[urbanclient]

I do appreciate your insights and almost always agree with you. But this one seems like a stretch.

Yes, appropriating the tunnel did hamper Montreal's suburban trains; yes, technically, what you said about it going over budget is true. Yes, it currently breaks down in winter sometimes. But seems harsher on it than it deserved. The quality and frequency of the REM is far better than the commuter rail it replaced. It created a spine in the middle of the city with the connections to the Metro that would not have existed for another century if not done now.

The budget increased from a shockingly low 6.3B to a more 'typical' 9.4B for 67 km of rail. Even with the increases, it seems a lot more efficiently designed and constructed than any currently under construction transit project in Ontario or Quebec. (Might not be completely accurate. I don't have the time to look at the numbers, especially for other provinces, during my lunch break.)

There are growing pains, but these will get ironed out.

I concur, here is some pro-CDPQ propaganda

Less consultants, low contingencies, and also:

^Wow what a novel concept... Hear that Metrolinx? Hiring campus-recruit consultants with zero industry experience is not a good idea.
Being a part of the ongoing HS2 debacle as a consultant ≠ successfully delivered past projects. Not naming names...

It all adds up to a small, efficient group, further enabled by a favourable political environment in Quebec.

People nitpick that 30 km of track and the Mont Royal tunnel already existed, or that the Champlain bridge was built with provision for future transit, but fundamentally the REM’s low cost was due to a departure from the North American transit development model. The REM saved on the soft costs.

And the more expensive PSE replacement for the cancelled REM de l'Est, marks a return to that ill-conceived model which allows soft costs to exceed the hard construction costs:

The dead giveaway is that a surface-running tram is projected to cost nearly double that of an elevated and underground metro.
How is it okay for contingency to be higher than hard costs, and escalation to be nearly the same?

The REM is successful because it focused on reducing the actual (soft) costs, so the original $6.3 billion became $9.4 billion for 67km and 26 stations. They were aggressive with cost-saving with a lower budget to start, despite being tolerant of later overruns and delays (*cough* Eglinton $5.3 to $10+ billion for 25 'stations' that also started earlier).

I am fairly certain the material costs for the REM were also higher than Eglinton: 26 platform screen door stations compared to 15 stations, and 10 median stops.
Even doubling the REM's real capital costs to $20 billion puts it at <$300 million per km. A miracle for North American rapid transit.

Regarding bloated contingencies, Dr. Jonathan English says: "Once the higher budget is allocated, it's pretty much guaranteed to get spent [by the P3 consortium]."
Roughly speaking for the REM, CDPQ Infra acted as the private party instead of a consortium. So not really a P3 in the Metrolinx DBF(OM) sense.

its merely that the trades made to achieve that have some longer term adverse consequences some with very significant price tags now shifted to other projects (see new tunnel into downtown Montreal for Alto)

The lack of a unified vision for transportation led to this, and it is a tragedy, because a new tunnel for Alto would be very costly. I am not entirely sure how or if a full provision could have been left for Alto though, the old tunnel was over a century old. More to the point, IMO, allowing ~120,000 daily REM trips to go through the old tunnel earlier, instead of leaving room for 72,000 Alto riders from 2038 onwards*, doesn't seem like as bad of a trade-off as many believe. I lament the impending wasted money on a wholly new tunnel for Alto, but I also think rapid transit needs are more of a pressing short-term need than HSR.

*assuming Alto progresses quickly, with 100% load factor to and from Montreal, 1000 pax per 16 car trainset, 72 trains per day.

 

[Bojaxs]

do not reinvent the wheel; yes, take advantage of new/improved technologies, but proven ones, preferably delivered by the people who have done the proving.

The REM isn't bad, but my biggest gripe is passenger trains (VIA & EXO) losing access to the Mount Royal tunnel. If we could start all over again, I would have liked to have seen the Duex- Montagnes line remain as an EXO line, but upgraded to run the Stadler Flirts. Similar to what we see on the electrified portion of the Caltrain.

 

[SFO-YYZ]

I concur, here is some pro-CDPQ propaganda

Less consultants, low contingencies, and also:
View attachment 711875
^Wow what a novel concept... Hear that Metrolinx? Hiring campus-recruit consultants with zero industry experience is not a good idea.
Being a part of the ongoing HS2 debacle as a consultant ≠ successfully delivered past projects. Not naming names...

It all adds up to a small, efficient group, further enabled by a favourable political environment in Quebec.

People nitpick that 30 km of track and the Mont Royal tunnel already existed, or that the Champlain bridge was built with provision for future transit, but fundamentally the REM’s low cost was due to a departure from the North American transit development model. The REM saved on the soft costs.
View attachment 711885

And the more expensive PSE replacement for the cancelled REM de l'Est, marks a return to that ill-conceived model which allows soft costs to exceed the hard construction costs:

View attachment 711884

The dead giveaway is that a surface-running tram is projected to cost nearly double that of an elevated and underground metro.
How is it okay for contingency to be higher than hard costs, and escalation to be nearly the same?

The REM is successful because it focused on reducing the actual (soft) costs, so the original $6.3 billion became $9.4 billion for 67km and 26 stations. They were aggressive with cost-saving with a lower budget to start, despite being tolerant of later overruns and delays (*cough* Eglinton $5.3 to $10+ billion for 25 'stations' that also started earlier).

I am fairly certain the material costs for the REM were also higher than Eglinton: 26 platform screen door stations compared to 15 stations, and 10 median stops.
Even doubling the REM's real capital costs to $20 billion puts it at <$300 million per km. A miracle for North American rapid transit.

Regarding bloated contingencies, Dr. Jonathan English says: "Once the higher budget is allocated, it's pretty much guaranteed to get spent [by the P3 consortium]."
Roughly speaking for the REM, CDPQ Infra acted as the private party instead of a consortium. So not really a P3 in the Metrolinx DBF(OM) sense.

The lack of a unified vision for transportation led to this, and it is a tragedy, because a new tunnel for Alto would be very costly. I am not entirely sure how or if a full provision could have been left for Alto though, the old tunnel was over a century old. More to the point, IMO, allowing ~120,000 daily REM trips to go through the old tunnel earlier, instead of leaving room for 72,000 Alto riders from 2038 onwards*, doesn't seem like as bad of a trade-off as many believe. I lament the impending wasted money on a wholly new tunnel for Alto, but I also think rapid transit needs are more of a pressing short-term need than HSR.

*assuming Alto progresses quickly, with 100% load factor to and from Montreal, 1000 pax per 16 car trainset, 72 trains per day.

Well said.

Also I live on the island and use the new branch several times a week during rush hour, so do many of my colleagues. Maybe we just all got lucky but I’ve yet to experience the so-called catastrophic breakdowns and delays.

But once again, some say that CDPQi is good at marketing the REM - but shouldn’t that be a good thing? Would we rather that they suck at marketing transit projects, and have the entire discourse around transit be dictated by the local right wing tabloids and American owned media like Montreal Gazette? I also take metro orange line daily - and believe me when I say it is nearly constantly delayed - but this doesn’t get nearly enough (negative) coverage as the REM.

 

[SFO-YYZ]

You're welcome to your take, we'll disagree here though.



The entire Metro system in Montreal is not yet a century old, indeed not even 70 years, there's no reason you couldn't double it in size in far less than a century.

I get that government's in Quebec (as elsewhere) spent at least a generation, if not two, dithering on subway expansion; but that was a political choice, not a necessity.

The inordinate costs of recent subways can be taken back out as easily as they were embedded. Replace private design with public, build shallower, and with cut and cover, where feasible. tender at 100% design, publicly finance, do not tender out maintenance or operation.



As per above, my argument on the REM is not against the absolute cost, its merely that the trades made to achieve that have some longer term adverse consequences some with very significant price tags now shifted to other projects (see new tunnel into downtown Montreal for Alto) a fair pricing of REM would include the entire cost of that tunnel.

Its also that proponents have oversold the gains and undersold the drawbacks.

This, by the way is what we are experiencing here with the Ontario Line which will come in years late, and at vastly higher sums that initially suggested, while inflating the cost of Alto significantly, impairing GO service for at least 5 years, and doing needless ecological damage, while creating a system more vulnerable to winter.



I'm sure many will, but all the other issues will remain.

The REM is almost close to completion now. Maybe let’s shift the discourse on how to improve it and make it better, instead of how we should all turn back the clock somehow and go back to the drawing board?

In the ideal world - I agree 100% with all of your points. But Quebec and Canada ain’t in a very good place right now - our politics, our public finances, and our economic situation. Do I wish that we could turn back the clock to 2015, and that the ARTM and STM step up their game and actually retain a competent team of permanent in-house large project managers and engineers who regularly deliver successful projects, and deliver an RER style regional electric network of fast trains and underground metros in 1-2 decades? Yes 100% I’m behind that, but that’s wishful thinking and simply doesn’t reflect our reality here in Montreal and Quebec, so we do with what we have.

 

[duffo]

I concur, here is some pro-CDPQ propaganda

Less consultants, low contingencies, and also:
View attachment 711875
^Wow what a novel concept... Hear that Metrolinx? Hiring campus-recruit consultants with zero industry experience is not a good idea.
Being a part of the ongoing HS2 debacle as a consultant ≠ successfully delivered past projects. Not naming names...

It all adds up to a small, efficient group, further enabled by a favourable political environment in Quebec.

People nitpick that 30 km of track and the Mont Royal tunnel already existed, or that the Champlain bridge was built with provision for future transit, but fundamentally the REM’s low cost was due to a departure from the North American transit development model. The REM saved on the soft costs.
View attachment 711885

And the more expensive PSE replacement for the cancelled REM de l'Est, marks a return to that ill-conceived model which allows soft costs to exceed the hard construction costs:

View attachment 711884

The dead giveaway is that a surface-running tram is projected to cost nearly double that of an elevated and underground metro.
How is it okay for contingency to be higher than hard costs, and escalation to be nearly the same?

The REM is successful because it focused on reducing the actual (soft) costs, so the original $6.3 billion became $9.4 billion for 67km and 26 stations. They were aggressive with cost-saving with a lower budget to start, despite being tolerant of later overruns and delays (*cough* Eglinton $5.3 to $10+ billion for 25 'stations' that also started earlier).

I am fairly certain the material costs for the REM were also higher than Eglinton: 26 platform screen door stations compared to 15 stations, and 10 median stops.
Even doubling the REM's real capital costs to $20 billion puts it at <$300 million per km. A miracle for North American rapid transit.

Regarding bloated contingencies, Dr. Jonathan English says: "Once the higher budget is allocated, it's pretty much guaranteed to get spent [by the P3 consortium]."
Roughly speaking for the REM, CDPQ Infra acted as the private party instead of a consortium. So not really a P3 in the Metrolinx DBF(OM) sense.

The lack of a unified vision for transportation led to this, and it is a tragedy, because a new tunnel for Alto would be very costly. I am not entirely sure how or if a full provision could have been left for Alto though, the old tunnel was over a century old. More to the point, IMO, allowing ~120,000 daily REM trips to go through the old tunnel earlier, instead of leaving room for 72,000 Alto riders from 2038 onwards*, doesn't seem like as bad of a trade-off as many believe. I lament the impending wasted money on a wholly new tunnel for Alto, but I also think rapid transit needs are more of a pressing short-term need than HSR.

*assuming Alto progresses quickly, with 100% load factor to and from Montreal, 1000 pax per 16 car trainset, 72 trains per day.

This entire logic falls apart when you realize that many of the same people at SNC-Lavalin working on the Eglinton Line also worked on the REM. Both are P3s - Crosslinx for Eglinton, and NouvLR for the REM. Contractually, they are structured extremely similarly... the difference is that CPDQ (technically private-sector) is empowered to get things built and remove barriers, while Metrolinx is empowered to do exactly the opposite.

 

[Northern Light]

The REM is almost close to completion now. Maybe let’s shift the discourse on how to improve it and make it better, instead of how we should all turn back the clock somehow and go back to the drawing board?

In the ideal world - I agree 100% with all of your points. But Quebec and Canada ain’t in a very good place right now - our politics, our public finances, and our economic situation. Do I wish that we could turn back the clock to 2015, and that the ARTM and STM step up their game and actually retain a competent team of permanent in-house large project managers and engineers who regularly deliver successful projects, and deliver an RER style regional electric network of fast trains and underground metros in 1-2 decades? Yes 100% I’m behind that, but that’s wishful thinking and simply doesn’t reflect our reality here in Montreal and Quebec, so we do with what we have.

I'm happy to look to the future and not re-litigate the past; but I do think its important to represent what was, is and could have been with a measure of accuracy and context, such that what we do next achieves the best way forward possible.

 

[SFO-YYZ]

I'm happy to look to the future and not re-litigate the past; but I do think its important to represent what was, is and could have been with a measure of accuracy and context, such that what we do next achieves the best way forward possible.

What could’ve been:

- a regional network of RER style trains at high frequency and full electrification run under the single umbrella of EXO/ARTM, along with airport rail link from Dorval Exo to YUL.

- a vastly expanded STM metro network, extension of blue line both east and west, closing the orange line loop up and thru Laval, extension of metro yellow line further south shore.

What was/has been achieved:

- a different delivery and financing model for transit in North America

- vastly lower project costs. Yes I know you mentioned that costs exploded from the original $6 billion to $9 billion, but even at $10 billion + that is still a huge bargain by any measure compared to any rapid transit projects in North America in recent measure. The media optics never look good when costs explode, but Montrealers ended up with 67 km of high frequency rapid transit for less than $10 billion. We must be doing something right.

I agree with what an earlier poster wrote regarding soft costs / contingency costs and how the REM shrunk their project contingency to a bare minimum, while similar projects run by Metrolinx often come with a huge contingency reserve and other soft costs (third party consultants). But even with large contingencies most of these projects still end up over budget and behind schedule. I think the topic of project costing and financing deserve a lot more scrutiny and study, and I’d be curious to see a deeper analysis of projecting costing between the various transit projects in Canada currently underway.

I worked as a third party project manager / consultant for Metrolinx in TO for nearly 4 years - not directly in capital projects delivery but for their cloud and org tech strategy - their budget for external consultants is eye poppingly astronomical. In 2020 when we did an audit of Metrolinx org chart specifically for their tech team, we realized somewhere around 60%-75% of their FTEs fell under the category of consultants or independent contractors who were effectively replacing their FTE headcount, an astonishingly high proportion compared to most other IT organizations I’ve seen in other industries. During those years, Metrolinx effectively became the largest Canadian customer for Deloitte / KPMG / Accenture consulting hour billings.

 

[urbanclient]

This entire logic falls apart when you realize that many of the same people at SNC-Lavalin working on the Eglinton Line also worked on the REM

Regarding bloated contingencies, Dr. Jonathan English says: "Once the higher budget is allocated, it's pretty much guaranteed to get spent [by the P3 consortium]."
Roughly speaking for the REM, CDPQ Infra acted as the private party instead of a consortium. So not really a P3 in the Metrolinx DBF(OM) sense.

^One vendor being the same doesn't mean the entire project was fundamentally the same. Feel free to look up the massive differences in how the REM project was setup and executed vs. Eglinton. Feels like you ignored most of that post.

CDPQ Infra did not fulfill the same role for the REM as Metrolinx for Eglinton. CDPQ Infra was Metrolinx and (parts of) Crosslinx combined, while cutting out the TTC for a private operator that answers directly to the owner, Metrolinx (in the REM's case: CDPQ).

Saying the REM was just like Eglinton, in that both were technically P3s, is like saying a Fiat 500 Abarth and a Ferrari are both Italian sports cars.

the difference is that CPDQ (technically private-sector) is empowered to get things built and remove barriers, while Metrolinx is empowered to do exactly the opposite.

You're spot on here, and I'll expand: CDPQ acts like a private sector entity, it's profit-driven to get ROI for Quebec's public pensions etc. Metrolinx acts as an accountability shield for politicians. Of course they deliver different results when their motivations are so different. There is little to no outcome accountability for transit projects in Toronto.

- a regional network of RER style trains at high frequency and full electrification run under the single umbrella of EXO/ARTM, along with airport rail link from Dorval Exo to YUL.

- a vastly expanded STM metro network, extension of blue line both east and west, closing the orange line loop up and thru Laval, extension of metro yellow line further south shore.

For this hypothetical that some people mourn the loss of, I ask, where is the money? This would've easily cost $30+ billion. $10 billion for RER, $20 billion minimum for ~≥20 km of metro. For its budget, the REM is a miracle by North American standards.

 

[jje1000]

IMO the REM was achieved within a narrow window of stacked advantages (Deux-Montagnes infrastucture/ROWs, Quebec Liberal-CDPQ collaboration, lack of NIMBY immune response), so kudos to those who saw the potential and seized it. It's very much like Waterloo's LRT, that the initial conditions that made it so affordable (Waterloo-Kitchener's reuse of old rail ROW) are likely not so readily available for future phases (Cambridge).

The Ontario Line and ALTO will each test whether, respectively, the light-metro technology's ability and the CDPQ's expertise to deliver affordability on entirely new rights-of-way.

 

[urbanclient]

light-metro technology

Do you mind expanding on this as it applies to the Ontario Line?

 

[robmausser]

The REM isn't bad, but my biggest gripe is passenger trains (VIA & EXO) losing access to the Mount Royal tunnel. If we could start all over again, I would have liked to have seen the Duex- Montagnes line remain as an EXO line, but upgraded to run the Stadler Flirts. Similar to what we see on the electrified portion of the Caltrain.

I actually completely 100% agree with this. The entire REM should have been Stadler Flirts on mainline rail, even over the bridge to South Shore.

This would have allowed continued use of the tunnel by the Mascouche Line and use of the tunnel by Alto.

 

[innsertnamehere]

I actually completely 100% agree with this. The entire REM should have been Stadler Flirts on mainline rail, even over the bridge to South Shore.

This would have allowed continued use of the tunnel by the Mascouche Line and use of the tunnel by Alto.

With REM frequencies what they are, do you even want to insert ALTO services on the same tracks?

I'm fine with REM taking over the Mount Royal tunnel. I don't think it was realistic for the two services to share a tunnel and it's better to use the existing tunnel for the first project to come along than to saddle REM with the tunnel and leave the existing asset stranded until Alto comes around.

This is especially true since a new tunnel will conceivably enable higher travel speeds for ALTO than the existing one would have allowed.

 

[SFO-YYZ]

With REM frequencies what they are, do you even want to insert ALTO services on the same tracks?

I'm fine with REM taking over the Mount Royal tunnel. I don't think it was realistic for the two services to share a tunnel and it's better to use the existing tunnel for the first project to come along than to saddle REM with the tunnel and leave the existing asset stranded until Alto comes around.

This is especially true since a new tunnel will conceivably enable higher travel speeds for ALTO than the existing one would have allowed.

Exactly. Given peak frequencies of 90 seconds to 2 min, and off peak of 4-5 min on the core line between Édouard Montpetit and Gare Centrale, don’t see how one can realistically stack in ALTO HSR while maintaining speed for the HSR service.

Not to mention how ALTO’s first segment won’t be in service until 2035-40 based on the most optimistic timeline.

REM could’ve become RER given the established Exo network, but that’s on the assumption that 1) there’s at least $20-$40 billion that the QC government needs to put up with no help from CDPQ not including negotiations to purchase new tracks and corridors 2) ARTM actually grows a pair and step up its game (which still hasn’t materialized since its inception) since most Montrealers are wondering what exactly the ARTM does.