amaist

12 hours ago, montrealgoalie said:

Question comme ca

 

Autre que question de sauver de l'argent, pourquoi passer sur la rue marc cantin, au lieu de passer sous Wellington disons (cut and cover) et avoir une station la avant d'embarquer sur la 15?

Y'a t-il des plans de developpement proche de la rue marc cantin?

Perfect is the enemy of good and completed.

Yes, burying it under Wellington with a station would be awesome. But much more expensive and much more difficult to get done in a reasonable amount of time. If at all.

The original plan had a station under the Peel Basin. Very cool but extremely difficult to execute. And any small mistake there under all that water would have threatened the functionality of the whole system in the future.

Quote

Nous sommes présentement au stade de poursuivre les études de constructibilité. Des analyses additionnelles sont requises (par rapport à la construction durant l’exploitation et l'insertion dans l’environnement existant) et nous reviendrons publiquement bientôt pour confirmer la date de mise en service prévue.

French is not my strongest language. But I can understand enough to know it will very likely never happen. With the potential costs and complexities it might not be worth the trouble.

https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/grand-montreal/2022-08-04/refection-du-tunnel-la-fontaine/900-millions-de-plus-et-ferme-plus-longtemps.php

This is a crude screenshot of Munich's Ostbahnhof. 5 minutes from the central station. Trains about every minute (many lines converge here). It's not pretty at all. But it worked amazing. Just make sure to figure out the platform with the next train to the center.

They actually wanted to make the REM at Lachine canal go as a tunnel initially. Then realized the cost would be absurd, time to build even longer. Plus it would have butchered Griffintown at the point where it surfaces cutting the area from Old Montreal even more.

I will take functional and working sooner over pretty and maybe working eventually any day. With the current design my kids will get to experience freedom as teenagers able to quickly move in and out of the city center. Not just being prisoners of suburbia without cars of their own.

15 minutes ago, SameGuy said:

I’d like to remind everyone once again who cried that “CDPQi took over a mostly-already-built line and converted it, so of course it’s not as difficult or costly as a clean-sheet project…”: this is an entirely new network, basically from the ground up, and as such involves many big challenges. The article is correct in reporting that converting an existing infrastructure to a modern use is often much more tricky than building from scratch. 

You are correct that is much more difficult to convert existing infrastructure to new technology.

I am sure that was well understood by the people making that choice. The other choice to build from scratch had it's own issues that are different. Did they have the funding and the political will to acquire space for a new path? Building another tunnel? Judging by the slow progress of the much smaller airport tunnel that approach also has its difficulties.

It's quite possible they underestimated the degree of difficulty to convert the Mount Royal tunnel for REM use. I also suspect it's the rest of us who got seduced by the idea that converting existing structures should be relatively easy. CDPQi presentations are always very optimistic. Has anyone ever seen a PowerPoint that is not optimistic? From any government/corporate entity?

On 2022-01-21 at 4:48 PM, Rocco said:

Bref, ils vont ouvrir le REM l'automne prochain sans avoir testé les voitures circulant sur le pont en hiver. Hallucinant.

My original impression was that they were never planning to do full testing on the new SdC bridge before launching service.

CDPQ Infra explicitly said that the portion before the bridge from Brossard to Panama will be the one where they will test for a year. Which is exactly what they are doing now. Some nice low temperature conditions right now for the trials.

The critical bits to test in winter are power delivery from the overhead wires, reliable operation of doors, effect of snow cover on movement, etc. Those can be tested on the existing test track.

Which aspects need to be tested specifically on the new bridge in winter?

20 hours ago, ToxiK said:

Preople would be very happy to pay that extra $1 billion for something more aesthetics... as long as someone esle is actually paying !

My point was that the same exact people complaining about aesthetics will complain about the extra cost if the decision was made to upgrade aesthetics. They will also be extremely displeased with the actual design choices.

Lifetime complainers. Nothing ever will be good enough for them and they keep spreading their misery on all of us. The best approach is to mostly ignore them or occasionally call out their BS when their negativity completely obliterates their ability to reason.

The article is deceptive. Using a narrow angle shot along the direction of the track vs a wide angle rendering of the project in a different location to show how CDPQ Infra was somehow deceptive.

Maybe the system could be made to look better. But at what cost? Will the same people be happy with an extra $1 Billion in cost?

I fully expect the same exact journalists writing articles on how it was very wasteful to go for the "pretty" approach if such a choice were to be made. Their goal is to generate attention to their publication.

I just rode a Bixi up and down rebuilt Peel yesterday. Between Notre Dame and Rene Levesque.

Very Copenhagen. I approve.

It was not crowded during early afternoon so I can't judge how it's going to be if there are a lot of pedestrians on the sidewalk. It did not seem that constrained to me.

I think providing decent spacing for bicycles is good for overall spacing. There is a very high variance of speeds and having room to avoid each other is welcome. As for wandering pedestrians, it will take some time for people to learn. The small level differences between road/bike/pedestrian sections are already much better than just having some painted lines. People notice physical features much better than painted/written instructions.

Peel Street car capacity will definitely be lower than before but it is mitigated a bit by expanding the road to allow for turning lanes and such.

Even before the reconstruction nobody should have expected to get through that area quickly.

I actually took the Bixi because I was going to lunch from Old Montreal to Downtown. I realized that trying to find a place to stuff my car around Peel/St. Catherine was foolish. Took the electric Bixi going up. 10 minutes and $1.00 on top of my yearly membership. Infinitely better experience. The new Peel Street bike path made it a no-brainer. The old configuration was only usable by bike messengers and people who wanted to be proven to have followed all the rules of the road but still dead after a truck ran them over.

9 hours ago, Né entre les rapides said:

I know of leaders who debate seriously, but then make silly decisions once in power.  All we need to do is to pay no attention to unrealistic promises.  What truly count is pragmatism in governing.

I used to think like that. To the most part it is true that most politicians don't try to seriously follow through on their most ridiculous promises. Sadly some do. It's not always obvious which ones will do that.

If you repeat an idea frequently for a long enough period of time it eventually becomes normal to a large number of people. That's how crazy and dangerous ideas infect us.

I am not saying covering up Decarie Expressway is a dangerous idea. It does seem like a waste of time and money to me, though. The disruption that project will cause will be even more painful to the whole city than the monetary cost. I already call it the Decarie Parking Lot. With this project over several years people better learn how to navigate surface streets in the area to get anywhere.

Yes, it's a noisy nuisance. But that was already known for generations. There are other areas of Montreal that can use some investment to become more pleasant to live in. With much better returns per million spent.

On 2021-10-01 at 2:50 PM, SameGuy said:

That looks harder to replace than a super beam

I suspect it is actually easier to fix than the super bean on the old bridge. Steel is easy to cut and weld, bolt, rivet etc. Look at the work on the Mercier Bridge or PJC. They keep going through different steel bits without very serious disruptions to traffic.

The old bridge needed whole spans replaced as a single piece. It would require shutting it down for a serious amount of time (possibly a couple weeks or a month) to do each span. That's what pushed the feds into building a brand new bridge.

On 2021-08-25 at 1:24 PM, Rocco said:

Most NYC stations have been open 40-50 years more than ours... We are on our way..... No worries!

A huge number of stations in Moscow and St Petersburg, Russia have been open longer than all Montreal stations. Most look very nice and many are a tourist attraction in and of themselves.

It's a matter of will and allocation of resources by those in charge. Time is not relevant.

8 minutes ago, go_habs_go said:

Or they can just make the lanes straight so that drivers have a general sense of direction even when there is snow covering the markings. Roads should be "natural" to navigate as much as possible. What they did on Peel with the zigging and the zagging just doesn't create any natural flow for winter driving (let alone summer!).

Multiple conflicting goals prevent that. Notice how the section going up from St Jacques begins as one lane and splits into two lanes. The aim is to provide as much space as possible to bicycles and pedestrians. So we either make it even more hellish for the drivers and make it all a single lane or forget about making things better for pedestrians and cyclists.

The alignment does makes sense if we had a culture of driving where people wouldn't take pride in their ineptitude as drivers. The most basic rule of staying to the right most side of the road would allow this intersection to function well even when covered in snow. But people often can't be bothered with such trivialities like watching well ahead and staying to the right and follow the alignment of the road.

And don't worry, even if they followed your recommendations it would still be a disaster. Once you make something idiot proof nature comes up with a better idiot.

On 2021-08-30 at 2:38 PM, go_habs_go said:

Yeah that'll work well in winter when the lines are covered in snow and ice. It's like we forget we need to design road markings to work in both summer AND winter. ALLOOOOO??

It's all useless anyway. A big proportion of drivers consider signs and road markings as no more than decorations. Zero informational value in all seasons to them. 

Any painted line will get covered by snow. Overhead signs can help. Another solution is raised curbs and such but those can get in the way of plows and make for dangerous winter situations when snow is piled up making them less visible.

Dreaming of TGV trains is great. I enjoyed taking the TGV in France. Hell, I took the "high speed" train in Russia. Still incomparably better than the bouncefest that is VIA Montreal-Toronto track. The only way the wine during business class lunch would stay off my clothes was when I held the glass steadily and emptied it into my mouth.

Maybe we should first convince the Canadian railroad companies to research this wondrous technology of concrete rail ties. Even godless communists in USSR could figure it out. But it's sort of like putting a separate amber blinker on the back of the car. American car makers just don't seem to understand how to do it. Just blink the red brake light.

I was hoping that when they moved the rails during the Turcot project that they would use concrete ties in the new section. Nope! Same old lumber soaked in whatever nasty chemicals they soak wooden rail ties. Welcome to 1921!

To my great relief, there is not a single piece of lumber holding up the REM rails.

12 hours ago, SameGuy said:

I’d love to know how they plan to keep “artists” off the CN Overpass with a train zipping by every 2½ to 5 minutes in both directions, as well as during the four hours of down time overnight…

I expect that REM tracks will have their own fencing for the whole route. There will be cameras and sensors to ensure automated operation. I also expect the "artistes" to operate during the daily REM shutdown at night. They are typically quite crafty and regular REM operation is actually a safety benefit. It's predictable. Most of the time someone gets hurt on the train tracks is when they don't expect the train. I imagine that the same police force working in the Metro will have authority in the REM system. Or something similar.

21 hours ago, internationalx said:

Instead of building this, they probably should not have built Bay stores in every suburban mall, effectively cannibalizing downtown flagships.  

If the Bay didn't build stores in every suburban mall then someone else would have. The downtown flagships were going to get cannibalized. Hudson's Bay Company had a simple choice. Will they be the ones doing the cannibalizing or someone else?

Once enough people owned private cars it was over. Do you expect families to do serious shopping at the Bay and carry all their purchases back home on public transport when they already own a car?

23 hours ago, Miska said:

The lamp posts have always been there. The blocked portion was 2 lanes of the A10, separeted by a low concrete divider (and lamp posts) with 2 other lanes to head towards the A30 East or West. Will they go back to that old configuration? We will soon see I hope.

I can't find any communication on how or when they will reopen this. That whole section will need a major rebuild. Same for the Taschereau overpass. The lane shift is creating major traffic issues in a place that almost never had them.

22 hours ago, Rocco said:

J'aimerais juste comprendre leur choix de béton/métal/béton/métal à différents endroits, pour le moins random.

Definitely not random.

Steel girders are chosen when the tracks cross a road or another railway. Going over regular ground it's concrete.

I am not an engineer but my guess is steel would be more resistant to impacts and easier/faster to repair. Severe damage to concrete might require replacing a whole span.

They also use steel on longer spans when necessary.

Yes, steel is more expensive but better looking. I am taxed enough already not to care too much that concrete is not as 'haute couture' looking. My kids are becoming teenagers as REM is launching. They will have freedom of mobility. Just like I had growing up in the evil USSR while my liberated peers in suburban USA where locked up in their suburban subdivisions.

23 hours ago, SameGuy said:

Gonna steal “office plankton” btw.

Feel free to do so. I am not claiming authorship, either.

They definitely need to improve the pedestrian/cycling path on PJC. It's way too narrow. The pedestrian/cyclist clash is not even the biggest problem. It's the wide range of cyclists using the path. From Bixi noobs and families to full-on MAMILs. The disparity of speeds and skills is very dangerous.

The picture of the temporarily widened path is misleading. It's not possible to configure it this way for the whole length of the bridge. In the parts through the superstructure the path is separated from the roadway. The only solution is to have a barrier thin enough to be stored by the side of the roadway that can be moved out to dedicate a full lane to a segregated cycling path. I don't know if that is feasible.

Having used both PJC and the new Pont Samuel de Champlain paths there is absolutely no comparison. I really enjoy my new 4 billion dollar bike path.