montréal REM de l'Est

[SameGuy]

Also opens the door to an eventual A-25-aligned offering of some sort.

46 minutes ago, Rocco said:

Avoir détourné de Honoré-Beaugrand, ça fait définitivement plus "clean" comme map de transport. Il y aura 9 stations intermodales de rail dans le réseau (éventuellement 10), 5 au sud, 4 au nord (éventuellement 5 au nord avec Bois-Franc). Et les lignes verte/REM ne se chevaucherons plus dans le secteur Honoré-Beaugrand, ce qui amenait un visuel plus ou moins mélangeant avec le terminus de la verte qui "rentrait" dans le tronçon du REM. Là on se pile plus sur les pieds et chaque tronçon dessert un secteur spécifique. J'aime.

 

[SameGuy]

And yet, in ten years — when REM-B might be in service — the under-served areas on the map will be even more densely populated.

[Julpyz]

Updated my map, It look indeed cleaner without the weird Honoré-Beaugrand alignment. I took a guess for the new station location.

[Cataclaw]

12 minutes ago, SameGuy said:

And yet, in ten years — when REM-B might be in service — the under-served areas on the map will be even more densely populated.

Time for yellow line to save the day 🤩

 

[Né entre les rapides]

il y a 43 minutes, SameGuy a dit :

And yet, in ten years — when REM-B might be in service — the under-served areas on the map will be even more densely populated.

Really?  -- These areas might admittedly become more densely built up (more square meters of living space par square kilometer) but this increase might  be countered by the continuing shrinking of the average size of households.  As you certainly know, several neighborhoods in Montreal (but also in older suburbs) have seen their population decline despite net additions to their housing stocks. 

But more importantly:

- I dispute the the assumption that most residents (both existing and future) of these areas (and others as well) will have downtown (or other central locations) as their primary daily destination.  I rather see (and wish for) a significant decentralization of employment locations, preferably within short distances of their places of residence.

- Irrespective of the population growth of the said areas, it will pale in comparison with the growth in outlying areas (aka the off-island suburbs), which are and will remain much more poorly served by mass public transit.    Priorities?

[Cataclaw]

1 hour ago, Né entre les rapides said:

Really?  -- These areas might admittedly become more densely built up (more square meters of living space par square kilometer) but this increase might  be countered by the continuing shrinking of the average size of households.  As you certainly know, several neighborhoods in Montreal (but also in older suburbs) have seen their population decline despite net additions to their housing stocks. 

But more importantly:

- I dispute the the assumption that most residents (both existing and future) of these areas (and others as well) will have downtown (or other central locations) as their primary daily destination.  I rather see (and wish for) a significant decentralization of employment locations, preferably within short distances of their places of residence.

- Irrespective of the population growth of the said areas, it will pale in comparison with the growth in outlying areas (aka the off-island suburbs), which are and will remain much more poorly served by mass public transit.    Priorities?

You're right that households have been shrinking, but this decrease has now slowed to a stop. We see this trend across the OECD. As nations develop, their household sizes decrease, until they "bottom out". I created a graph below to illustrate this using publicly available data (Source: Institut de la statistique du Québec).

We can therefore expect the neighbourhoods identified by SameGuy to increase in population, not just in building density.

If we take Villeray for example and look at ARTM origin-destination data, we see that the majority of the residents have destinations outside their area. (Source: https://resultatsod.artm.quebec/). I agree with you that we will see increasing decentralization, but for now, the data shows downtown is still king.

I'm the first one here to call for rapid transit on the south shore (yellow line.. LÉEO.. REM Taschereau..) but I can't deny that so many Montreal neighbourhoods lack metro access. The yellow line mockup I posted was just for fun, but honestly, I'm only half kidding. Something like that will need to be built in the next 25-40 years. We need to service the densifying suburbs but also consider our under-serviced urban areas.

If we wanted to be very aggressive about this -- (never gonna happen) -- we would toll the highways and bridges, implement congestion pricing, increase the gas tax, and spend all that money on tripling our transit network. To assist low-income people and rural folks (e.g. farmers) we would just need to give them tax relief / tax credits to compensate.

 

[Enalung]

I've been mostly reading the reactions from the last few pages, not saying much, and I still don't quite know how to react to this news. If anything, my takeaway is that there is going to be somebody who is unhappy no matter which alignment ultimately ends up being built.

1 hour ago, Né entre les rapides said:

- I dispute the the assumption that most residents (both existing and future) of these areas (and others as well) will have downtown (or other central locations) as their primary daily destination.  I rather see (and wish for) a significant decentralization of employment locations, preferably within short distances of their places of residence.

- Irrespective of the population growth of the said areas, it will pale in comparison with the growth in outlying areas (aka the off-island suburbs), which are and will remain much more poorly served by mass public transit.    Priorities?

Ultimately, I think that this goes back to something that I have said many times. Montreal needs a comprehensive plan for the next several decades. We've been building transport piecemeal, to deliver on electoral pledges. While REM-A was a nice change from decades of almost nothing, it was also politically driven. Montreal needs a plan to build a network, a transit agency that has recurring funding necessary, and the ability to make decisions to implement that plan over the next few decades.

[Né entre les rapides]

il y a 5 minutes, Cataclaw a dit :

You're right that households have been shrinking, but this decrease has now slowed to a stop. We see this trend across the OECD. As nations develop, their household sizes decrease, until they "bottom out". I created a graph below to illustrate this using publicly available data (Source: Institut de la statistique du Québec).

We can therefore expect the neighbourhoods identified by SameGuy to increase in population, not just in building density.

If we take Villeray for example and look at ARTM origin-destination data, we see that the majority of the residents have destinations outside their area. (Source: https://resultatsod.artm.quebec/). I agree with you that we will see increasing decentralization, but for now, the data shows downtown is still king.

I'm the first one here to call for rapid transit on the south shore (yellow line.. LÉEO.. REM Taschereau..) but I can't deny that so many Montreal neighbourhoods lack metro access. The yellow line mockup I posted was just for fun, but honestly, I'm only half kidding. Something like that will need to be built in the next 25-40 years. We need to service the densifying suburbs but also consider our under-serviced urban areas.

 

These are all good points.  We could perhaps have a discussion over the differences between forecasts (how things will turn out) and our wishes (what we think would be "best").

On the point about households sizes bottoming out, I agree that the general shape of the curve is asymptotical; however, I note that your data refer to the whole Province of Québec, not the City of Montréal proper.  Nevertheless, I am prepared to accept the assumption of a net population growth in the areas described in the previous discussion.  The next question is: then what? (what should be done about it?)

 

[Né entre les rapides]

il y a 14 minutes, Enalung a dit :

I've been mostly reading the reactions from the last few pages, not saying much, and I still don't quite know how to react to this news. If anything, my takeaway is that there is going to be somebody who is unhappy no matter which alignment ultimately ends up being built.

Ultimately, I think that this goes back to something that I have said many times. Montreal needs a comprehensive plan for the next several decades. We've been building transport piecemeal, to deliver on electoral pledges. While REM-A was a nice change from decades of almost nothing, it was also politically driven. Montreal needs a plan to build a network, a transit agency that has recurring funding necessary, and the ability to make decisions to implement that plan over the next few decades.

I fully agree.  First step: let us define "Montréal" in the most relevant way. 

[Cataclaw]

35 minutes ago, Né entre les rapides said:

The next question is: then what? (what should be done about it?)

For the dense neighbourhoods SameGuy identified, in the short term:

• reduce car dependence and increase active transportation by implementing traffic calming, building the cycling network, widening sidewalks, etc.
• improve bus service (better shelters, greater frequency, and new BRT lines)

Long term:

• to reduce car dependence we will eventually need to build new rapid transit for these neighbourhoods (LRT/metro)

For the medium density neighbourhoods (e.g. Longueuil), it's essentially the same formula.

To ultimately increase active and collective transportation mode-share, we need to provide the infrastructure for it. We're joking about yellow line extensions, but we actually do need that to happen eventually. Large capital projects take time and our plate is already full, so for now we need to improve existing bus service, densify, and make areas more livable and walkable.

If we had guts, we would toll highways, implement congestion pricing, raise the gas tax, and accelerate this process. Unfortunately, It's politically unpopular to do so. Most people are unaware of urban planning concepts like induced demand and negative externalities which are often counter-intuitive.