Comments on: A Townhall Meeting for the REM

By: GaÃ«l

GaÃ«l — Fri, 17 Jun 2016 04:42:07 +0000

And this is the part that is really really scary. How will the governments decide if they fund this project or not ? Is this part of a bigger plan ? Is this investment going to be compared with other investment opportunities ? On what basis ? When ?

I feel like there should be some sort of investment program, in which multiple possible projects would be followed and compared with each other to select the best ones to fund. If it were the case, project promoters would have a better incentive to listen to what the public has to say to try and make their project better and have better chances of getting funding. But I didn’t feel like that was the goal tonight …

The governments probably have that but it would be very interesting to know how the decisions are made and who decides the schedule.

By: GaÃ«l

GaÃ«l — Fri, 17 Jun 2016 04:27:14 +0000

@Jean-FranÃ§ois: I went to tonight’s meeting thanks to Anton. I did not ask this question directly to Denis Andlauer but I did talk about it to another member of the team whose name I didn’t get.
He said they can have 3 empty REM trains waiting for the Mascouche train at the A40 station, and they can design the station in a way that the transfer is on the same platform.

There are many issues with this …

Schedule: this will result in a pretty messy schedule. It might work in the beginning, when you don’t actually need high frequency to service the 3 branches properly. But as soon as the branches will need higher frequencies, it will not be possible to leave gaps in these branches’ schedules to be able to insert these special trains.

Fights: if the transfer really is on the same platform, it will be pretty funny to see people fight to be in the Mascouche train cars that will arrive in front of the first REM train to leave. And the fights on the platform between the people who lost their first fight and will still try to get in this first train. Of course the third train will only leave 3 minutes after the first one, which is not so long, but waiting for 3 minute and seeing two other trains that you could have taken leave during this time is pretty frustrating. Especially when it happens every morning. And it will: the system is designed like that.

Symmetry: they insisted on the fact that they would make the transfer easy, so that people don’t get discouraged by it. Assuming it’s possible to have a same-platform transfer in the morning (which is not granted), it will probably not be possible in the evening. Unless they find a way to insert the Mascouche train between the two REM main tracks and also an REM third track there (because I assume the 3 trains that wait won’t wait on the main tracks). It might be possible but it will be a very expensive station. The kind of thing that will easily be cut out of the project as soon as the budget gets tight. (Without reevaluating impacts on trafic of course)

Also, people who lose their fight in the morning will just have to wait 90 or 180 seconds for the next train. No big deal. But in the evening ? Until the Edouard-Montpetit and McGill stations are built, we can assume pretty much every user of the Mascouche line will travel back from Gare Centrale to A40 on the REM. And since the REM will be so reliable, they will all want to take the latest possible REM that will make it to A40 on time for them to take their train. The evening peak hour is usually more spread that the morning, and people have different risk tolerance, so this would probably not be such a big issue, but it’s another example of how it doesn’t make sense to cut a heavy rail line in the middle of nowhere, and expect everybody to continue their trip on a light rail line.

So in conclusion, this reinforces the impression that they were given the mandate of creating a profitable project that would take care of the airport, the south shore and the west Island, and that they didn’t have to worry about the overall regional planning. And they came up with this, which makes sense given the mandate, and now they are just trying to make it seem like it makes sense for the whole region, but it’s just not true.

But it’s not really the CDPQ that we should blame for that, it’s the government who gave them this mandate, and who is nowhere to be seen now to explain what’s supposed to happen with the rest of the region.

By: ant6n

ant6n — Sun, 05 Jun 2016 16:51:20 +0000

@Jean-Francois
I hadn’t even noticed that they are going to revert electrification to 1.5kv dc. They actually spent hundreds of millions on re-electrifying the line to 25kv ac in the 90s, when the MR-90 trains were introduced.

By: Jean-FranÃ§ois Turcotte

Jean-FranÃ§ois Turcotte — Sun, 05 Jun 2016 06:43:04 +0000

Btw, anyone asked Denis Andlauer how he planned to force 2000 riders off an AMT Mascouche Train at A40 station and pack them in a 600-riders REM train already full of riders from the West Island?

After having invested (some would say wasted) 670M$ on this line, this is rather insulting.

How come mayors of Mascouche, Terrebonne, Repentigny and Pointe aux Trembles have not publicly expressed their outrage over such outcome? Their train will get simply killed after less than a decade of operation. Talk about efficient use of taxpayers money.

By: Jean-FranÃ§ois Turcotte

Jean-FranÃ§ois Turcotte — Sun, 05 Jun 2016 06:38:50 +0000

I don’t see how it will be possible to convert the Deux-Montagnes line to REM without lengthy interruptions.

The REM will use 1500kv electrification, whereas the Deux-Montagnes line is using 25kV 60Hz AC electrification. Both are incompatible. As would also be the signalling system (the REM is likely going to use CBTC).

The underpasses/overpasses required to close the grade crossings will have to be built in urban areas where it will be impossible to build temporary deviation tracks (as CN did at Jct de l’Est in 2010).

Anyway, the fundamental problem with the Caisse’s REM is the poor choice of technology. Light rail not only offers insufficient capacity, it also is radically incompatible with the existing rail network, and prevents proper integration with the current, and any future service. The loss of interoperability in the tunnel will force AMT to write-down billions of public investments in commuter rail assets that are less than halfway through their useful service life, and will drain the life out of the remaining services. And it will prevent VIA Rail from using the tunnel to reach Trois-RiviÃ¨res and QuÃ©bec, forcing VIA to keep running on CN’s congested South shore main line.

Using a higher-capacity heavy rail technology similar to the London Overground or the Australian urban rail systems in Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne could preserve interoperability in the tunnel. Higher capacity per train means that the headway could be kept around 6 minutes, which would give ample opportunity to insert a VIA or AMT train between an REM train.

That’s what World-class cities do: they invest in their heavy rail system.

By: ant6n

ant6n — Fri, 03 Jun 2016 21:06:22 +0000

@Faiz

Thanks for the additional info.

I actually only took very sparse notes, I reconstructed the information from them and from memory once I got home. Also some external resources; I found the people I talked to on linkedin.

The venting citizen wasn’t being irrational, just kind of incomprehensible. I think his point was about how this is not going to work, the conversion from heavy to light rail, and all the problems related to that.

By: remyvhw

remyvhw — Fri, 03 Jun 2016 20:01:40 +0000

Thanks Faiz Imam, nice recap !

By: Faiz Imam

Faiz Imam — Fri, 03 Jun 2016 15:41:32 +0000

Great write up! You must take great notes. I was there almost 3 hours but wasn’t able to write all of what I heard. Forgot most of it 😀

I met Denis pretty early on, and was able to listen to him talk for over 2 hours. Got a bunch of questions in as well. I have more info on some of your questions.

How the Deux montagne line will continue to run during construction: He repeated this multiple times to different people. The plan is to remove one track first and build one REM track to completion, thus allowing for continued service along the line. Then (this part i am not clear on) they will shift the AMT over to either the REM track (or maybe they will build another temporary track beside?)

didn’t hear the whole plan, but the idea is to phase in the line so deux montage can run almost continually. He claims service reduction during off peak hours, plus some weekends should be sufficient.

They will also be able to keep all existing stations active while they build new ones. He noted that 80m stations is key to making that happen. He also confirmed that every station will be engineered to expand to 160m. The said their studies predict that 600 person trains and higher frequency will be capable of handling capacity until 2040.

Mount Royal Tunnel fire safety: Another person asked him about the fire safety issue. This citizen seemed to be an engineer of some kind, since he knew the number of the law and smiled with recognition about the fine print. The plan to build bunkers every 750m, which is apparently accepted practice and it was what AMT was going to do anyways even before the REM happened. In fact one reason Mcgill and Edouard are delayed is that AMT was doing work on starting the fire safety stuff already.

Point St Charles tunnel: Denis said that the tunnel project will be one of the most technically difficult and expensive parts of the project, if there is risk of delays, it’ll probably be here. The area is extremely contaminated. I didn’t ask about the CN option, but I have to imagine, if they could have saved themselves the trouble, wouldn’t they have done it?

Bridge Wellington station: Speaking of which, he said the tunnel is the reason there is no station in griffintown. There is no space to build a station once the track meets the CN overhead, and they can’t build a station on a gradient. They are already at the max 5% already (steepest part of the whole system). The Bridge wellington station is right before the gradient. If they moved it further north it would cause other problems when it comes above ground (perhaps would require demolishing New city gas? is that worth a Griffintown station? I’m speculating.)

He noted 14 grade crossings along Deux montagne. both overpass and underpass solutions are being considered.

the TIF. Denis said “it would be nice to have” but that they figure they would get around $120 million out of it, which is a pittance and does not inform their planning priorities. No mention of development rights, but the feel I got was that they were focused of building the biggest line they could with the most users.

I agree with your opinion on park and rides, though one line he had that made me more amenable was that they want every station to be designed for buses first, cars second. If true it should help mitigate the location slightly.

The initial plan for the Rive Sud station was to curve north of the 10, next to the Brossard Eco-centre. But turns out its heavily contaminated so they curved south instead. No pedestrian connection to dix-30 is planned at the moment, though the Rome overpass (which has a sidewalk and bi-directional protected bike path) would provide a roundabout connection.

FYI something like 80% of the remaining agricultural space left in Brossard has been purchased by the city and will remain protected. The station is on a narrow strip of developable land. He confirmed to me as well that no additional development is planned there.

Brossard’s 2017 Zoning plan: http://www.brossard.ca/Brossard/media/Documentation/Urbanisme/Zonage_REG362_AnnexeA_plan.pdf

But the station is supposed to have 3000 spots. Currently exurbanites use 60% of the 2300 spots(1800), so 3000 is crazy. I hope they are forced to reduce that during the BAPE(or something)

Anyways. That’s all the facts I can add to your write up. Great job. I largely agree with your concerns about overall planning and cooperation. They basically came up with the idea late last year when they realized Trucot would be unusable until 2022, and have gone full speed since. Though apparently they have been meeting regularly with STM and AMT people since October, which gives me some hope.

Plenty of consultations over the next 9 months. I hope we can get clarity on all the issues.

PS: what did the angry citizen you interrupted you rant about? I have not heard much irrational hatred for the Project yet. I’m curious.

By: ant6n

ant6n — Fri, 03 Jun 2016 13:26:04 +0000

@emdx
Maybe that could work. But We want to bring in the St-Jerome line to the tunnel as well. And maybe we want to have shorter branches along those lines going to maybe Laval and Anjou, respectively, where we want service say every fifteen minutes.

If we kept the whole system compatible with each other, that would be possible. Maybe we’d need FRA waivers like Caltrain did in California, to run lighter European-style rolling stock on the branches that will be EMU only. But it would take longer and more complicated planning, and a regional view.

By: emdx

emdx — Fri, 03 Jun 2016 13:15:35 +0000

There could be a way of â€œsavingâ€ the Mascouche line.

When Vancouver built the Skytrainâ„¢, they used the old CPR tunnel under the downtown area. Since the ICTS rolling stock is very tiny, they simply doubled the tunnel by building a floor between the top and bottom half. This would help safety by effectively making two tunnels (they are already split in half at both ends, anyway).

One could conceivably do the same thing with the Mont-Royal tunnel, by splitting the west track in two levels to run the toy trains, while keeping the east track mainline-sized to run commuter trains. It would be single track, yes, but as the Mascouche line has light traffic, it is certainly not a difficult thing to do.

And this would make building the Ã‰douard-Montpetit station much easier, as all there would be needed is widening the tunnel along the platforms.