[DirectionNorth]

Here's the thing.............

Just like every time someone says a bus would be more cost-efficient than an LRT.......

And maybe they're right, we all recognize that people prefer transit on rails.

Perhaps we should be equally cognizant that people are not happy w/elevated rail lines.

That doesn't mean they should never be done, but its something to be intuitively aware of......

I say boo hoo to them, like the NIMBYs in Leslieville, Royal Orchard, Etobicoke, and Scarborough.

This is the kind of ass-backwards "accommodation" that results in subways that cost over $1 billion/km. CDPQ actually adjusted the routing to avoid running elevated in Mercier Ouest, but NIMBYs complained about the new alignment anyways.

Ultimately, not everything is about the most technically correct decision, its about what the community will accept.

I think people can be sold on elevated in many cases, but we also need to recognize when that isn't going to work.

I'm not going to defend a 36B solution (which, for the record, I think is going nowhere fast); I'm simply saying, people reflexively applaud some things w/o asking....but does anyone actually like it (statistically speaking)

****

Here's a thought, if the incredibly awful elevated downtown Montreal section hadn't been proposed, thing thing would have gone ahead as elevated elsewhere, and presumably underground in downtown.

The choice to propose something that was near riot-inducingly stupid led to the nonsense we're seeing now.

Rene Levesque Boulevard is a six-lane stroad with parking on either side. Like our bored subways underneath Eglinton West or Sheppard Avenue, the idea of an underground subway being the best solution is absurd.

The politicians demanded an underground subway, and the results of this approach (for both political and technical reasons) are clear on the legacy network: 5 km of subway built in 35 years, and an Anjou Extension that costs $7 billion and might not be built.

First by highlighting the drawbacks of elevated and second by showing the public could push back and kill elevated.

Self-inflicted wound.

Take note Toronto.

Elevated worked the first time, which to be fair, was mostly along existing corridors. Even then, we get people who complain about train noise being "louder than expected".
Global News: Montreal residents complaining about noise from REM trains as testing continues
CBC: Testing Montreal's new light-rail network is already making too much noise, residents say

The business model of CDPQ doesn't work without a low capital cost. It's elevated or nothing.

 

[Northern Light]

I say boo hoo to them, like the NIMBYs in Leslieville, Royal Orchard, Etobicoke, and Scarborough.

This is the kind of ass-backwards "accommodation" that results in subways that cost over $1 billion/km. CPDQ actually adjusted the routing to avoid running elevated in Mercier Ouest, but NIMBYs complained about the new alignment anyways.

Rene Levesque Boulevard is a six-lane stroad with parking on either side. Like our bored subways underneath Eglinton West or Sheppard Avenue, the idea of an underground subway being the best solution is absurd.

The politicians demanded an underground subway, and the results of this approach (for both political and technical reasons) are clear on the legacy network: 5 km of subway built in 35 years, and an Anjou Extension that costs $7 billion and might not be built.

View attachment 489388

Elevated worked the first time, which to be fair, was mostly along existing corridors. Even then, we get people who complain about train noise being "louder than expected".
Global News: Montreal residents complaining about noise from REM trains as testing continues
CBC: Testing Montreal's new light-rail network is already making too much noise, residents say

The business model of CPDQ doesn't work without a low capital cost. It's elevated or nothing.

I'm arguing mostly in favour of your position.

I'm merely noting the situation we find ourselves in (or Montreal does) is a product of going a step too far initially and failing to account for the importance of pleasing people. (or making some reasonable effort).

This is no different from development. 2150 Lakeshore W (Mr. Christie). site is an example of pulling off really, fairly extreme density and getting the majority of the public behind it. Sexy renders, improvements to streetcars, a Park Lawn GO Stn, addressing the need for an additional supermarket in the first phase, a library, a school etc. Well thought out, and the objections answered before they can be made.

In the case of REM de l'est this wasn't done.

In case of Mx here, they've repeatedly poked the bear; and while they've mostly escaped so far; protestors including indigenous protestors loom as a thread on Eglinton West, and there may yet be serious issues at Overlea as well. Some will go ballistic when they've seen the extent of tree cutting.

That doesn't mean you never go elevated, it does mean don't push something through that people will hate, at the risk not only of killing the entire project, but setting back every other project that could have been done using a lower-cost technique by not understanding when there was no give to take.

You have to both know when to back down, but also how to mitigate properly.

Yes, that means extra expenses from renders, to streetscape to ecological restoration, to community benefits. That also means taking the cost of all those into account and determining whether your not better spending a bit more up front.

Its funny you know, UT'ers have a collective bugaboo about above-ground hydro wires and why we can't bury them like most civilized cities, yet, there is a current here in favour of something vastly more intrusive and seemingly no idea whey anyone would object.....

****

I'll also repeat, that doing cut and cover and shallow builds is a whole lot cheaper than deep mining of subways, and public financing is a lot cheaper than P3s, every single time.

The choice to 'save' money by adopting an unpopular construction technique vs in-housing financing is a very odd thing to me.

 

[afransen]

Here's the thing.............

Just like every time someone says a bus would be more cost-efficient than an LRT.......

And maybe they're right, we all recognize that people prefer transit on rails.

Perhaps we should be equally cognizant that people are not happy w/elevated rail lines.

That doesn't mean they should never be done, but its something to be intuitively aware of......

Ultimately, not everything is about the most technically correct decision, its about what the community will accept.

I think people can be sold on elevated in many cases, but we also need to recognize when that isn't going to work.

I'm not going to defend a 36B solution (which, for the record, I think is going nowhere fast); I'm simply saying, people reflexively applaud some things w/o asking....but does anyone actually like it (statistically speaking)

****

Here's a thought, if the incredibly awful elevated downtown Montreal section hadn't been proposed, thing thing would have gone ahead as elevated elsewhere, and presumably underground in downtown.

The choice to propose something that was near riot-inducingly stupid led to the nonsense we're seeing now.

First by highlighting the drawbacks of elevated and second by showing the public could push back and kill elevated.

Self-inflicted wound.

Take note Toronto.

I'm not sure Toronto is learning this lesson. We are building very expensive subway extensions through low density suburbs with YNSE, line 5 Crosstown and the Scarborough Line 2 extension. These three are similar monuments to waste (combined about $25B) as the $36B REM replacement concept.

The $36B concept is just insulting. Toronto is building GO Expansion for less than this...

 

[afransen]

The business model of CPDQ doesn't work without a low capital cost. It's elevated or nothing.

The only other alternative I can think of is if part of the contract was a $10B upfront payment from the government as an idiot-tax.

 

[p_xavier]

The REM de l'Est had much more positive public opinion (about 80%) than the Québec City streetcar (48%) and the latter is going forward. Plante, for someone who's supposed to be pro-transit, is more into urbanist stuff than actually doing transit for her residents. The new project is absolutely bonkers and a massive waste of money. This was also a test for the survival of the ARTM and they failed the test. I just want to hear from the Québec government, the silence is telling.

 

[afransen]

I'm merely noting the situation we find ourselves in (or Montreal does) is a product of going a step too far initially and failing to account for the importance of pleasing people. (or making some reasonable effort).

Paige Saunders had a video on this topic when the line was initially cancelled. He noted (to paraphrase) that really the failure on CDPQ's part was one of political engineering. They should have kept REM de l'Est under wraps until the first phase of the REM opened and it could debunk some of the NIMBY objections and there was a larger constituency that could experience the utility of the added transit. Announcing phase 2 so early just gave NIMBYs time to mobilize without the countervailing force of YIMBYs to buttress the project. Instead Montreal may go back into another transit expansion winter, because we know the $36B plan is not serious.

 

[Northern Light]

Paige Saunders had a video on this topic when the line was initially cancelled. He noted (to paraphrase) that really the failure on CDPQ's part was one of political engineering. They should have kept REM de l'Est under wraps until the first phase of the REM opened and it could debunk some of the NIMBY objections and there was a larger constituency that could experience the utility of the added transit. Announcing phase 2 so early just gave NIMBYs time to mobilize without the countervailing force of YIMBYs to buttress the project. Instead Montreal may go back into another transit expansion winter, because we know the $36B plan is not serious.

I partially agree, but I have to say, the proposal for elevated in the very heart of downtown didn't work for me either; or put another way, I hated it. The elevated bits further out, on stroads, in corridors etc etc. fine or at least not nearly as bothersome.

I think if you go around the world and look for elevated systems (Vancouver, Chicago etc.) and you look specifically for sections in a deeply urban context, they are relatively few. If you went went on to ask the neighbours and the public, would you prefer it as it is, or if they buried it, I'll bet buried would win every single time, by a decent margin as well.

SkyTrain in Vancouver is buried in much of the core for a reason; even though its guideway and stations are considered among the most pleasing of their type.

To this day, 'The El' in Chicago is not looked on particularly favourably, and even there a small portion is subway in the core.

I just don't buy into this idea that forcing something on a community they really don't want is a generally wise idea.

That's not to say we should build only hyper-expensive deeply tunnelled rapid transit, nor avoid building public housing. But rather be aware that the hard push can come at an enormous cost.

The building of vast gob of public housing, mostly in former slums in the U.S. doomed the idea of public housing there almost entirely, very few tower-style projects have been built since the most infamous largely ended up being demolished after less than 50 years of life.

Forced highways in U.S. downtowns led many to be ghost towns and gutted.

While elevated transit in Chicago is seen almost entirely as a welfare service (where, its worth noting, NYC managed to build something that the middle class would take, in at least some measure) .

Each of those examples that I've highlighted were aggressively championed as brilliant public policy in their day. Politicians, planners are architects sang their virtues, while the public's view ended up holding sway.

What was built has either failed or been outright demolished. A phenomenal waste born of the arrogance that 'we know better'.

Its just something I feel ought to be given greater weight, more caution, and not dismissed with ease.

 

[afransen]

I think if you go around the world and look for elevated systems (Vancouver, Chicago etc.) and you look specifically for sections in a deeply urban context, they are relatively few. If you went went on to ask the neighbours and the public, would you prefer it as it is, or if they buried it, I'll bet buried would win every single time, by a decent margin as well.

This isn't really the choice though. Would I prefer a 5000 sqft penthouse to a 1000 sqft condo (as long as someone else is footing the bill)? Sure, why not. The choice is transit as it is economical to develop, or no transit.

Perhaps it should have been tunneled downtown. However, I'm not sure it would have penciled for the funding model being used for this project. The alternative Montreal is getting is nothing.

 

[ARG1]

I partially agree, but I have to say, the proposal for elevated in the very heart of downtown didn't work for me either; or put another way, I hated it. The elevated bits further out, on stroads, in corridors etc etc. fine or at least not nearly as bothersome.

I think if you go around the world and look for elevated systems (Vancouver, Chicago etc.) and you look specifically for sections in a deeply urban context, they are relatively few. If you went went on to ask the neighbours and the public, would you prefer it as it is, or if they buried it, I'll bet buried would win every single time, by a decent margin as well.

SkyTrain in Vancouver is buried in much of the core for a reason; even though its guideway and stations are considered among the most pleasing of their type.

To this day, 'The El' in Chicago is not looked on particularly favourably, and even there a small portion is subway in the core.

I just don't buy into this idea that forcing something on a community they really don't want is a generally wise idea.

That's not to say we should build only hyper-expensive deeply tunnelled rapid transit, nor avoid building public housing. But rather be aware that the hard push can come at an enormous cost.

The building of vast gob of public housing, mostly in former slums in the U.S. doomed the idea of public housing there almost entirely, very few tower-style projects have been built since the most infamous largely ended up being demolished after less than 50 years of life.

Forced highways in U.S. downtowns led many to be ghost towns and gutted.

While elevated transit in Chicago is seen almost entirely as a welfare service (where, its worth noting, NYC managed to build something that the middle class would take, in at least some measure) .

Each of those examples that I've highlighted were aggressively championed as brilliant public policy in their day. Politicians, planners are architects sang their virtues, while the public's view ended up holding sway.

What was built has either failed or been outright demolished. A phenomenal waste born of the arrogance that 'we know better'.

Its just something I feel ought to be given greater weight, more caution, and not dismissed with ease.

But we can expand our sight to countries in East Asia, which have built urban Els that have had none of the issues you speak of. If cities like Tokyo and Singapore can build els on wide downtown boulevards no issue, there is no reason why Montreal can't.

Not to mention, Vancouver is such a weird comparison to make since most of the streets are very narrow (can't be compared to RL), or the Skytrain simply reused existing tunnels (Dunsmuir)

 

[Northern Light]

This isn't really the choice though. Would I prefer a 5000 sqft penthouse to a 1000 sqft condo (as long as someone else is footing the bill)? Sure, why not. The choice is transit as it is economical to develop, or no transit.

Perhaps it should have been tunneled downtown. However, I'm not sure it would have penciled for the funding model being used for this project. The alternative Montreal is getting is nothing.

If the choice was between elevated downtown and nothing, I would have chosen nothing.

We can't use the excuse that we build unsightly crap or nothing, you have have public services you hate, or nothing......that's a terrible line of thinking.

To me that argument reads this way " Every restaurant must be McDonalds, because we refuse to build anything that costs more to build or operate, if you don't like it, you can starve"

How about we spend on a good restaurant instead? Then banish the person who offered the false and poor choice.

 

[Northern Light]

But we can expand our sight to countries in East Asia, which have built urban Els that have had none of the issues you speak of. If cities like Tokyo and Singapore can build els on wide downtown boulevards no issue, there is no reason why Singapore can't.

Sure, we can and should look at examples from everywhere; and give them weight; Toronto need not always be the exception.

On the other hand, Singapore is a very wealthy dictatorship; while Tokyo is somewhere I don't actually like. To be clear, there's much of Tokyo to like, but overall, I think its one of the ugliest cities in the world and would not
choose to model any city after it in respect of architecture or urban design.

I realize many of you like it, but its not my cup of tea.

Singapore though also uses underground stations:

Even when there is seemingly ample room to go above ground:

When we do find elevated sections in Singapore though.......do they feel like an urban 'high street?'

 

[afransen]

How about we spend on a good restaurant instead? Then banish the person who offered the false and poor choice.

At $36B, it's going to be a long wait for dinner.

 

[Northern Light]

I don't want to side track the discussion excessively, but a few pics of Tokyo's El seems apt here:

Different Line:

Just doesn't appeal to me.

 

[Northern Light]

At $36B, it's going to be a long wait for dinner.

Again, false choice.

100% don't accept the dichotomy you're offering.

There are other options.

 

[nfitz]

REM de l'Est was going to be the same technology, partially along urban stroads (Rene Levesque) and rail corridors (Montreal Est)..

It wasn't planned as the same technology when it was first announced back in 2020 - we discussed the technology in this thread back then. During the technical briefing CDPQ was clear that the technology had not been selected, but that they were planning on the vehicles for L'Est would be only 40 metres long, and there'd be no physical connections between the two system.

See the 2020 article from Global that discussed the technical briefing - https://globalnews.ca/news/7522892/montreal-rem-extension/