montréal REM (ligne A) - Discussion générale

[ToxiK]

Il y a 13 heures, Morse Attack a dit :

At this distance they can easily take a bus.

Or just take their car...

A lot of people want single family homes, others would be happy with an attached house.  We need to have a varied supply of housing and put them around denser développements (plexes, condos, etc.) so good public transit would be worthwhile.  And if we don't give them efficient public transit people will simply take their cars.

If we want to improve transit usage, we need to give people good transit not just say "they're rich, they can take the bus".  They just won't do that.

[Morse Attack]

11 hours ago, ToxiK said:

Or just take their car...

A lot of people want single family homes, others would be happy with an attached house.  We need to have a varied supply of housing and put them around denser développements (plexes, condos, etc.) so good public transit would be worthwhile.  And if we don't give them efficient public transit people will simply take their cars.

If we want to improve transit usage, we need to give people good transit not just say "they're rich, they can take the bus".  They just won't do that.

My philosophy is Ridership > Coverage.

If people want cars, so be it.

The responsibility of a smart transit agency is to get as many riders possible on their lines for the lowest cost to the taxpayer. This inevitably means that a close knit network of lines in high desnity areas is the best payoff.

Transit Oriented development is the way to go for lines that cross low-development areas. Not "parking incitatif".

If people choose to live in signle family homes on the periphery, I think thats great. They should be allowed to do whatever they want. As long as the price of their choices is not a burden to the taxpayer (AKA no more highways, and transit limited to "trains de banlieu", unless serving that corridor has really good opportunities to serve high density areas along the way.)

We must be efficient with our infrastructure spending. Period.

One thing for sure, is that if you choose to live in low density housing in meandering cul-de-sacs, you are choosing to be stuck in traffic all day. Thats fine by me if you abide by that choice.
 

[Morse Attack]

In my opinion, transit agencies have been bending their back over for too long trying to get higher income people in the burbs to take their service. 

They wont. We spent over 80 000$ per rider for the stupid Train de l'Est and no one takes it. 
These people like their cars. They want them. So what? Let them have it.

Lets focus on getting transit to people who will actually use it : aka urban lifestyle people and the poor. 
It will be a much better payoff for the environment, social justice equality and all that yada yada.

Stupid politicians trying to buy votes with transit projects that no one will use anyways, its sad.

[mtlurb]

il y a 2 minutes, Morse Attack a dit :

In my opinion, transit agencies have been bending their back over for too long trying to get higher income people in the burbs to take their service. 

They wont. We spent over 80 000$ per rider for the stupid Train de l'Est and no one takes it. 
These people like their cars. They want them. So what? Let them have it.

Lets focus on getting transit to people who will actually use it : aka urban lifestyle people and the poor. 
It will be a much better payoff for the environment, social justice equality and all that yada yada.

Stupid politicians trying to buy votes with transit projects that no one will use anyways, its sad.

I want to add that this project particularly stupid... people will abandon their car in a heartbeat if the alternative is as fast or faster...

Train de l'est took detours and on top of it, has barely any interesting schedule... who in their right mind would abandon their car to take train that takes forever and has a shit schedule !?

[Corbeau]

il y a 22 minutes, Morse Attack a dit :

In my opinion, transit agencies have been bending their back over for too long trying to get higher income people in the burbs to take their service. 

They wont. We spent over 80 000$ per rider for the stupid Train de l'Est and no one takes it. 
These people like their cars. They want them. So what? Let them have it.

Lets focus on getting transit to people who will actually use it : aka urban lifestyle people and the poor. 
It will be a much better payoff for the environment, social justice equality and all that yada yada.

Stupid politicians trying to buy votes with transit projects that no one will use anyways, its sad.

Why take a train that's badly located, takes too much time, and has S**t frequently. And it now got cut by the REM necessiting a transfer?

[ToxiK]

il y a 23 minutes, Morse Attack a dit :

My philosophy is Ridership > Coverage.

If people want cars, so be it.

The responsibility of a smart transit agency is to get as many riders possible on their lines for the lowest cost to the taxpayer. This inevitably means that a close knit network of lines in high desnity areas is the best payoff.

Transit Oriented development is the way to go for lines that cross low-development areas. Not "parking incitatif".

If people choose to live in signle family homes on the periphery, I think thats great. They should be allowed to do whatever they want. As long as the price of their choices is not a burden to the taxpayer (AKA no more highways, and transit limited to "trains de banlieu", unless serving that corridor has really good opportunities to serve high density areas along the way.)

We must be efficient with our infrastructure spending. Period.

One thing for sure, is that if you choose to live in low density housing in meandering cul-de-sacs, you are choosing to be stuck in traffic all day. Thats fine by me if you abide by that choice.
 

If the point is to take cars off the road, then the best way is to built transit where people use their cars.  The metro in Laval is proof of that.  If you had built it in a denser section of Montréal where an already large percentage of the population already used public transit, than you wouldn't have got that many cars off the road.  They built the metro it in a moderately dense part of Laval and it became a huge success.  People form farther in the suburbs also use it (they drive to it but if they use public transit for 70 % of their trip it is still a win).  People in the suburbs have no real options, so if you give it to them the reduction of traffic can be substantial.  Isn't taking car off the road the main goal?

As a bonus, there are TODs that are being built around the 3 Laval metro stations.  Win-win-win.

[Morse Attack]

3 minutes ago, ToxiK said:

If the point is to take cars off the road, then the best way is to built transit where people use their cars.  The metro in Laval is proof of that.  If you had built it in a denser section of Montréal where an already large percentage of the population already used public transit, than you wouldn't have got that many cars off the road.  They built the metro it in a moderately dense part of Laval and it became a huge success.  People form farther in the suburbs also use it (they drive to it but if they use public transit for 70 % of their trip it is still a win).  People in the suburbs have no real options, so if you give it to them the reduction of traffic can be substantial.  Isn't taking car off the road the main goal?

As a bonus, there are TODs that are being built around the 3 Laval metro stations.  Win-win-win.

Here is our major point of disagreement.

I don’t think taking cars off the road is the main purpose of transit.

I think the main purpose is getting as many people as possible to their employment and destinations as fast as possible is the point.

 

 

[Morse Attack]

25 minutes ago, mtlurb said:

Train de l'est took detours and on top of it, has barely any interesting schedule... who in their right mind would abandon their car to take train that takes forever and has a S**t schedule !?

8 minutes ago, Corbeau said:

Why take a train that's badly located, takes too much time, and has S**t frequently. And it now got cut by the REM necessiting a transfer?

This is exactly my point guys.

Its very difficult to run efficient transit operations to locations like these.

A - you need direct routes, not meandering ones. Sprawl is tough to serve with direct, as it is fragmented and spread out.
B - you need high frequency. This is expensive as hell if you do not have automation (salaries are the biggest expense)
C - you need station to be well located. Very tough when your only right-of-way corridor runs through industrial areas and the only place you can put a station is where people can drive too...near a highway that cuts the city in half.
D - heres the key....you need great feeder bus service!!! If not, you are wasting precious land on parking. Its nearly impossible to offer good bus service on meandering low density cul-de-sacs
E - single family home oweners are voracious NIMBYS and will complicate any surface transit (see REM De L'Est) which will also massivly increase costs. They want transit STOPs near their homes, but not the actual rails....

F - Here a bonus point : INDUCED DEMAND. if your transit service dramatically reduces commute times : it WILL attract development. This will inevitably increase  sprawl and car centric development....unless you decide to build high density residentiel near the station and make these people the priority. That means no incitatif parking, as well as measures to limit congestion near the station. This means you are cutting service to single family homes...unless they decide to take the meandering bus. Let me repeat my REM A stats: Solar uniquartier = 4300 homes vs  Brossard parking = 2900 parking spaces on about the same amout of land....both those numbers are potential transit users, who is your priority as an agency? Which population offers the best cost-benefit ratoi?

Watch how this exact scenario will play out on REM-A west island line. NIMBY are already smashing the density down on proposed developments...

 

20 minutes ago, ToxiK said:

If the point is to take cars off the road

I wil add a point, if you choose to serve high density area with good transit, you will make these places more attractive and attract further developpement. A big mistake in reasoning is that you must adress the current amount of cars on the road. This is the wrong way to approach the problem. Cities experiencing population booms should be thinking about the future. Promoting density will take more cars off the road in the long run. Again as an example :Solar Uniquartier is taking more cars off the road than brossard parking lot. 

 

[ToxiK]

il y a 39 minutes, Morse Attack a dit :

Here is our major point of disagreement.

I don’t think taking cars off the road is the main purpose of transit.

I think the main purpose is getting as many people as possible to their employment and destinations as fast as possible is the point.

 

 

In the climate crisis argumentation we mostly hear that the emergency is to take cars off the road, and it is what many policies in Montréal are all about (well, for Projet Montréal it is not as much taking cars off the road that is it taking them out of existence, but that is another debate).  Ideally we would do both take cars off the road AND improve transit for the most people, but with ressources limited I would put the priority on needing less cars.  And let's not forget that a car owner that also uses public transit will be more open to policies that help public transit than one that doesn't.  In a democracy, that can end up making a huge difference for future policies.

[Morse Attack]

4 minutes ago, ToxiK said:

In the climate crisis argumentation we mostly hear that the emergency is to take cars off the road.

This argument will change with elecrtification, but I hear you.
Again, promoting density will do more to take cars of the road that easing the commute burden on sprawling development.