rive-sud Pont Samuel-De Champlain

[Cyrus]

How do yo manage good service with capacity inadequate for today?

[Habsfan]

Cataclaw's Champlain bridge plan:

-Similar individual vehicle capacity (6 lanes or so)

-Add an express bus lane or two

-Add a transit rail line (this is a MUST)

-Toll the bridge

-Toll all the bridges in the Montreal CMA. All of them.

-Toll all Quebec autoroutes in the Montreal CMA. All of them.

-Invest some of that money in maintaining good service on the roads

-Invest the rest of it (which will be most of it) in doubling the Montreal Metro.

 

Vote for me!

 

I agree with most of your points, however, I think that having bus lanes AND an LRT is somewhat redundant. This bridge should have some kind of rapid transit line( a light train of somesorts) but the bus lanes should no longer be necessary. Just make sure that the LRT can handle more passengers than the bus lines handle today. (ie 50,000 passengers per day vs the 20,000 passengers today).

 

I hate to repeat myself, but if we're gonna spend 5 billion dollars, they have to increase the capacity of this bridge. 6 lanes for regular traffic is insufficient today...imagine what it'll be likie in 30-40 or 50 years years?! We need at least 8 lanes for regular traffic(if not 10)

[Vaillant]

avant de faire un tel truc il faudrait doublé le métro de Montréal c'est certain!

[LindbergMTL]

8 voies pour les voitures et camions? Les politiciens ont bien trop peur des environnementalistes pour faire passer ça malheureusement.

[Habsfan]

8 voies pour les voitures et camions? Les politiciens ont bien trop peur des environnementalistes pour faire passer ça malheureusement.

 

Oui, je sais. Il n'y a pas un politicien qui a les couilles pour tenir tête à cette bande de chialeux!

[Cataclaw]

I agree with most of your points, however, I think that having bus lanes AND an LRT is somewhat redundant. This bridge should have some kind of rapid transit line( a light train of somesorts) but the bus lanes should no longer be necessary. Just make sure that the LRT can handle more passengers than the bus lines handle today. (ie 50,000 passengers per day vs the 20,000 passengers today).

 

I hate to repeat myself, but if we're gonna spend 5 billion dollars, they have to increase the capacity of this bridge. 6 lanes for regular traffic is insufficient today...imagine what it'll be likie in 30-40 or 50 years years?! We need at least 8 lanes for regular traffic(if not 10)

 

I just don't agree, Habsfan. Induced demand, induced demand, induced demand. The more we increase the capacity of our roads and highways, the more people will use them. Recent studies in the U.S. show that the increased capacity of adding 1 lane to an average highway in America will be completely filled within 5 years. After the 5 years the road becomes even more congested than it was in the first place.

 

We need our highways and bridges to be somewhat congested so that it discourages people from driving and it encourages them to use more sustainable forms of transportation. Yes, congestion causes pollution, but the benefits of congestion (dissuading people from driving) far outweigh the disadvantage. One car emitting pollution while stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic may be bad, but an entire household that now lives in a more sustainable neighborhood as a result of that very congestion makes up for it and then some. Congestion is a good thing.

 

Roads and highways are very important and we need them. An industry isn't going to ship its goods and services on a bicycle or a metro car... but for day to day travel for the average person, we need to encourage transit as much as possible to reduce automobile dependency and the hundreds of problems related to it.

 

The automobile-dependent suburban living arrangement:

-has much higher infrastructure building and maintenance costs

-wastes a larger percentage of land to non-taxable uses (i.e. lost tax revenue)

-environmental damage

-hugely inefficient uses of space (including transportation infrastructure. Cars take up tons of space, which means huge parking lots are needed to accommodate them.)

-loss of farmland

-creation of mono-culture single-income areas and other segregated communities

-loss of social capital and intermixing

-declining health and rising obesity

-separation of land use functions means you need an automobile to get around, disadvantaging people who can't afford one and/or gas

-creation of physical spaces that are far less valuable culturally and architecturally. Walmart Supercentre vs. traditional main street lined with cafés and terraces

-discourages (if not eliminates outright) the possibility for alternatives

-increased death rate, fatalities and accidents (a *lot* more people die from car accidents than from accidents in a metro)

-considerable air pollution

-speeding up the consumption and burning of fossil fuels, which contributes to climate change and elevates oil to super-commodity that dominates the geopolitical landscape, causes wars, etc.

 

Anyway... suburbs and automobile dependency are an unsustainable and poor method of arranging physical urban space.

 

The self-righteous guy who touts the fact he drives an energy-efficient Prius... has nothing to be self-righteous if he's still relying on an automobile for the vast majority of his transportation needs. He could drive a vehicle that runs on air and it would still have hugely negative consequences, for many of the reasons I outlined above.

 

So rebuild the Champlain Bridge because we need that bridge, but at the same time toll the heck out of it and put all that money into rapid transit and proper urban development.

Modifié 24 octobre 2011 par Cataclaw

[ToxiK]

So rebuild the Champlain Bridge because we need that bridge, but at the same time toll the heck out of it and put all that money into rapid transit and proper urban development.

 

The money from the toll won't be put into public transit, it will be sent to the Federal Government to pay for the very generous gift (the new bridge) from Ottawa.

[Malek]

I just don't agree, Habsfan. Induced demand, induced demand, induced demand. The more we increase the capacity of our roads and highways, the more people will use them.

 

But that's what we want, we want more companies doing business, more employees, more people living in Greater Montreal.

 

Do we want to push them away because traffic becomes hell?

 

Cities thrive on better infrastructures, not only mass transit.

[Davidbourque]

Bon point Malek

 

Mais si on veux réduire la circulation vers le centre ville et les environs on doit surtout augmenté l'offre de transport en commun, diminué l'offre de stationnement et augmenté son couts.

 

Mais bon, Si la ligne de SLR était en fonction, elle serait elle aussi probablement à pleine capacité d'ici quelque mois. Mais ce n'est pas une raison pour Engorgé les ponts. En ce moment, le passage sur l’île de Montréal est inévitable pour ceux qui veulent passé de la rive nord à la rive sud sans passé par Trois-Rivière. Et surtout, c'est pas demain la veille qu'on va construire des entrepôts des usines et tout le tralala, dans des tour de 40 étages au centre ville.

 

Ces gens la auront toujours besoin de leur voiture. Mais les anti-autos sont totalement centré sur le centre ville et tout ce qui n'y est pas est mal...

[Monsieur_MA]

Mais si on veux réduire la circulation vers le centre ville et les environs on doit surtout augmenter l'offre de transport en commun

Le réseau de transport en commun est saturé à bien des endroits. La ligne orange ne peut pas accueillir plus, la capacité du terminus du 1000 de la Gauchetière est dépassée. Dans ce cas-ci, la rue de l'Inspecteur sert de file d'attente pour autobus, avec des débordements sur University et Peel. Comment est-il possible d'augmenter le nombre d'usagers du transport en commun, si la capacité n'augmente pas? Il faudrait des investissement majeurs pour y arriver. Quelque chose comme la création du métro en 67. (Avant: pas de métro, après réseau assez complet pour l'époque). Le SLR est une partie de ce qu'il faudrait. Imaginons des voies réservées pour chaque pont et axes principaux. Là les habitudes des gens pourraient changer. Le seul hic: l'argent! Ce n'est donc pas pour demain.