Alternatives au REM de l'Est

[Enalung]

33 minutes ago, samuelmath said:

Probably exo and REM together in tunnel Mont-Royal is a good thing. However someone could dream about, it will never happen for the reason that the stations themselves like Édouard-Montpetit and McGill have the narrowest construction sites due to their limitations from infrastructures nearby.

Exo 2 railway from Parc station to Sainte-Thérèse are the property of Canadian Pacific Railway in opposition to the Deux-Montagnes line acquired by the société d'état (if you could help me translating this expression in english, I'd be thankful) in 2015. But still, I don't know what is the maximum exo trains frequency on this CP segment, or how the company itself runs the railway.

The correct English expression is state-owned enterprise. As far as McGill goes... I mention that detail in another thread. The station would most likely be located under the "Les Ailes de la Mode" complex, about 5 meters under the current McGill Station. The AMT did a comprehensive study back when the Champlain bridge was being planned and concluded that this scheme was doable. The study concluded that 19 structural columns of Place Ville-Marie and Gare Centrale would have to be moved and have their load shifted to new columns on either side of the tracks.

I don't see the CP ownership as a major problem. Most merchandise trains travel on the south shore. This is why the north shore alignment is being considered for ViaRail's TGF. At worse, it is my conclusion that a third, and even a fourth rail can be added without having to demolish anything.

[samuelmath]

il y a 28 minutes, Enalung a dit :

The study concluded that 19 structural columns of Place Ville-Marie and Gare Centrale would have to be moved and have their load shifted to new columns on either side of the tracks.

Well, this may be the reason why the project can't be.

 

[Enalung]

1 minute ago, samuelmath said:

Well, this may be the reason why the project can't be.

It's definitely doable, and the report says that much, but it would be expensive. Given what we've seen in terms of projects so far in Montreal, that seems ambitious, but by international standards, it doesn't come close to the complexity of what has been done and what we are capable of doing. If anything, we lack ambition and are really far behind when it comes to adopting modern construction techniques. Montreal, Ville de design Unesco... What a joke. We've really got a long way to go.

[Né entre les rapides]

il y a 52 minutes, Enalung a dit :

It's definitely doable, and the report says that much, but it would be expensive. Given what we've seen in terms of projects so far in Montreal, that seems ambitious, but by international standards, it doesn't come close to the complexity of what has been done and what we are capable of doing. If anything, we lack ambition and are really far behind when it comes to adopting modern construction techniques. Montreal, Ville de design Unesco... What a joke. We've really got a long way to go.

To be ambitious is fine, but value for money (VFM) remains paramount.  Let us take a hard look at this pretty mundane term --VFM, within the context of a mega infrastructure project costing billions.  I am going to make a comparison where M is the same for all two or three cases, the "product" is the same (or equivalent), but where the V vastly differs due to different circunstances.  First, to avoid/remove any irrelevant arguments, let us assume that construction costs are very comparable, so that the "product" (e.g. a tunnel) is equally comparable.  We take three cities: New York City, London (UK) and Montreal.  Infrastructure improvements bring value, in the form of ease of transportation/communication; travellers save time; the landscape is freed from undesirable car and bus traffic and the accompanying  parking lots, excessively wide streets, air pollution, etc.  The key question is: how much value?  -- It is directly related to the mass of benefits accruing (from the infrastructure).  Tier One cities are very expensive, but they also produce very high benefits (value added), in the form of higher salaries and profits.  A reason such cities are so productive includes their ability to put together very large number of highly qualified personnel , and make it attractive for them to converge in tight quarters enabling innumerable high-level interactions.  Accordingly, although their M is very high, the equally high V makes the ratio (V/M) palatable (the higher the better).  

I would argue that the Montreal's V is significantly lower than New York's or London's.  Thus the M must also be lower.  Concretely, this means that the technical feasibility of a project is not a sufficient condition to justify it.  M must be in tune with the accruing benefits of a given project.  Furthermore, it would be folly to think or pretend that pushing for a higher M would automatically (or magically) push V upwards.   But please don't get depressed: Montreal's V is still high enough to justify major, somewhat expensive infrastructure projects.  But sky is not the limit (and don't dare to say for fun that the limit is even beyond the sky!): it is under.  Fact.  But as the English used to say: " I'm All Right Jack!"  In so many ways Montreal is a superior place to live for the common than New York of London.  😄

[Enalung]

33 minutes ago, Né entre les rapides said:

To be ambitious is fine, but value for money (VFM) remains paramount.  Let us take a hard look at this pretty mundane term --VFM, within the context of a mega infrastructure project costing billions.  I am going to make a comparison where M is the same for all two or three cases, the "product" is the same (or equivalent), but where the V vastly differs due to different circunstances.  First, to avoid/remove any irrelevant arguments, let us assume that construction costs are very comparable, so that the "product" (e.g. a tunnel) is equally comparable.  We take three cities: New York City, London (UK) and Montreal.  Infrastructure improvements bring value, in the form of ease of transportation/communication; travellers save time; the landscape is freed from undesirable car and bus traffic and the accompanying  parking lots, excessively wide streets, air pollution, etc.  The key question is: how much value?  -- It is directly related to the mass of benefits accruing (from the infrastructure).  Tier One cities are very expensive, but they also produce very high benefits (value added), in the form of higher salaries and profits.  A reason such cities are so productive includes their ability to put together very large number of highly qualified personnel , and make it attractive for them to converge in tight quarters enabling innumerable high-level interactions.  Accordingly, although their M is very high, the equally high V makes the ratio (V/M) palatable (the higher the better).  

I would argue that the Montreal's V is significantly lower than New York's or London's.  Thus the M must also be lower.  Concretely, this means that the technical feasibility of a project is not a sufficient condition to justify it.  M must be in tune with the accruing benefits of a given project.  Furthermore, it would be folly to think or pretend that pushing for a higher M would automatically (or magically) push V upwards.   But please don't get depressed: Montreal's V is still high enough to justify major, somewhat expensive infrastructure projects.  But sky is not the limit (and don't dare to say for fun that the limit is even beyond the sky!): it is under.  Fact.  But as the English used to say: " I'm All Right Jack!"  In so many ways Montreal is a superior place to live for the common than New York of London.  😄

It's like I said in a previous answer... "It's the crown jewel. It's the project you build once you've gone around and built most of the easy projects." There's been a lot of maps posted on this forum theses last few months by myself and others. It's obvious that there are other alignments and projects which would indeed be more beneficial for their cost. I think that it's also important to remember that Montreal has been adding towers rather quickly this last decade. The REM will likely further increase the amount of development happening around the city. The need for more transport infrastructure will only grow with years. The problem and also, the opportunity that we have is that Montreal still has some land available right next to expensive real estate. The government is going to have to answer some serious questions. Even though the benefit might be lower right now, we might be better off building before the available right of ways get hemmed in from all sides. Another solution could be for the government to put land reserves in place for some of those corridors. Abandoning old right of ways and allowing buildings to be built on them is a mistake we should ensure we do not repeat. The 132 in Saint-Constant comes to mind.

[Né entre les rapides]

il y a 16 minutes, Enalung a dit :

It's like I said in a previous answer... "It's the crown jewel. It's the project you build once you've gone around and built most of the easy projects." There's been a lot of maps posted on this forum theses last few months by myself and others. It's obvious that there are other alignments and projects which would indeed be more beneficial for their cost. I think that it's also important to remember that Montreal has been adding towers rather quickly this last decade. The need for more transport infrastructure will only grow with years. The problem and also, the opportunity that we have is that Montreal still has some land available right next to expensive real estate. The government is going to have to answer some serious questions. Even though the benefit might be lower right now, we might be better off building before the available right of ways get hemmed in from all sides. Another solution could be for the government to put land reserves in place for some of those corridors. Abandoning old right of ways and allowing buildings to be built on them is a mistake we should ensure we do not repeat. The 132 in Saint-Constant comes to mind.

These are all very good points.  I particularly like the one about putting land reserves in place for some (of these) corridors.  What I am most worried about is the risk that political considerations would trump efficiency in determining priorities.  It is not just competing municipalities which may attempt to direct investments their own ways, but also special interest groups, including real estate developpers.  A problem is that past a certain point, there would be so many projects in construction or first in line on the priority list, that there would be no more room (no more money, no more capacity) to contemplate  --let alone undertake, other projects of superior merit.  The future governments of the day would have their hands tied up. The submitted maps of the future Public Transit Network in the Montreal area are quite well done, but by their sheer extent, they appear to preclude other options, of which the need is unfathomable at present, but could arise later.  In planning, this problem has always existed, but with the accelerating pace of history, it means that the time span during which a plan retains some validity shrinks.  People and governments like to think in terms of a 20, 30, 50-year horizon, but in reality the perspective from barely 10 years  in the future  could change everything.  Still, plans are necessary.  We just need now to allow for more flexibility to ajust if radical changes occur sooner than expected.  

[SameGuy]

Well, if you’re going to propose a VFM argument, then I simply request that we cease discussing the TGF, full stop. 

[SameGuy]

Just daydreaming, mais je me demande si qq ici a accès à des chiffres O-D pour un dessert St-Léo-centre-ville. @p_xavier? Je sais que la Caisse a comme but le développement de terrains le long du trajet, mais si je peux me permettre... il y a déjà un corridor parfait pour l’implantation d’un métro léger, sans devoir creuser un tunnel sous Lacordaire, qui aura comme avantage le dessert d’Angus, VR, de Lorimier, RPP: l’emprise QMOO entre Hochelaga et CP-Outremont via Angus. Un tunnel débutant au niveau d’Iberville serait plus court que celui proposé pour Lacordaire et pourrait mieux desservir le nord-est (VSMPE, Montréal-Nord).

Residents in the northeast need better transit altogether, but how many in the proposed alignment actually (or potentially) have to go to the epicentre of downtown, compared to the already-evident need of the neighbourhoods mentioned above? 

[p_xavier]

I don't work in transit planning anymore unfortunately.  O-D numbers are always a odd thing to use because transit paters can change enormously after a project, plus TODs affect them too. Unfortunately, transit panners these days still use O-D numbers.

[amos404]

Le 2021-01-12 à 00:04, SameGuy a dit :

Just daydreaming, mais je me demande si qq ici a accès à des chiffres O-D pour un dessert St-Léo-centre-ville. @p_xavier? Je sais que la Caisse a comme but le développement de terrains le long du trajet, mais si je peux me permettre... il y a déjà un corridor parfait pour l’implantation d’un métro léger, sans devoir creuser un tunnel sous Lacordaire, qui aura comme avantage le dessert d’Angus, VR, de Lorimier, RPP: l’emprise QMOO entre Hochelaga et CP-Outremont via Angus. Un tunnel débutant au niveau d’Iberville serait plus court que celui proposé pour Lacordaire et pourrait mieux desservir le nord-est (VSMPE, Montréal-Nord).

Residents in the northeast need better transit altogether, but how many in the proposed alignment actually (or potentially) have to go to the epicentre of downtown, compared to the already-evident need of the neighbourhoods mentioned above? 

Les chiffres sont disponible publiquement sur le site de l'ARTM, dans la matrice OD (ce sont des donnée fortement agrégé mais ça dépanne!) En 2018 entre Saint Léonard et le centre ville il y a 4806 personne qui font le trajet allez chaque jours sur une période de 24h peut importe le motif. De ce nombre 2863 le font en transport en commun. (60%) Bien sur il y a une multitude d'origine destination!

Je ne sais pas exactement quelle modèle CDPQ infra utilise pour ses prévisions mais on s'entend que c'est un peux plus compliquer que de simplement regarder les matrices Agrégés! 

https://donnees.artm.quebec/depots