Need to improve transit to the West Island? Add more tracks to the existing diesel commuter rail line. What about the South Shore? Light rail on the Champlain bridge!

The Caisse’s project is the first one that shows a much more integrated vision for regional transit, folding all these projects into a single line. Now you could take transit from suburb to suburb, or from one suburb to places not quite downtown. Imagine going directly from Brossard to UdeM!

Repurposing Existing Infrastructure

Reusing existing infrastructure makes projects more capital efficient, which means more transit for our money.

The REM network is to be built on the Deux-Montagnes line, which is already electrified and connects the West Island to downtown through the Mount-Royal tunnel. Using the tunnel makes sense: it provides a direct connection from the north of Montreal through the mountain to Gare Centrale in just 6 minutes, basically like a subway. Given how costly the Blue line extension is supposed to be, it’s a good thing we have the tunnel already built.

Connections with Existing Lines

A good transit network requires good transfers between lines, to allow users to reach more destinations quicker. That’s because people want to travel between all sorts of places, which are not necessarily on the same line. Consequently, good connections will allow making these trips quicker and with fewer transfers.

For example, the station at Edouard-Montpetit will allow riders on the Blue line to directly connect downtown, without having to transfer twice (to the Orange line and then the Green line).

Also, consider that currently, the Saint-Jérôme line crosses the Deux-Montagnes line at Canora, but there is no stop or transfer possible. Instead, St-Jérôme line travelers are stuck on their train for another 25 minutes while Deux-Montagnes trains will be downtown in 6 minutes. The transfer station at Canora will help reduce their travel times a lot.

Planning for good transfer stations to existing lines for new transit lines seems obvious, but it’s not something that’s usually being considered much in Montreal. Consider the following examples:

• The Mascouche line has one inconvenient connection at Sauvé, with a long walk outside through a cemetery.
• The line was built without transfer to the St-Jérôme line, even though their stations are 200m apart near Marché Central, because both lines were independently designed to only shuttle commuters to and from work.
• The proposal by Aeroport de Montréal for the airport train envisioned an express that would’ve gone straight downtown, with no connection to any other line, even though adding a single connection at Vendôme would have increased the convenience for many users.

It is therefore refreshing to see the Caisse’s REM proposal give consideration to how their system will connect to the lines crossing it.

Overall, I’m excited that the Caisse wants to get this line operational in only four years, a line that is truly regional, a line that will benefit more people than just the typical commuters. In the last 30 years, the only rapid transit we’ve built is the 4 Km Laval extension of the Metro line, that means a bit more than a kilometre per decade. Now we’re building almost seventy kilometres all at once, built by an organization that has proven it can get a transit line built. Montreal is dreaming transit again.

Thanks to JC for her help in writing the article.

A Montreal tram report studies the viability of a starter line. However, the proposed line includes a downtown loop, a section with questionable utility. Also, the proposed construction costs are too high. If we want a sensible network of trams that improves rides for as many people as possible, we need to focus on utility, and we need to aggressively contain costs.

Last week the city of Montreal finally released their tram study, which the city received 18 months ago. The 1095-page study details the feasibility of a starter line. Here are the highlights:

• line length: 13.2km
• number of stations: 32
• average distance between stations: 425m
• average speed 18.1km/h
• projected ridership: 26.6 M/year (70K a day)
• trams: 26 trains, 30-35m length, 2.65m width
• cost: 850million, without tax and contingencies (about a billion with)

As you can see from the above map, the line consists of a corridor along Côte-des-Neiges and a loop around the Old Port. The line is on separated lanes on its entire length. The base service frequency is intended to be around 8 minutes. During rush hour, the Côte-des-Neiges corridor would see the frequency double to every 4 minutes. During the “peak downtown period”, the pattern would reverse, with the downtown loop now having its frequency doubled to every 4 minutes.

It is great that this study was finally released. It would be nice if the AMT did this too. Its also good news that the basic viability of trams in Montreal is shown. But looking over the documents, there are some issues that I would like to raise.

The Downtown Loop

The first thing to notice is the loop around Old Montreal, a section that seems to be a rather bad piece of planning. Actually it’s not a complete loop with trains travelling in a complete circle, because it’s disconnected at the north-west corner, where trams terminate and turn around. The construction of this loop seems to be mostly driven by political interest, and from developers. In general, downtown circulators are a bad idea, they underperform. They are not useful for enough people. They don’t let you travel the shortest distance to where you need to go. Many travels along small loops are faster by walking directly, rather than waiting for a train and taking an indirect route to a nearby location.

In 2008, The STM established the 515 bus (now 715) as a precursor for the planned tram (except that it actually runs in a complete circle). Already by Decemeber the failure of that line was obvious, with only 1200 daily boardings rather than the projected 6000. According to ridership data from 2011 that I extracted from Opus card data, there were less than 800 daily boardings on that bus. That is not nearly enough for a tram. and given that there are many bus corridors with fifty times the daily boardings like Pie-IX, Sauvé, Saint-Michel or Henri-Bourassa, focusing on this section is misguided at best.

Naturally, a tram may attract more potential riders, and more development, which should bring more riders. The study considers this induced demand, and gives us this graph of what the STM projected hourly ridership during the peak period would be like:

We see that according to the projections the Côte-des-Neiges section shows much more potential than the downtown loop, which simply cannot attract riders. And those numbers may be optimistic, just like the projections for the 515 bus. Many riders may also only be seasonal, and that’s not just tourists. And the Côte-des-Neiges and downtown loop section appear to have non-connected ridership. Trams are nearly empty somewhere along the middle of the line. There are few potential trips that cross those points.

Overall, the downtown loop is simply a waste of money considering the transportation needs of the greater Montreal region. The only section along the the loop that has some potential is the Peel corridor along the West of the loop. That portion overlaps with the another transit plan along the Champlain bridge light rail. This is a transit project to connect the Shore suburb of Brossard to downtown, via the replacement Champlain through Nun’s island and Griffintown. That project is very worthwhile and would make the less than 2km track along Peel redundant.

The study also compares two possible corridors for the non-downtown-loop portion, Côte-des-Neiges and Ave due Parc:

The above table shows that the the Côte-des-Neiges corridor is a better than the one along Parc, which appears reasonable. But why were the two corridors compared for their potential, but the downtown loop was included in both cases seemingly without question?

The two compared corridors have similar ridership, so it appears natural to just connect them into one line which will have fairly balanced ridership. This would almost exactly follow the successful rush-hour-only 435 bus. It would be possible to “unroll” the downtown loop, and instead build it along the Parc corridor. The length of that line would be about the same as the one proposed by the study, ~13km. This line would replace the 80, 165 and 435 buses, which together have about 60K daily boardings (in 2011) – when one considers the possibility of induced demand, it should be obvious that this is a much more worthwhile starting segment than including the proposed loop with only one of the useful corridors.

Another, if smaller, issue is that the downtown loop includes the steepest grade along the whole line – the ruling gradient:

Because of only the small section of 12%, all the trains have to be able to climb that grade. If excluded, the ruling grade is 10%, which is generally considered the maximum for trams. This may result in less technical complexity, more bidders on the rolling stock, and less cost for vehicle acquisition.

Cost

The cost is currently budgeted at 850$ million for 13.2km, without taxes and contingencies, a billion with those included. That means about 65$ million/km without taxes and contingencies, and 75$ million/km with. This appears pretty high. For example, the French city of Besancon is building its initial 14.5km line for 22 million$/km. This is of course only one data point. the Montreal tram study compares to five different French data points to show that the cost are not too high.

To get a more thorough comparison, I compiled a list of about a hundred French tram construction projects. It covers projects from the beginning of the tram renaissance at the end of the eighties, to projects being planned now. The numbers are all without taxes, adjusted for inflation relative to 2010 (to compare to the Montreal study) and converted to dollars using the average rate of that year (1.37$/€). According to these numbers, the construction costs in France for a kilometer of tram are about 35$ million/km on average. In comparison, the Montreal costs are estimated 85% higher than that. (I will publish the data and more details in another blog post soon).

French tram projects aren’t actually considered cheap. They tend to include a lot of urban improvement and renovation of the streetscape, and are built to a high visual standard. They are used as drivers for development not just via transportation, but also urban beautification. The tram systems tend to be a little over-designed. Some of the systems include short tunneling sections. The French also like to avoid overhead wiring in their historic city centers, using a system called l’alimentation par le sol (APS), a ground level power supply, which adds to the cost.

Compare to Germany, where trams are used as a form of transit to bridge the gap between buses and subway, rather than a chance to beautify the city. There, tram construction costs are generally considered to be at around 10 million €/km (14 million$/km) and 15million € when built in downtown (21 million $/km). A more utilitarian approach is also what allowed Besancon to keep its tram construction low.

There are some budget items in the Montreal project that are inherently more expensive than elsewhere, for example the maintenance center and garage. It has to be completely indoors, due the climate. But overall, the construciton costs should be lower, because the project is comparably simple. The tram can be completely contained inside the existing streetscape. There are no heavy works required like rebuilding bridges. It shouldn’t need any of the features that drive up cost, for example tunnels or ground level power supply. And while nice, it doesn’t need urban beautification along its entire length.

What is the Role of a Tram?

All trams are not created equal. There are different paradigms of how trams are built and what exact purpose they have in terms of transportation and urban development.

In France, the tram systems built over the last twenty years have been urban development and renewal projects as much as they are transportation projects. There has been great care to integrate those trams into historic centers with its pedestrian areas, and a lot of money spent on beautification and new technology that avoids overhead wires in certain sections. At the same time, they are the major mode of transport in some medium size cities (i.e. around and less than a million). Some of those metropolitan areas are pretty compact, so these systems have high ridership.

In the US, the development potential of trams has been recognized. Now there are a few new projects underway to build streetcars. Many of these projects have little transportation value, using single, short lines, sharing space with cars. Some are only single track for portions and have very low frequency. These projects appear to be built solely for their development potential.

In Germany, trams tend have more utilitarian transport character. They are built generally as pure transportation projects, in corridors where ridership is expected to be between about 4K and 30K~40k per day, above which rapid transit is favored. Towards the high end, they tend to build subway-tram hybrid systems (Stadtbahn), which attempt to combine advantages of subway (high capacity/speed downtown) with trams (cheaper construction or possibility of re-using existing systems to get good coverage).

So what Role Should Trams Have in Montreal?

The released study appears to orient itself very closely to the French model of tram building. That’s evident not just in the use of pictures and comparisons for cost and rolling stock, but also how the development of the line is envisioned, the complete re-configuring of streets. The loop around the old port may also be an attempt to replicate the image of the French tram through a historic city center.

Given the high cost of the project relative to its transportation value, especially in comparison to other tram systems, I’m concerned that we may end up with a project that is largely a development stimulus one. The chosen paradigm may not lead to transportation improvements throughout the city, simply because building a large network at this cost is not economically viable. This is problematic for our transportation starved city.

Montreal is currently a major bus city, with many people spending large amounts of time in crowded buses feeding into metros. Some of our bus corridors have more ridership than the 40K/day that Germans consider good enough for rapid transit, many more have lower ridership which can still be more economical to operate as trams. For many of these riders that live further away form the metro, trams could improve the quality of their commute, and thus the quality of life. A large network could spread the development and gentrification pressure, and allow less affluent people better access to jobs, again rising quality of live for everybody.

Trams in Montreal should primarily be used to improve existing bus commutes. Tram projects should be about transportation, not helping development interests downtown.

Costs Need to be Contained

If we want to build as many tram lines as possible, we have to focus more on keeping the costs down. Construction should be simplified. For example, we don’t need to reconfigure entire streets. For the tram line in the study, we could do that just for the René-Lévesque Levesque corridor, and only few parts of Côte-des-Neiges.

The downtown loop, with its relatively small transportation value, should be scrapped. Instead, the Parc Ave corridor should be preferred. If we aim for good cost/benefit in terms of ridership and improved commutes, one could also pick a completely different initial segment. why not start the tram outside of downtown, for example along the Pie-IX or Gouin/Henri-Bourassa corridors?

Pie-ix currently has a expensive BRT project, at 20$M/km. It suffers high cost (for a BRT project) due to a similar issue as the proposed tram: rebuilding the street. The project includes widening its right of way from 30.5 to 33.5m. With a tram, the transit right of way could be narrowed from the planned 8.40m (for two bus lanes) to as little as 6.35m (using 2.4m wide trams). Steal some more space from wide car lanes, and it will be unnecessary to buy land and cut down trees, and the higher cost of the track could be partly offset by reducing the street-widening costs. The maintenance center and garage may be cheaper further away from downtown. And the potential to improve people’s commutes is greater along that corridor, that sees long, crowded bus commutes.

Other ways to keep construction costs down for any tram project may be to partner up with other Quebec cities that envision building trams, like Quebec City, (or the AMT for the Champlain bridge corridor), or cities that think about building trolleybuses, like Laval. The rolling stock and related expertise could be pooled and large orders be made, which result in lower per-unit prices. The development expertise and management may be shared and done in-house, potentially reducing costs (right now budgeted at 100$M before tax, nearly as much as the rolling stock).

I really want trams to come to Montreal. But if we cannot keep the costs down, and the city has to plunk down a cool billion for 13 km, and the possibilities of building an actual network are slim, then this will just become another project in the region that envisions one short line and yet another technology. In that case, maybe it makes more sense to invest in much cheaper improvements to our bus corridors.

Thanks to Kamal Marhubi and Julia Evans for reading drafts.

walksheds are the area around a particular point of interest from where people are willing to walk to said point of interest. This point of interest is often a transit station, and the walkshed gives an idea how many people will reach the station on foot. While the walkshed depends on how walkable the area is, whether there are barriers like freeways, the geometry of the street grid, and how attractive the transit station is (people are willing to walk further to metros compared to bus stops), The area is often simplified as a circle around the transit station.

How much population lives within the walkshed gives an indication on the ridership of the transit line, the more people live in it – the more ridership can be expected. The corollary is that you want as much population within walksheds as possible.

If there are more people near the transit station, it reduces the reliance on feeder buses and park’n’rides (a reduction in park’n’rides also means more land within the walksheds is available for development). This will reduce both the cost of transportation services that have to be offered, and will increases the chances that people use transit – which will reduce the cost of required infrastructure like roads and parking spots, but will also decrease the burden on the environment.

The above visualization shows the population within 800m (1/2mile) of Montreal transit stations. This is considered a reasonable distance that people are willing to walk to a rail station. Picking this distance for all stations makes the comparison between stations easier, even if the actual walksheds may be different depending on how walkable the areas are. Also, a circle with 800m radius has about 2 square km of area, so by dividing the number by two, we get the population density (in people per square km).

In the image, we can see that many metro stations have more than 20 thousand people living near them, corresponding to more than 10 thousend people per square km. Compare that to the a density of 3.7K people/km² for the whole island of Montreal, 7.7 people/km² for the borough of Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâcee, and 12.3K people/km² for the Plateau. The highest population is near station Cote-Ste-Catherine, the 2nd most populous is Mont-Royal, then Guy-Concordia (which also includes the most densest spot in Montreal).

We see that the commuter rail stations generally don’t have many people living near them, especially off the island. Some stations are directly next to highways, others are surrounded by a sea of parking, others are in the middle of nowhere. There is quite a deficit in Transit Oriented Development near many of the commuter rail stations, a missed opportunity. In many places, development would be a better use of station-adjacent land, compared to parking lots, or very low density development.

The most populous commuter rail stations outside of the inner city are on the Deux-Montagnes line, at least up to Roxboro – the Deux Montagnes line is the the only electrified line, has the most trains, and by far the most ridership. Some of the stations rival metro stations in terms of population density. Other populous stations are on the Blainville line, at least up to de la Concorde – it would seem that this stretch could also be a candidate for electrification, possibly more infill stations and much more frequent service (incidentally that would also help relieve congestion on the orange line).

What is interesting is that some metro stations have surprisingly little population near them. The missed development opportunities may not just exist near the commuter rail stations, but near the metro network itself. While some of those metro stations are also directly next to highways (like de la Savane) and have limited development opportunities, others are in very suburban looking areas that could probably be densified (like Assomption).

The data was created using the Canadian census data (from 2011), the gtfs for the STM and AMT was used to find the station locations. And a disclaimer: the stations are considered completely independently; so population of very close stations may be “counted” more than once.

This blog wasn’t really meant to become about historical map mashups, but with the city of Montreal (and the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec) releasing all this interesting imagenary, I made the third map app within as many weeks. This one is a 1949 Land Use plan (source), showing a detailled view of the buildings, many of them named, their uses, street names. This map is not stitched together, and not overlayed with a modern view – it’s the raw scanned pages arranged in a grid. This makes for a primary source, not only showing the data of the map, but also showing the age of the paper it’s on, pencil scribbles, creases and tape fixes. The result looks like this:

Again there’s a full screen version, which can be found here. The 9 principal colors correspond to the following:

• Jaune: résidentiel : unifamilial
• Orange: résidentiel : duplex
• Brun: résidentiel : triplex
• Rouge: commerce
• Rose: industries légères (alimentation, entreposage, vêtements…)
• Violet: industries lourdes (mécanique, chimie, fonderie…)
• Bleu: chemin de fer
• Vert: parcs
• Gris-vert: institutions (administration, écoles, églises…)

Note that some areas are not colored in: Those were not part of the city of Montreal, but independent municipalities. Montreal had quite strange boundaries and a weird shape, reaching the water in the North, but with many cut-outs all around. The city has consolidated much more, but some of those small cities (like Westmount, and TMR) are still holding on to their independence today.

All these map mashups I’ve showcased the last couple of weeks are a work in progress. I hope there will be one master map one day overlaying all the information in one app. This involves the major help of some pixel magicians who’ve been stitching and cleaning images (in particular mare and Luc). I thank them for all their work and hope for the continuation of these projects.

In a sort of continuation of my transit map mashup comparing transit maps from 1941 and 2011, I made another mashup comparing aerial photography from 1947 and now. The city of Montreal published aerial photos from the entire Montreal island, that were made between 1947 and 1949. I was able to get a version of stitched images of the downtown areas and the Plateau (via mare, who used some sort of stitching software). Rotated and Translated to approximately fit google satellite (which actually uses aerial photos as well), and put all together, it looks like this (A full screen version can be found here):

I’ll leave this without much comment, just go ahead and explore. I invite you to comment your observations.

A zoomable version of two overlayed transit maps from 1941 and 2011 lets you explore the similarities and differences after 70 years of change

A transit map is not just some means to help people to get around, it can tell you a lot about a city. Where do people live, where do they go, where’s lots of activity. It can be part of the local culture in a way, intimately familiar to so many people. Take two maps, from 70 years apart, overlay them and you can see even more stories emerging. This is what I did with this little mash-up that lets you zoom around a transit map of Montreal from 1941 and from 2011, sliding between the old and the new, and exploring the differences between then and now (a full screen version can be found here).

Many things have changed. Back then, the primary mode of transit was the tram. A system of hundreds of kilometres that has completely disappeared. Today we have the metro, and bus lines on the surface. 70 years ago the city used to be much smaller. Even the island itself was smaller – it grew as garbage got dumped along Pointe-Saint-Charles, and as land was won with the dirt dug up by the metro (or so the lore goes), expanding islands to build parks and expo 67. It seems that the city also used to be more bilingual, with more English street names, and the map itself bilingual.

One thing that I found surprising is how similar the network is today compared to 70 years ago. The tram may have gone, but many of their lines continue to this day, served by buses – despite the lack of tracks, the construction of the metro, and 70 years of change. It seems as if more lines have survived than buildings. Physical constructs made of brick and concrete have gone, whereas lines on a map remained, served by an ever changing fleet of vehicles running transient schedules.

Note how bus/tram-lines survived, whereas heavier rail didn’t. This is a bit surprising because it goes against an idea in transit development today, that rail lines induce more development because people perceive the infrastructure to be more permanent. But in a way it makes sense: if a rail line gets used less and less, it becomes economically impossible to operate. People will also demand the space to be used for something else, perhaps for cars (like the third track on the shoulder of the Victoria bridge), or to expand the city. A street-running transit line, not using any significant space, cheaper to operate and paid within a larger network, can survive as a less and less frequent bus.

Consider the 15 – the line used to be served by trams along the main transit corridor on St-Catherine street. Nowadays it is a bus running in parallel to two busy metro lines, on an awkward not-quite 30 minute schedule, split along two one-ways, routed around pedestrian areas. Today it serves mostly elderly people because the metro is not accessible enough: smack in downtown, it gets only about 8 riders per run*. It has nearly outlived it’s usefulness as a major transit line – a kind of Tomasson?

Other lines that have survived are the busiest in the network. While the busiest line today** (121 Sauvé) didn’t exist back then, many of the busiest routes of today already existed 70 years ago in some form or another (like the 39, 51, 65, 80). Maybe this means that the need to travel along certain directions is ingrained deep in the city structure, which may be stronger than the buildings themselves.

* ~530 people per weekday in 2011, ~64 runs a day, ~8.3 riders per run.
** The ridership numbers are from a dump of a few weeks of opus data from 2011.

This has been a long time coming, I’ve finally gotten around to update my Montreal Frequent Service Map. This is a map of the Montreal Metro and the whole 10-Minute Max Network. There haven’t been many changes:

• The 211 Lakeshore is not a 10 minute bus any more. The STM chose instead to create a network of West Island express buses. Some of these follow approximately the route of the 211, so many of the stops along that route may actually see frequent service to Metro Lionel-Groulx every 10 minutes. But the routes are not exactly the same, and the mess of that all is against the spirit of a frequent service map.
• The 132 Viau is now the 136 Viau.
• The daily pass needed to use the 747 airport express now costs 9$.

I also took the opportunity to enlarge the West Island, and improve the proportions west of the Orange line, and added the missing LaSalle commuter rail station. I again made a 600 dpi version, which can be found here, and a pdf.

Warning: I am currently transitioning this app to a new format so the schedules are not up to date (as of 2013). When I built the app, it relied on scraping the data from the STM's website, a painful process. I am now migrating to their GTFS feed, which will take some time.

If you are one of the two thirds of Canadian cell phone users who do not have a smart phone, you might find yourself late at night at a bus stop, waiting a very long time for the next bus home. If you had a smart phone with a Google maps app or the new STM app, you would probably have checked when the next bus comes, and waited longer inside that warm bar, or at the party where you were.

Sure, you could get the paper flyers of the relevant bus schedules, if you know where to get them, but it's still all very cumbersome. You could also use the phone service of the STM, telling you the next buses for one given stop. But it will only tell you the schedule if you know the 5-digit stop number and bus line - and you'll only find those once you are at the stop, so you still gotta wait there. And you won't find out about other nearby lines and stops.

So at last weekend's Back to School Hackathon, I thought it would be a good idea to try to make life a bit easier for those of us who still have that dumb phone, and developed a simple sms-based application that will tell you the next buses near a given address. You can just text your current address, intersection, postal code or point of interest to

514-600-1287 (that's 514-6001-BUS)***
and it will find nearby bus stops, and give the next scheduled departures.

Try the web-version:

address:
Submit

As you can see, the app returns a very compact result**:

• At the top it shows the time relative to which the schedule is displayed
• It will show a compact name for each bus stop, with the distance (in metres) from your supplied address
• for each bus stop, it will show the buses, together with their direction (W,E,S,N), and the next couple of buses, in minutes relative to the displayed time

The app properly deals with weekend days, holidays, night buses. It will also deal with special characters that show up in the original schedule (">" or "+"). They will be displayed, and usually mean that the bus is taking some alternate route. The system knows 96% of the bus stops (although some might be located incorrectly). and supports the following options:

• the first word can be set of option characters. W, E, S, N will display only buses in the supplied direction, H will display wheelchair accessible buses using '*'. Multiple characters can be used in one word. Example: "WEH 688 Sherbrooke" will show all westbound and eastbound buses, and show handicapped access.
• You can add a trailling "in number", where the number is in minutes. This will provide the schedules relative to a time in the future. Example: "h3a 2t5 in 30" will show buses near postal code H3A 2T5 in 30 minutes.

This application, given the 160 character limitation, naturally does no actual routing. It just gives scheduled departures. You still have to know your lines. This fits the idea that many people do know the routes of buses that are relevant to them, even if their don't know the schedules. This complements the idea of the frequent service network - you know how to get there, but you would like some independence regarding schedules. By making this an sms app rather than a smart phone app, I hope for this to be useful to more people.

Some argue that smartphones are not a game changer for transit. But tools like this should help reduce some of the stress associated with taking buses - the wait at the stop - and maybe will make some travelling a bit more enjoayble.

disclaimer: This is currently beta. The phone number may change. The phone system may not respond at times (in which case try resending your request).

**Update: Due to a recent outage at tropo, the sms service, I changed the system to respond via another service, twilio. So the system will now respond with a different number (which should also accept requests - but it is a US number). Along with this change the format of the response changed to show absolute times rather than relative times.
***Update: After the service called twilio started offering canadian phone numbers with sms support, I have switched over the service to this new number. The old number ((514) 418-0428), should still work for a while.
****Update: As per the warning above, the schedules are out of date.

The STM, Montreal's public transportation agency, presents itself as fresh and new and user-oriented, with a recently revamped corporate design (which is admittedly pretty nifty) and a public campaign involving tv spots and a new blog. They try to project an image of user focus.

Just now the STM offered a new set of exciting choices to its users: the color scheme of the new metro cars. The choices are: blue and white, white and blue, and... blue and white. Really...

If the only choice they allow Montrealers to make is the color of the cars, why not at least have an open competition allowing the submission of actual designs - rather than this top-down approach?

This is not the first time the agency has invited Montrealers to vote: back in March, users could choose a new seating configuration in the metro cars (which needed more standing room for the rush hour crush). This was a two-step process with somewhat narrow choices. The STM probably should have gotten somebody to explain that maybe putting benches all along the sides is the best compromise to keep the most seats while providing much more standing space, even if it doesn't look like it on paper and gets rid of those precious individual seats.

Back then the vote seemed like a ruse, an attempt to conceal the fact that the metro was at capacity, and the new contract still in the courts.

Now, the bitter aftertaste is the price of the cars - up to a billion dollars more to replace the whole fleet, because nobody seemed to have a problem with foregoing the open bidding process and awarding the contract directly to a Bombardier-Alstom cartell, despite a cheaper offer from a foreign builder. Nobody, except some opposition in the city council, and of course many users - but they don't have much say.

We don't get all that much say, whether it is about awarding an expensive contract to put GPS units into buses and build a new communication center (the suburb of Laval paid much less), or about selling station and metro line names to the highest bidder (particularly ironic: the color scheme of the metros car is part of our identity and heritage, but the system itself apparently is not).

I also don't remember any public hearings regarding their recent fare hike, either. They simply get announced. Unlike in New York, where the recent fare hike was part of a long and angsty debate (the conclusion of which was to make the unlimited ride card more expensive, rather than cap it).

There was a debate this summer about putting air conditioning into buses and new metro cars, but right away the STM decided top-down that it would cost too much money. It was not deemed a priority, and the funds would be better spent on service improvements.

Yet just recently, the agency introduced new sharp, but dysfunctional bus shelters, that are slated to replace existing ones. The new ones have exactly the same geometry; they are simply more expensive. Admittedly, the STM did ask their users for their opinion. But just like when asking us our opinion regarding the "bus of the future" line 467 upgrades (which are actually pretty nifty), our participation is more like a foot note. A survey that feels a bit as if it is mostly in place to reaffirm the usefulness of the investment.

My problem is not that their service is bad, or that the organization is going in the wrong direction. In fact most of the initiatives are good - the frequent service network, the 'bus service of the future', the new corporate design. And I don't disagree that the metro cars should follow the heritage colors, and are part of the Montreal's identity. And that most of the times, transport planners probably make better choices than the crowds.

I simply don't like how they interact with their users. Why pretend that the users have some sort of say? And why take already decided issues (e.g. the removal of seats from the metro), and let people ratify them via mundane votes that attempt to hide the underlying decision?

Participation should not be a marketing-tool, but a way for a public institution to be accountable to the public. And trying to give people a sense that they are being listened to should not come through a giant campaign to illicit votes on mundane choices, but, well, listening.

Trying to talk to them can be a bit difficult. On car-free day earlier this year, where some local transportation agencies each had a stand, I spoke to STM representatives (some hired PR people, really) and tried to point out a small mistake on their 10-minute max map. They weren't really interested. I also emailed the STM. They didn't respond, and the mistake is still there online. In fact they never answered any of my emails.

At the same event I had a lengthy discuission with a representative from the RTL (the transit agency of the South Shore suburbs) about the merits of fixed interval schedules and timed transfers; leaving a much more positive impression without all the spark.

The silly thing is that Montrealers will choose the traditional color scheme.

Last week the AMT started the construction of the first stations of the Train de l'Est, a new commuter rail line linking the downtown of Montreal with Montreal-Nord, the east of the Island, as well as Repentigny and Mascouche off the island. The line goes through the electrified Mont-Royal Tunnel, then along a single-tracked CN right of way until the East of the island, then 12km on a new track in the median of the 640 highway to Mascouche. The first trains are projected to roll in September 2012, probably as far as Pointe-Aux-Trembles or Repentigny. It's the revival of a shorter all-electrified line, which ceased operation in 1968.

This is a project that the suburbs have been lobbying for for years. And this is the main problem with this project -- it is very much oriented just for them. 478 million dollars are spent to move a projected 5500 suburbanites downtown and back - 11000 trips on a weekday on a 53km-long line along a track that mostly exists today. That's 87,000$ dollars a person - one could buy cars for all passengers at a fraction of the cost. It's more expensive per rider than the ridiculous 16$ Billion Second Avenue Subway in New York (probably the most expensive transit project ever). Also In comparison, the extension of Montréal's Orange line into Laval at 745 million dollars brought in 30 thousand new weekeday commuters. That's 25,000$ per person to blast a completely new subway tunnel under a river, not to add a couple of stations to a mostly existing track.

The issue is not that the project is too expensive, although it should probably be cheaper - it was originally projected at 300 million. The problem is that it's not designed to get a enough riders, especially on the island. It's not an effective use of resources, both financial and infrastructure (e.g. rail right of ways).

It's not that there is no demand. The line passes through the North of Montreal, through the boroughs of Montreal-Nord, Ahuntsic Cartierville, Villeray-Saint-Michel-Parc Extension and Saint-Leonard, which have a total population of 420,000. It intersects and runs parallel to some of Montreal's most frequented bus lines.

• the 139 (Pie-IX) with 40,000 daily trips,
• the 67 (St-Michel) with 40,000 (in 2008),
• the 121 (Sauvé) with 38,000, and
• the 69 (Gouin) with 27,000.

All these bus lines feed people into the distant metro system to get them downtown. The four lines alone see more than ten times the traffic the train is supposed to get. Earlier this year, Spacing Montreal published an article entitled Montréal-Nord in exile: Public transit and social exclusion, which explores the connection between the troubled areas in the North of Montreal and its public transit woes, and the hope for the new train.

But right now I find it doubtful that many riders will be able to benefit from this train. Sure, it will be faster, but there are very few stations in Montreal Nord - only 2 along a 6.5km stretch (Montreal-North at Pie-IX, Saint-Leonard at Lacordaire), so people have to travel farther to reach a train stop. The trains will only have 5 or 6 departures during rush hour, whereas the buses come at least every 10 minutes. This means you have to plan your daily schedule completely around the train. But you still have to pay a higher fare - almost 50% more for the monthly pass, up to twice regular fare for students. And by the time the trains pass through Montreal-Nord, they are going to be packed, making the trip basically as unpleasant as the bus ride.

The AMT plans to build an "intermodal hub" at Anjou, but are at the same time putting 4223 parking spots along the line, with a provision to add 1322 more - so every projected rider is to arrive by car (I've written about the commuter rail's misguided focus on Park and Ride facilities, they are not "intermodal hubs"). So the focus is not on urban dwellers, many of whom do not own a car, but rather on suburbanites.

And thus the train becomes an extension of the car into downtown, rather than the extension of transit out; it encourages sprawl and perpetuates car-dependent life styles.

But how could the project be expanded to improve service in Monreal?

A possible way to expand this project to improve service to the north of Montreal would be to construct a surface metro, similar to the plan the city already had back in 1981, putting several stations along the badly served, heavily populated, bus-riding neighborhoods around Montreal-Nord.

New, dedicated, electrified double-tracks could be installed up to Papineau, then single tracks to Anjou. With a passing point around Viau, this would allow service as often as every 10 minutes to Anjou. Such a schedule could be accomplished with only 6 or 7 trains, all just running back and forth, totaling around 200 departures a day. If only one single track where built, one could serve Papineau every 20 minutes, or Saint-Leonard (Lacordaire) every 30 minutes, both using only 2 trains.

200 departures a day with 7 trains

Currently the AMT plans to provide 16 departures with 5 trains. In the morning, all trains start at Mascouche and get dumped into Gare Centrale. Only few run back and forth more than once. You need a lot of trains for fairly little service, and you need a lot of space downtown to store those trains during the day. But on the current CN-owned non-electrified freight track you cannot easily provide more service. On one hand, running on diesel is much more expensive than running on electricity; the AMT could not afford to send back nearly empty trains. On the other hand, CN would not allow that much passenger traffic on their freight line.

Note how despite the many extra stations, the travel time could actually be similar to the currently projected ones: electrified trains accelerate much faster than Diesel trains. The new dual mode trains that the AMT will use are almost twice as powerful in electric mode. Modern light-weight electric multiple unit trains like Alstom's Coradia Nordic (built for Sweden's Commuter Trains), Siemens Desiro, or Stadler's FLIRT etc. etc. are even quicker and could easily make the above schedule given good track conditions, and decrease travel time from Montreal-Nord up to 50%. Having many existing train manufacturers also means that they are more affordable due to the competition (unlike the rubber-tyred metro). maybe 10 to 20 million dollars for a whole train carrying a thousand people.

Now the AMT will tell you (and has told me in the past), that this is not their market; that travel within the city should be done by bus or by metro. But given the expense and slowness of metro expansion, and the need to provide more transit in the area, the AMT should really get into the rapid transit game inside the city. The 10 minute service as shown above, together with the diesel operation to Mascouche could easily carry 80,000 trips a day, maybe more, at a cost of 200 to 400 million dollars extra, including rolling stock, if the design is kept lean and functional.

The CEO of the AMT, Joël Gauthier, believes, and he is probably correct, that there will be much more demand than 11000 trips a day. The idea is to put the train into place with 16 departures a day, and expand it if there is more demand - in negotiation with CN. This sounds a bit like "let's create a crappy service, and if it's successful, we'll try to make it better maybe." Lets hope that at least the current stations are built so that more tracks can easily be added, and maybe one day the surface metro can become a reality.

According to a recent gazette article, the cost to build 15km of bus rapid transit along Pie-IX is projected to cost 305M$. This includes154M$ for 10km in Montreal, 125$M for 5km in Laval, and 26$M for unforseen expenses. The higher relative cost in Laval is due to having to modify on/off ramps, and building parking lots.

Now Yonah Freemark at the Transport Politic asks whether Montreal might be paying too much. He compares that to Besançon, a small city which prides itself building the cheapest TRAM system in France:

It’s a question Americans should be asking themselves, since the costs of transit investments seem to be spiraling out of control even as the demand for alternative transportation options has increased and the funds to support them have diminished. Besançon, a city of about 115,000 in a region of about twice that size, has managed to develop a project whose costs are acceptable — “optimized,” the local transit agency calls them — even in a small metropolitan area.

Besançon will be getting a light rail line fully in its own right-of-way that extends over nine miles and thirty stations, all for a price of €228 million ($310 million), with construction beginning this fall. The city expects about 43,000 daily riders once the project opens in 2015. This is no streetcar, and yet plenty of U.S. cities are thinking about spending far more per mile on those limited ridership, low-performance systems.

He goes into a further analysis on how they cut costs, by avoiding surface construction as much as possible (i.e. ban cars instead of rebuilding streets) keeping station design simple, and getting the best prize on their rolling stock. Apparently the city negotiated with six candidates to produce the rolling stock, fostering competition. It then awarded the contract to CAF (the Spanish company that would like to build the Montreal metro cars..), and now pay 30% less than Houston for similar technology from the same company. The lower cost is partly due to not requiring much customization.

The example might not be very comparable to Montréal, and what the city hopes to achieve on Pie-IX. And one could argue that if you buy cheap you get cheap. But in the end of the day, the desire to keep costs low on transportation projects is a virtue that seems to be lacking in Quebec, and the rest of North America. And it means that tax payers will pay more to get less, and will have to wait.

This is part II of a series on ideas how to make frequent bus services more attractive, see part I The way the STM in Montréal built their frequent network is to label some already heavily used lines, and add some service during off peak hours here and there to get an all day 10 minute frequency. As far as I can see none of the lines were altered. Given that these routes evolved over time, according to ridership, alongside dozen of other lines that are not part of the frequent service now, it's a bit surprising that the result actually does make for a decent network. It covers a large area of the city reasonably well and provides a good number of connections with itself and the metro. In some other cities where users tried to map the their frequent bus service, the result is sometimes erratic, with routes concentrated in few corridors or only certain parts of the city. In Montreal the network almost looks as if the routes were specifically designed to form a network of their own. Almost, that is. There are some areas where the network could use some improvement. After all, the system did evolve with coverage in mind, rather than frequency. That means that on many corridors multiple lines overlap, so the individual lines provide less service. Building a frequent network thus requires some adjustments. closing the gaps A number of the bus lines terminates shortly before reaching other lines in the frequent service network. These gaps should be closed. A transit system is supposed to be a network, not just a set of corridors. More connections mean more choices in how you plan your trip, which means that users might be able to plan a shorter or faster trip. The possible advantages should really outweigh the resources required to extend a bus line a few hundred meters. At the end of the lines, transit lines tend to run empty, which does not represent an efficient use of resources. This is because the only people on the bus will be the riders who have these stops as their destination. If passengers can connect to another service at the end of the line, there are more passengers who could use this segment. Also, if the terminal station is a metro stop, there is some incentive to travel against the downtown flow. For example, if the 24 in the image above would connect to the Joliette metro station, the last couple of stops could act as a feeder to the metro, even for passengers going downtown - the metro is simply much faster than the bus. consolidated lines are frequent lines From the frequent service map it becomes quite obvious that although the East of Montreal has a fair number of frequent lines covering a large area, the West Island only has 2 lines -- and those only go downtown every 10 minutes from 9h to 14h, and in the other direction thereafter. One might remark that the West Island is generally more suburban -- car ownership levels are higher, and the density is lower. But there does exist some bus service. And along some corridors buses are fairly frequent. But it seems to have evolved with the desire to create coverage and one-seat rides, rather than frequency and working network. On some corridors (for example on sections of St Jean, Saint Charles, Pierrefonds, Lakeshore, Des Sources) there are multiple overlapping lines, that converge, and diverge after traveling together. Together they almost provide frequent service already -- or at least several buses an hour. Some overlapping lines are scheduled so that there are a couple of buses in short succession, and then none for 20 to 25 minutes. There is potential to consolidate these lines and provide more lines on the map, without having to spend too many extra resources. An easy and frequent grid (like in the East of Montreal) could also attract more riders, who currently use their car; according to the motto "if you build it, they will come". There is a similar potential in the North East of Montreal, where several of the half-frequent lines overlap. It seems that consolidating lines could yield all-day frequent service lines. more connections As mentioned before, closing gaps can improve the network and could mean fewer transfers or faster travel for some people. Some gaps, that do not really look holes in the network, because there are lines - they are just not connected in a very convenient way. One example is the 105 bus: Many riders would actually like to connect to the green metro line, and are thus forced to transfer to the orange line, and then the green line. Because the metro takes a detour, and extra transfers are needed, this can be quite an inconvenience. Commenter Zoltán puts it like this:

Yet they still can't quite bear to create a frequent Sherbrooke line, one of the most obvious possibilities of a simple Montreal bus network, by merging the 24 and 105, with a short diversion (about 500m) to serve Vendôme. As for points on Décarie, the resources used to provide the frequent 24 could either provide a frequent shuttle from Vendôme to Villa Maria Metro, or more usefully could enhance frequency on the 17 running all the way via Décarie, with the 102 running all the way via Girouard.

Merging the 24 and the 105 is one possibility. It would create a pretty long line with somewhat uneven load along it, which might cause bunching one the one end and emptier buses on the other. One could also just run the 105 to the Atwater or Lionel-Groulx Metro station. Either way, the goal should be to create a more complete network.

More AMT news, Montreal commuter trains are on a roll. On Friday the agency announced that 19.7 $ Million, compared to the originally budgeted 6.8$ Million, will be spent to rebuild Gare Saint-Hubert into a more permanent commuter rail station. 75% will be paid by the Ministry of Transport of Quebec, the rest by the AMT. The station with rebuilt platforms will include 335 parking spots (on top of the existing 280), a tunnel to connect both platforms, a new ticket vending machine and shelters for rail users. Bids will start in winter 2011, and the construction is scheduled for summer 2011.

Nowadays when I hear inter-modal station, I think trains and cars. It is good that drivers are encouraged to leave their car in the 'burb, rather than congest them into downtown. But it seems to me that this focus on park-and-ride facilities ignores the fact that the RTL, which serves the greater Longueuil area, provides some of the best bus service a suburb in North America can provide.

It is ironic that the cost increase seems mostly for the benefit of car users. The parking lots apparently add a lot of cost. Yet, it takes up valuable real estate around a train station that is only going to see service increases in the coming years - an ideal place for transit-oriented development. I've written about the hidden problems with parking before, but it should be fairly obvious that here, it will force developments away, not promote a transit-dependent life style, and encourage sprawl. At the same time, there are some that claim that the ability for park-and-ride to attract transit users is a myth.

Every parking space represents only one extra rider (maybe 1.3) on the trains. Yet despite not being an 'intermodal hub', the station is already served by three bus lines (8,28,88), which together have about 150 departures on a week day in each direction. If ones assumes 10 riders per bus (a very low estimate), it means that about 1500 people can reach the station already - more than twice the capacity of the planned parking lots. And this number could easily be increased when the buses are scheduled around the train station to be a hub - at a fraction of the space(=cost) used by cars.

The strange thing is that according to Longueuil mayor Caroline St-Hilaire, transit oriented development is exactly what they had in mind:

This new economic development center will have a higher density and mixed use, as well as more friendly facilities for mass transit and non-motorized methods of transportation

From the planned picture above, and given how much parking space will be added, it is hard to see how these goals will be met.

Now, we can argue back and forth about the problems and merits of park-and-ride facilities vs transit-oriented development, but it should be clear that the intermodal station should be designed first and foremost with the connection between the bus and the train in mind. One way would be to create intermodal platforms, like this

Or like this

Conceivable would be a station with two intermodal platforms - in the morning all buses could stop at the platform with the trains going downtown. In the afternoon they could stop at the outgoing platform. Whoever is going against the flow has to go through the tunnel.

If the station is reasonably sheltered, transit riders could switch from bus to train without much effort, and without rain or snow. Now that could provide a ride comfortable enough to persuade drivers to leave their car at home, while rewarding those who do that already.

images sources: AMT handout via Montreal Gazette (thanks to Andy Riga), Altenkirchen, Oslo, own work

Rue Ste-Catherine in Montreal has been full of people at every occasion they are allowed on the street, including the current car-free week. Since it is a really bad street for cars, would it be a good idea to turn it into a pedestrian mall all the way? As part of "In Town Without My Car All Week Long!", held from September 20 to 24, a portion of Montreal's downtown around Rue Ste-Catherine was open for pedestrian traffic yesterday. Ironic that the official map calls the areas "closed"; I'd probably call them "open": Despite being part of a "week" without cars with activities surrounding car free living, the cars were apparently only banned for one day. Which is unfortunate; people seemed to like it. The street really came alive, and the make shift park added a lot of atmosphere; it was kind of Zen. There has been some talk about pedestrian malls in the blogosphere lately. On the one hand, New York has been expanding it's pedestrian zones, starting with Times Square last year, and adding newest stretch just yesterday. On the other there are voices saying that pedestrian malls might be hurtful, that some cities actually revived their downtown by bringing back cars, and that pedestrian malls don't work in North America (compared to Europe or even Australia). The main problem seems to be that a typical downtown of a North American City is a mono-functional office-space-oriented place, which is only alive from 9am to 5pm. After that, everybody goes home. And if you cannot take your car back to downtown, people apparently rather stay back in the suburb. If nobody lives downtown, there shouldn't be a reason for anybody to be downtown, right? And without people and without cars in the streets, people will start feeling unsafe and continue to avoid the area. But on Ste-Catherine, complete pedestrianization might actually work. Not many people live along the street. Not only does it run through the downtown office center, it also has a vibrant night life, from the Gay Village on one end, to the 2nd Chinatown/Concordia Ghetto on the other. The street is always full of people, many more than there are cars. In fact, as a car user, you should really know not to drive on Ste-Catherine, because it is essentially useless as a car artery. Traffic flows really slowly due to too many traffic lights, and is interrupted half way by all sorts of festivals, pedestrianized areas, or road closures because of construction. At this point, hasn't the street shown its viability has a people-only space? Haven't drivers given up on this street at this point, anyway? Can't we finally ban the cars for good, and maybe add a bike lane? Don't we want every day to be car-free day on Ste-Catherine?