SameGuy

The top of VSLP looks like a Les Fermes Lufa rooftop greenhouse right now. 😄

I like it

If there really are 50 residential skyscraper starts right now in a rapidly softening market, I have to wonder if everything in TO will stall like 2009 Dubai.

Every time Chico does a tour, we all run out of likes. Same thing happens when you do a tour! And Yara! This place is still a treasure trove.

With great power comes great responsibility

But… why? A modern, New World city like Sydney operates a huge bus network that serves 300 million riders a year, two modern tram lines totalling 25 km attracting 15 million riders (with more tram lines opening soon under a progressive expansion plan), a river and harbour ferry network with nine lines carrying 15 million passengers, a 36 km driverless metro currently being expanded to 113 km, and 800 km of electrified train lines serving more than a million riders a day. More modes serve more people, better.

On this, we agree.

Maybe he’s warming us up for something scoopable

Ditto.

How long does the term need to be to save seven-eight-nine billion dollars in “conductor” salaries on a line serving an area that didn’t justify having a mini-metro in the first place?

And did I say those lines were well-conceived? 50+ years ago when we were printing our own money? I honestly don’t get your point. My position remains that we shouldn’t just be throwing costly automated mini-metros everywhere a need for structuring transit projects might possibly exist if those areas would be better served by any other mode. Your position appears to be that costly automated mini-metros are the only solution and everything else is garbage, needs be damned.

Thanks for putting it that succinctly. I have no problem describing it like that, now that you’ve done the work! 😄

Absolutely agree. But the REM (a brand, not a technology) model is under-built. The REM-A underground stations can’t be expanded if the need for greater capacity arises, while doing so to elevated stations will be prohibitively difficult and expensive. The proposed REM-B was even more limited and limiting, with trains and platforms shorter than many modern trams, and a correspondingly small maximum capacity, but at the cost of a heavy rail transit line (regardless of the source of funds), and — as pointed out again by @andre_md above — running mostly through undeveloped and undevelopable areas. Could trams work in place of either REM? No. That wasn’t my point.

Hey welcome back, Old Man! Hope you had a good break and nice holidays.

I think you keep missing my point that we should be building the correct mode for the correct need. I’m done with this discussion because it’s obvious that you refuse to understand that I am being pragmatic. I do not think we need a tram going out to the far east end of the island the same way I do not think we need an automated light metro going out there, nor along Taschereau, nor all the way out to St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, not even out to Baie-d’Urfé or St-Eustache. We got the light metro going out to the western suburbs only as part and parcel of the fantastic deal that the Caisse got when they took over billions of dollars worth of high-value infrastructure for a measly $130 million. Far-flung suburbs are perfectly well served by electric trains in every major, modern city around the world. These can be fully automated to GoA4, that is not my issue. If you are going to build fully brand new infrastructure, I’ve already stated that there is no (or virtually no) cost difference to automate it from the outset. I do not think driven trams are the answer in every need, any more than I think suburban trains are, or heavy metros, or light metros. For one final time, we should be using the correct mode for the correct need, and an automated light people mover isn’t the correct mode for all needs. REM-B was a BAD CONCEPT. I’m out.

Yeah but now we are talking in circles. I have never not said that the right mode should be chosen. I don’t necessarily agree that a light metro is the right mode to serve distant suburbs — there is absolutely no reason to have REM light metros running to Kirkland, Île-Bigras, and Ste-Dorothée, etc., but it’s part of a package deal that was agreed-upon when the Caisse was given the mandate of serving Brossard and the airport with a structuring mode; they got the CN Two Mountains line and all its infrastructure for pennies on the dollar, and in turn could use this incredible bargain to help build a full, large metro system at much lower overall cost than if they were required to create entirely new rights of way. But this city and metropolis already has railway rights of way radiating in every direction and interconnecting at hundreds of nodes, yet we do not build suburban and regional electric railways. Major cities throughout Asia, Australia, and Europe don’t have (or don’t exclusively rely upon) light metros, but they do have hundreds of kilometres of fast, efficient, well-connected, electric trains. Most of those places don’t even have an abundant supply of cheap, clean hydroelectricity like we do, yet somehow they have all figured it out. We just can’t seem to get our heads out of our asses. 100% d’accord.

REM-B. I repeated myself too many times over the past four years or so as more and more of the REM-A project was revealed, that while I have many issues with it, the benefits overall will outweigh the drawbacks. REM-B, OTOH, was simply a bad project.

REM-A will work out to roughly $150 million per kilometre only because rhe Caisse managed to pay peanuts for two-thirds of the infrastructure and rights-of-way they are using. They got all the CN rights of way and infra from the Lachine Canal to Deux-Montagnes, along with the Doney Spur, for pennies on the dollar, plus the right of way on the new bridge. They also made use of a very advantageous expropriation law for the new easements along the remaining 20 km. But we are beating a dead horse here. You know all this already. For the dead REM-B, $10 billion for a 30 km airport people mover to save a couple of million dollars a year in operating costs? It’s still one of the lamest arguments I’ve ever read. One last time, I’d love to see the O&D numbers that justify spending $10 billion on an airport people mover with 40 m automated trams running every 10 minutes.

PS: does anybody honestly believe QC will ever fork over that $800 million of Federal money back to Montréal for the Lachine line?

Donc, 140$ millions par kilomètre à Québec pour un tramway efficace et fiable, right-sizé, au lieu d’un milliard par kilomètre pour un métro.

Moving the goalposts? The point was made about Québec’s weather. Simple math. At $800 million a kilometer — according to your fantastic argument — 23.5 km works out to… do the math.

There are around 200 tram lines that are well-established in cities across Russia, Scandinavia, and northern Europe, many of which get at least as much snow and cold as Québec.

Alors le réseau structurant de Québec va finalement coûter 19$ milliards? Un des arguments bonhomme de foin le plus lousse que j’ai jamais vu.

= Strawman

In other words, show me an O&D study that justifies a 40,000 p/h/d metro at $1 billion a kilometre from Lachine to downtown, as opposed to a 10,000 p/h/d modern tram at perhaps $100 million a kilometer.