REM – Catbus

Privatization of the Deux-Montagnes Line:How to Value a Transit Line?

ant6n — Wed, 20 Dec 2017 22:52:05 +0000

How do you make subsidized transit profitable overnight, without moving a single stone?
– By privatizing it, but not in the way youâ€re thinking.

During the BAPE consultations for the REM last year, I ran into Aref Salem, a city councillor who was a board member of the AMT (now RTM). He was quite in favour of the rail project: his riding is bisected by the Deux-Montagne commuter rail line, which will be replaced by the REM. He was also part of then-mayor Coderreâ€s administration.

When I expressed concerns about below-value privatization of the infrastructure of the Deux-Montagnes line, including the important Mont-Royal rail tunnel, he assured me: â€œthere will be a detailed accountingâ€.

Well, Quebecers are still waiting for that detailed accounting, which is starting to be urgent, since the project is still rapidly moving forward: in 2 months, the CDPQ hopes to announce the consortium who will build the REM.

How much will the CDPQ pay for the Deux-Montagne line?

CDPQInfra has repeatedly dodged the question of how much they will pay for the line. So far, there has been no clear answer, although they claimed they won’t receive subsidies via the line, and that they will pay â€œmarket valueâ€ – the market value of an asset being the price that can be obtained on an open and competitive market.

Itâ€s hard not to be cynical about this kind of statement, as there isnâ€t exactly an open â€œmarketâ€ for underground rail tunnels. There also isnâ€t any competition, for example in the form of a bidding process. Instead, the government has decided to transfer the Deux-Montagnes line to the CDPQ, just like that.

So how much will they pay for the line?

From the few numbers that are available, we know that:

the CDPQ planned to pay 585M$ for the â€œacquisition of the corridorâ€ (which includes the line), relocation of utilities and soil decontamination.
the responsibility for moving utilities and soil decontamination was apparently later shifted to the government of Quebec, which lists it as 180M$ in this budget note (see page 16)
Which leaves only 400M$ for all land acquisition. But the existing Deux-Montagnes line is only 30km out of the 67km required for the REM, so they canâ€t have counted more than a couple hundred million to buy it.

Although CDPQInfra hasnâ€t given explicit numbers on how much they expect to pay, they like to remind us that the AMT bought the line from CN in 2014 for only $97 million. As if to insinuate that the line is really only worth that much.

Weâ€re talking 100M$ for an electrified, rapid transit line that is 30km long, including a 5km tunnel. Am I the only one who thinks that seems just a little bit too low for a line that would surely cost billions to build today?

Yet we keep hearing that number, as if that was all the money weâ€ve ever put into the line.

Evaluating the actual value of infrastructure is not exactly a straightforward task. In this article, Iâ€ll be looking at:

How much money did we actually Invest in the line?
How much is the line worth on the RTMâ€s Books?
How much the land of the line is worth?
Business valuation using dividend discount model
How the ownership model moves infrastructure out of public control
The replacement value
Summary

How Much Money did we actually invest in the line?

It turns out that weâ€ve invested much more into the rail line over the last decades. Even the original construction of the line and the Mount-Royal tunnel a hundred years ago was actually paid by the public. The tunnel and line were built by the private Canadian Northern Railway, but the Federal government paid for it when the company was nationalized (aka bailed out) in 1918 in exchange for funds to repay construction debts.

Of course it probably doesnâ€t make sense to count investment from that far back, and the line didnâ€t see much investment in the 60s, 70s and 80s anyway.

However, there was major renovation starting in 1992. It cost about 300M$ to rebuild the overhead electrification infrastructure and buy new trains. After that, the AMT invested more money, most notably over the last couple of years.

To figure out how much in total, we can look at the three-year capital plans of the AMT. This document is published every year and contains not only a breakdown of funds the AMT hopes to spend on every project in the future, but also the total amounts spent in the past.

By looking at consecutive years and calculating the difference in the total amounts spent, it is possible to figure out how much money was actually spent every year:

Example: some capital plan entries for the Eastern Junction Grade separation project.
In any year, the AMT never really spent as much as they hoped beforehand.
Also, the total estimated budget keeps increasing.

Going through the capital plans since 1996 (I found 20 in total), and tracking every project related to the Deux-Montagnes line, I found that we spent the following:

Big Projects	733.3 M$
DM infrastructure rebuild (1993-1995)	168.0 M$
Trains – MR-90 acquisition (1994-1995)	130.0 M$
Acquisition from CN (2014)	97.0 M$
Jonction de l’Est (2011-2015, 100%)	50.6 M$
Reno Tunnel (2012-2017, 100%)	43.2 M$
Reno Tunnel (2018-2019, 100%)	50.2 M$
Centre Entretien P-St-Charles (2008-2017, 60%)	175.2 M$
Centre Entretien P-St-Charles (2018, 60%)	19.1 M$
Small Projects	152.5 M$
Trains – MR-90 improvement projects	19.7 M$
Parking lots	11.6 M$
Stations	3.0 M$
Infrastructure (tracks, signals, overhead,h etc)	20.2 M$
Studies	5.3 M$
Other Deux-Montagnes Projects	1.0 M$
Various Shared Projects	91.8 M$
TOTAL	885.8 M$

We find that even though we only bought the line 3 years ago for 97M$, the public invested about 886M$ in the line over the last 25 years. Even if we remove the trains (rolling stock) from the calculation (the RTM will likely keep them), that still leaves 736M$ invested [3]. If CDPQInfra takes control of the line, acting like a private entity, shouldnâ€t they reimburse us for these investments?

But it may not be so easy: The money invested may not ended up on the books of the RTM. Maybe we could check how much these investments are considered to be worth on the books.

How much is the line worth on the Books of the RTM?

When a company invests money into assets, these assets will show up on the balance sheet with their book value. The book value is basically the original cost of the asset, minus amortization. Amortization reduces the book value every year to account for the fact that assets may have a limited useful life (and may eventually become worthless and will need to be replaced).

The AMT has a very basic asset statement in their annual reports, which was broken down by line, but unfortunately only until 2008. Since then the AMT has become more secretive, and I wasn’t succesful trying to get this information via an access-of-information request. Either way, the data we have allows us to get an idea of the book value at least until 2008:

Book Value: Trains
	1997	2002	2005	2008	2017
Â Â Â cost	129.2 M$	129.2 M$	129.7 M$	?	?
Â Â Â amortization	?	27.5 M$	54.3 M$	?	?
Â Â Â net	?	105.0 M$	75.4 M$	?	?
Book Value: Land & Infrastructure
Â Â Â cost	87.6 M$	93.9 M$	95.5 M$	97.1 M$	?
Â Â Â amortization	?	50.8 M$	40.4 M$	29.9 M$	?
Â Â Â net	?	43.1 M$	55.1 M$	67.3 M$	?
Comparison: Land & Infrastructure Investment
Investment	171.0 M$	179.7 M$	1,837.3 M$	209.1 M$	666.9 M$

We see that the â€œCostâ€ of the Book value is lower than the money invested, and the amortization keeps reducing it further. Of the big renovation project in the early 90s, only the trains (about 130M$) ended up on the books in its entirety, whereas only half of the 168M$ infrastructure investment did – and was reduced to only a quarter within ten years by amortization!

By 2008, even though about $200M were invested in the line (excluding trains), the net book value was only about $67M. Since then, there has been much more investment into the infrastructure, and the line (land) was purchased for $97M.

If the book value has continued trailing the invested money as much as it did until 2008, my best guess is that the book value may be somewhere between $200M and $300M, maybe some more.

We see that, even though the AMT invested a lot of money, this is likely not reflected in the book value of the assets. Maybe it’s related to the AMT investing in infrastructure that was owned by CN, a private entity. Since the AMT/RTM isnt’t a private company, and they don’t pay taxes, this doesn’t really matter.

But it does matter when we want to privatize their assets: It is quite possible that the CDPQ hopes to pay exactly this low book value for the Deux-Montagnes line, as the estimates seem somewhat similar. It also matches Aref Salem’s assurance that â€œthere will be a detailed accountingâ€.

A further problem is that the book value is not representative of the market value anyway. The book value is really just a tool used in accounting and taxation. And in the case of the Deux-Montagnes line and the AMT, it seems to be much less than the money we invested.

In general, most businesses are actually worth much more than their book value. This is because in a business, the assets come together to create a more valuable whole, which keeps increasing in value over time as well, whereas the book-value is always going down!

For comparison, utility companies are worth about 3x more than their book value on average, meaning the the Deux-Montagnes line, if considered like a utility company, could be worth $600M – $900M (assuming the book value isn’t an under-estimate).

The raw book value, while higher than the $97 million acquisition, still seems rather low. To see that, letâ€s compare it to the value of the land alone.

The Land Value

We can actually make a good estimate of the value of the land the line is on. For any building, we can go to the assessment roll, plug in its address (or lot number) and find the municipal valuation. Itâ€s not quite a market valuation, as it is only used for tax purposes, but it gives a pretty good idea. If youâ€ve ever bought or sold a house, you know that municipal valuation is often much lower than the selling price of the property.

It turns out that almost every piece of land is in the assessment role, including public land.

Lots belonging to the Deux-Montagnes line can be found by collecting them with infolot.
This image shows the lot just outside of the Northern Mont-Royal Tunnel portal.

I have collected a list of lots belonging to the Deux-Montagnes line in Montreal, Laval, and Deux-Montagnes, and tallied their municipal valuations in a spreadsheet. Hereâ€s the summary:

Land Valuation – excludes tunnel, infrastructure, rolling stock
Property value	238,760,007 $
Building value	2,932,400 $
Land value (property minus building)	235,827,607 $
Terrain area (square-metres)	1,149,038
Value per square-metre	205 $
Number of roll entries	55

The actual value of the Deux-Montagnes line is much higher, since:

Some lots are valued at only 1$ (maybe because the AMT/RTM doesnâ€t have to pay taxes anyway).
The list only includes the lots that I could find, there may be some missing.
Itâ€s not a market valuation of the land, as previously mentioned.
The building values (the values of whatâ€s build on top of the land) are very low — which means the valuations effectively only include the value of the land, it doesnâ€t include the infrastructure (rail + electricity supply + parking lots).
It doesnâ€t include the trains, the Mont-Royal tunnel, or the downtown connection.

Even so, the municipal valuation of just the land itself is similar to what I estimated for the book value.

Clearly the market value of the line must be much higher than that, given all the infrastructure that is on it. But how do we make a more rigorous and accurate estimate, based on accounting principles, thatâ€s not just a guess?

Business valuation – the Value of the Contract

One key element is that the REM is a business. Its goal is to make money by operating the transit line. And unlike what the news have been saying, the profits wonâ€t come from ticket sales, but from the per-passenger subsidy paid by the ATM, which is guaranteed in the contract between the CDPQ and the ARTM.

This is how it works: the ARTM will collect the fares, and pay CDPQ Infra a fixed price of 70 to 71 cents per passenger-kilometre, which is actually more than what it costs to run the line today (30cents)!

People like to think that privatization is a good way to increase cost efficiency, and REM proponents like to suggest that it will be profitable because of automation, but this is simply false. The REM will be profitable because of the Contract, and the subsidies granted by it.

So how do you make subsidized transit profitable overnight, without moving a single stone?
— By privatizing it and over-subsidizing it, and suddenly the subsidies are called â€œprofitsâ€!

If you think about it further, without even building the REM, if the Caisse just keeps running the Deux-Montagnes line as it is run today, the line will suddenly become profitable!

And if you have a bit more imagination, the CDPQ could take ownership of the line, contract the operations back to the RTM and STILL make millions in profit every year without doing anything!

But back to our valuation: the fact that the Deux-Montagnes line will be a profitable business, thanks to the large amounts of subsidies, allows us to use a simple business valuation method usually used for valuing companies on the stock market (i.e. for stock valuation), the dividend discount model.

This method is used for dividend-paying companies, which pay out their profits to shareholders instead of investing into growth, and thus have relatively little growth. The REM fits this category. The idea behind the dividend discount model is that a company is worth the sum of all future dividend payments, adjusted back to their present value.

In simplistic terms, it says if a company pays 5$ in dividends each year, and you believe that a company with that risk profile should yield 5% every year, that the company should be worth 100$ (meaning you will make back your initial investment in 20 years). If thereâ€s an expectation that the dividends will increase, than company should be worth some more.

The valuation will depend on:

The expected profits
The expected growth in profits
The target return rate (i.e. annual return on investment)

The target return rate depends on how risky your investment is: you want more return on more risky investments. As a comparison, bonds, which are one of the safest forms of investment, typically only return 2 to 3%, whereas the overall stock market returns about 5 to 6%. Riskier investments require much higher returns to make financial sense.

In the case of the Deux-Montagnes line, the risk is pretty low. The ridership is already established (based on population) and has been consistent for many years. In fact thereâ€s pent-up demand that the line cannot serve. Furthermore, thereâ€s language in the agreements/laws with the CDPQ that public transit agencies are not allowed to establish competing transit services, which basically grants the REM a cushy monopoly!

In fact the only risk for the line is operational (can we continue operating the line at the current cost without major issues?). It is quite reasonable for a company like that to have a return of 5%-6%. This is also similar to Canadian funds of dividend-paying companies, which have total returns in the 5-6% range (but tend to have higher risks because they are businesses that need to compete with others).

For the growth, letâ€s just assume thereâ€s no ridership growth whatsoever, and simply assume that income, cost and thus profits will rise with inflation, about 2%.

To figure out the profit, we need to deduct the operating cost (30c/passenger-km) and the capital costs from the subsidy per passenger-km (70c/passenger-km), and multiply that by the total number of passenger-km per year (140 million km).

To complete the equation, we need to find the capital costs. During the last 25 years, the public invested about 25M$ per year in the line, mostly for the renovations in the early 90s and further investments in recent years. These were done to significantly increase ridership. If we are only interested in keeping the infrastructure in a good state of repair (and replace the trains every 40 years), we only need 15M$ per year, as a sort of steady-state capital cost.

To go back forth between the cost per passenger-km and the total cost, we simply have to multiply or divide by the total number of annual passenger-km on the line, 140 million km.

	$/passenger-km	total $
operating cost	0.30 $	42,000,000 $
steady-state capital costs	0.11 $	15,000,000 $
revenue (subsidies)	0.70 $	98,000,000 $
profits	0.29 $	41,000,000 $

Applying the dividend discount model, we get the following valuations:

target annual rate of return	5%	6%
profit / year	41,000,000 $	41,000,000 $
profit growth per year	2%	2%
Valuation	1,366,666,667 $	1,025,000,000 $

Business valuation – With some Investment to Increase Ridership

One thing to consider is that thereâ€s a lot of pent up demand on the line that cannot be met because the capacity of the line is too low today. Investments in recent years were aimed at providing more service to catch all that potential ridership, but thereâ€s been no increase in service yet. So even a small additional investment, like 200M$, could get a ridership increase of 25% [1]. This changes the valuation as follows:

target annual return rate	5%	6%
profit / year	41,000,000 $	41,000,000 $
growth per year	2%	2%
one-time investment	200,000,000 $	200,000,000 $
one-time ridership growth	25%	25%
valuation	1,508,333,333 $	1,081,250,000 $

This business valuation indicates the Deux-Montagnes line and Mont-Royal tunnel may be worth $1.2B. A transfer to the of the assets to the REM for some hundred(s) of million would then be a subsidy of a cool billion dollars.

So why should we care? – The Ownership Model of the REM

The REM markets itself as a â€œpublic-public partnershipâ€. Since the RTM (former AMT) is a public agency, and the CDPQ is a crown corporation, who cares who owns what. Who cares about subsidies, isnâ€t it just a case of moving money from the left pocket to the right pocket?

Exceptâ€¦ thatâ€s not actually quite true: when the RTM owns the infrastructure, itâ€s both under control and ownership of the government. Once itâ€s transferred to the Caisse, it wonâ€t be owned by the public anymore.

Today, if we want to transfer infrastructure between different government agencies, then only the government needs to agree. For example, the AMT built the Laval Metro extension. After it was finished in 2007, the assets were transferred to STM. The government owned the AMT, the government owned the STM [4], deal is done, thank you, goodbye.

So how is it different if we transfer assets to CDPQInfra? Because CDPQInfra is not owned by the Caisse de DÃ©pÃ´t; it is part of the assets that are managed by the Caisse de DÃ©pÃ´t. And these assets belong to the Caisseâ€s depositors: Government employeesâ€ pension funds (62%), Retraite QuÃ©bec/QuÃ©bec Pension Plan (23%) and others.

Itâ€s the same principle as your personal investments: you have an investment portfolio (RRSP, for example) that is being managed by a financial institution (letâ€s say Desjardins). Your portfolio may contain shares of Bombardier. Desjardins manages your money, but ultimately you are the owner of these Bombardier shares.

The diagram below shows the ownership structure of the Deux-Montagnes line before and after the REM. As you can see, under the REM, if you start at the Deux-Montagnes line and go up the ownership chain (green arrows), you end up with the Depositors of the Caisse, 62% of which are the pension funds of government employees, and only 23% belong to QuÃ©becâ€s pension plan, the proverbial â€œbas de laineâ€ everyone talks about.

But ownership is only half the story, and if this was the only problem, I would have given up a long time ago and just accepted that weâ€re making a very strange deal.

The real problem, the bigger problem, for anyone who cares about the future of transit in MontrÃ©al and mobility in the whole province, is control of our infrastructure.

If you go up the control/management chain (blue lines) in the chart above, you see that it ends at the Caisse de DÃ©pÃ´t. Moreover, the Government of QuÃ©bec explicitly states that it gives up all control to the Caisse.

Losing control of the infrastructure means losing the ability to determine how it will be used: The Deux-Montagnes line includes the Mont-Royal tunnel, which many transit lines need to use to reach downtown. But after privatization, the line will not only have a lower capacity, but half the lines that need to use it will be cut off from direct access downtown, maybe forever.

Also, while in the rest of the world, public-private partnerships have private corporations build new infrastructure that are eventually given back to the public, our innovative public-public partnership privatizes already-built public infrastructure, without reverting back to the public, and with no chance of ever getting it back.

Transferring it back under public control would effectively expropriate the pension funds who own the assets, while breaking contracts and laws in the process. Essentially, getting our transit line back may require an act of communism.

Of course we could maybe buy it back from the Caisseâ€¦ I wonder how much they charge for a 30-km line with 5 km of tunnel, which happens to be the only access to downtown Montreal? When the government must negotiate at arms length, and has very little leverage. Do you think theyâ€d let it go for $100M?

But maybe Iâ€m concerned for nothing. After all, Iâ€ve raised the issue with politicians and other proponents of the REM, and the attitude Iâ€m getting is a dismissive â€œweâ€ll just build another tunnelâ€. Piece of cake.

This brings up a new kind of valuation — how much would the Deux-Montagnes line cost if we built it from scratch?

Replacement Value

To get an idea how much the line would cost as a hole, we can make a simple comparative analysis. We can break down the line into the surface section (25km) and the tunnel section (5km), and make an estimate by comparing to various per-km costs.

We could compare the Mount-Royal tunnel to various other comparable, recently built rail tunnels (ones with no stations inside the tunnels), but this will not account for the downtown connection. A lot of the value of the Mount-Royal tunnel is the fact that it directly connects to Gare Centrale.

If we built a new tunnel, it would be very difficult to make a new connection to Gare Centrale — there are buildings in the way! Plus, the REM will use up a lot of space of the station.

This means weâ€d either have very complicated and very expensive construction to make the connection; we could purchase expensive buildings and tear them down; or build a new underground central station. Either way it’s going to be very expensive. This is where a lot of the cost of a new Mount-Royal tunnel would come from.

Deux-Montagnes Line Replacement Cost
item	cost	length	item cost
25km of surface rail	70 M$/km	25km	1,875 M$
5km Mont Royal Tunnel	140 M$/km	5.4km	756 M$
Downtown tunnel Station / Access	350 M$	–	350 M$
TOTAL			2,981 M$

We see the Mont-Royal tunnel adds up to a cool billion, and the surface part to almost two. The Mont-Royal tunnel is the most likely part that will need replacing, and again weâ€re coming up with a billion dollar figure.

Summary

Weâ€ve looked at various ways to grasp the value of the Deux-Montagnes line and Mont-Royal tunnel, and made a comparison to how much CDPQInfra will pay to privatize it.

type of valuation	valuation amount (M$)
What CDPQ may pay	100-200?
Book Value Note: estimate based on continuing 2008 book value	200-300?
Municipal assessment of Land Note: excludes tunnel, infrastructure, downtown access, parking, trains – and it’s a below-market, municipal valuation	236
Total Investment excluding trains	736
Total Investment including trains	886
Business Valuation (dividend discount model)	1000-1400
Business Valuation assuming small improvement	1100-1500
Replacement Value of whole line	3000
Replacement Value of Mont-Royal Tunnel only	1100

In my opinion, we should get reimbursed about a billion dollars, maybe a bit more, in exchange for transferring the assets of the transit line, losing control of the infrastructure forever, and giving CDPQinfra an operating contract that would make them profit from day one. Anything else would be a large subsidy, and completely inappropriate to give, without bidding process, to a company acting like a private, commercial entity.

The Deux-Montagnes line is an essential puzzle piece in the creative accounting at work that will create a profitable transit line owned by a private entity — and I worry the public will be “taken for a ride”.

Footnotes

[1] The estimate that 200M$ investment will allow a 25% ridership increase comes from the 2005 annual report of the AMT.

â€œAn estimated $173.9 million is recommended to increase the lineâ€s capacity in order to accommodate the ridership estimated at over 40,000 passengers a day. The work includes the grade separation of the East junction, double railway tracks between Bois-Franc and Roxboro, the addition of two stations and the purchase of 22 new cars.â€

Note the current ridership is 30,000 passengers per day.

The Eastern junction project was completed (for about 60M$), the 22 rail-cars where purchased but allocated to different rail lines, the double tracking is still outstanding. Itâ€s reasonable to assume that the double-tracking and purchase of new rail cars will now cost 200M$.

[2] To arrive at the estimate of 70 M$/km for surface rail construction and 120 M$/km for tunnel construction (for a tunnel without stations), I used the following comparative projects:

Comparative tunnel costs
project	length	location	opening year	cost	inflation- adjusted in CAD	cost per km (CAD)
Mount-Royal tunnel	5.0km	Montreal	1918	10 M$	145M	29 M$
2nd Hudson-Tunnel	3.7km	New York	2026?	11.1B USD	14.3B	3,865 M$
Barcelona AVE tunnel	5.8km	Barcelona	2013	179.3M â‚¬	277M	48 M$
East Side Access, only Manhattan tunnel contracts	3.8km	New York	2023	415M USD	535M	141 M$
Crossrail, only tunnel contracts	21km	London	2019	1.5B Â£	2.6B	124 M$
Fildertunnel	9.5km	Stuttgart	2021	754M â‚¬	1142M	120 M$
Tunnel ObertÃ¼rkheim	5.7km	Stuttgart	2021	350M â‚¬	530M	93 M$

Comparative Surface costs
project	length	location	opening year	cost	inflation- adjusted in CAD	cost per km (CAD)
Eagle PPP electric surface commuter rail (A-line)	54.7km	Denver	2016	2.2B USD	2.83B CAD	52 M$
REM St-Anne Branch	16.8km	Montreal	2021?	1400M CAD	1400M CAD	83 M$
REM Rive-Sud (includes tunnel)	15km	Montreal	2021?	1730M CAD	1730M CAD	115 M$

In order to calculate the costs of the individual branches of the REM, I distributed the the estimated construction costs from this document as follows:

REM Branches Breakdown
branch	length km	infra-structure cost	system & rolling stock cost	parking / terminus cost	acquisition cost (approx.)	total cost
St-Anne-de-Bellevue Branch	17 km	680 M$	446 M$	125 M$	147 M$	1 398 M$
Deux-Montagnes line incl. tunnel (upgrades)	31 km	820 M$	810 M$	–	266 M$	1 897 M$
South-Shore Branch	15 km	1 090 M$	399 M$	110 M$	131 M$	1 729 M$
Airport Branch	5 km	320 M$	125 M$	–	41 M$	486 M$
Â TOTAL	67 km	2 910 M$	1 780 M$	235 M$	585 M$	5 510 M$

[3] 885.8M$ (total) – 130M$ (MR-90 acquisition) – 19.7M$ (MR-90 improvements) = 736M$

[4]The STM is actually owned by the city of Montreal, not the government of Quebec – but being a public body regulated by the government and existing because of a Quebec law. Arguably, the city of Montreal is owned by the government of Quebec.

The CDPQ and Bill 137:Constructing Alternate Realities

ant6n — Wed, 24 May 2017 03:58:20 +0000

Itâ€s been quite a while since I wrote about the REM, Montrealâ€s controversial light rail project. Since my last analysis on the subject, I spent more time following the official channels to try to participate in the discussion — I submitted a 100 page brief and a 20 minute presentation at the independent environmental consultations office to try to improve the project and point out problems.

The final BAPE report, generally warned of the many issues that I have also discussed on this blog, and indicated they could not recommend this project to go forward at this time.

One thing that the BAPE criticized was the lack of information regarding the financing of the project, especially the operating costs. So shortly after, CDPQInfra released a Note on the financing that does include a few numbers on the operating cost, mostly trying to show that the it will not be larger than for the existing public transit system, even though the REM will have to pay off the capital costs and the rather large 8% return demanded by the Caisse.

Most of their document is concerned with trying to prove that the existing transit system is basically crap and that the REM is the only way to fix that, and that the REM will be much better than the current network.

Iâ€ve become weary of the proclamations by CDPQInfra, Iâ€ve previously written about how they like to cook numbers and distort facts in order to make their projects appear great while dismissing criticism. Theyâ€ve made claims that later turned out to be half-true or not true, or true only from their own narrow point of view.

For example the claim that â€œtransit would be profitableâ€ turned out to be that â€œtransit would be profitable for the Caisse, as long as the public pays a large number of subsidiesâ€. Or the claim that â€œthere would be no shut-downs of the Deux-Montagnes line, except may for a weekend or twoâ€ turned out to mean â€œwe will single-track the whole line and only offer some rush-hour service in one directionâ€. They also keep referring to their project as a public-public partnership, when it is actually a full-on privatization project.

The â€œFinancing Noteâ€ for the REM

What struck me in this â€œFinancing Noteâ€ document is that they even misrepresent facts that can easily be verified, numbers that we can just look up.

Case in point, the following table from their document, which I helpfully annotated with some corrected numbers:

Letâ€s go through some of these numbers.

Note that the â€œExisting Networksâ€ is labelled with â€œ(2022)â€, meaning that we should also take into account the improvements that were planned on the network before the REM was announced.

1) â€œDeux-Montagnes frequency (peak): ~30 minutes on averageâ€
If we look at the actual schedule (link) during the peak hour, we see that the departures are actually 20 minutes apart (4 departures between 6:35 and 7:37, and 4 departures between 16:30 and 17:25).

Furthermore, the AMT has recently done some upgrades to allow running their heavy dual-mode engines and multi-level passenger cars on the line, which could allow increasing the service. The AMT capital budget for years has shown an unfunded project to increase double-tracking on the line, an item costing a mere 50M$, which would also allow increasing peak service substantially – and it could easily be implemented by 2022.

2) â€œDeux-Montagnes – Downtown Travel time: 40-45 minutesâ€
A quick look at the schedule finds that the travel time is actually 35-40 minutes. CDPQInfra simply adds 5 minutes of travel time to make their project look better.

3) â€œSouth Shore Frequency (peak): 15 minutesâ€
Looking at the actual schedules, we find that Terminus Chevrier is served by the 90, during the peak, every 3min-5min, with some departures only 2 minutes apart.

Terminus Panama is served by the 45 bus shuttling downtown. During the peak it runs less often, in the 8min-10min range. But also during the peak, 20-30 bus lines that generally terminate at Panama are through-routed to downtown, most stop at Panama. The Transit App trip planner tells me there are departures every 1min-4min.

4) â€œAirport Travel Time: 45-60 minutesâ€
To get to the airport by transit, you have to take the 747 express bus. This bus stops at two large metro stations (Berri-Uqam, Lionel-Groulx) and at various places in-between that connect pretty well to several downtown hotels. Generally, most people come from the metro system, and most connect at Lionel-Groulx.

During my last couple of trips to the airport, I have measured the bus travel time from Lionel-Groulx to be around 20 minutes. Indeed, the scheduled time is around 18-22 minutes, increasing to about 28 minutes in the rush hour direction. Once the construction around the Turcot highway interchange and the Dorval circle is finished by 2022, the bus will run on dedicated lanes — which should bring the travel times to 18-22 minutes at all times.

5) â€œAdditional Capacity: Saturated Networksâ€
This claim is the most egregious. It basically comes down to claiming that if the REM is not implemented, there could be no improvements to the existing networks. Even though there are current projects in the pipeline to increase service (like the previously mentioned 50M$ double-tracking project of the Deux-Montagnes line). There are ways to add capacity for much cheaper than the complete rebuild that the REM proposes.

Overall, the theoretical capacity of the existing heavy rail network is much higher than today. Itâ€s possible to triple the capacity with some investment — as for example proposed in the 2007 AMT study to place stations at Edouard-Montpetit, which assumed 5 minute frequencies in the tunnel.

Beyond that, there do exist North American heavy rail lines that allow 120 second frequencies – for example the North River tunnels in New York City. If similarly advanced signalling and emergency measures were implemented in the Mount-Royal tunnel, it would essentially six-tuple its capacity compared to today.

The REM would run at 150 second frequencies from the beginning — very close to the claimed maximum theoretical frequency of 90 seconds. Assuming this is actually possible, this would mean the absolute maximum theoretical capacity is only about 66% higher than the initial capacity — really much less room to grow.

And this absolute maximum theoretical capacity of the REM (24,000 PPHD) is still less than upgrading the existing heavy rail system to 120 second frequencies (60,000 PPHD).

So the claim that additional capacity opportunities are â€œsubstantialâ€ for the REM, while the existing networks are â€œsaturatedâ€ is simply not true.

CDPQInfra: A company of Spin and PR

Just taking a closer look at the above table, itâ€s easy to see that the CDPQInfra relies on simply printing false numbers in their pronouncements. They have trouble being honest. Whatever they say should be questioned vigorously, especially by journalists repeating those press releases. For a company that claims to be public (which isnâ€t actually true either), it is probably one of the least trustable.

Within this context, their first reaction after the release of the BAPE report is rather ironic: CDPQInfra came back blasting the whole BAPE process right away, in a press release titled â€œBAPE report on the REM project: An analysis that overlooks facts and distorts realityâ€. â€œDistort realityâ€, thatâ€s pretty rich.

A similar thing happened when journalist Francis Villes form La Presse crunched some numbers that indicate that the operation of the line will cost the public a lot of money every year in order to ensure the profitability to the CDPQ. When he asked CDPQInfra for comment, their spokesperson responded with the following:

â€œLe REM offrira un service de qualitÃ© et Ã haute frÃ©quence, qui promet de transformer la mobilitÃ© dans la rÃ©gion et d’amÃ©liorer la performance du transport collectif. Et ce, au mÃªme niveau de coÃ»t par passager-kilomÃ¨tre que les rÃ©seaux actuels. Pour des revenus par passager-kilomÃ¨tre Ã©quivalents Ã ceux des rÃ©seaux actuels, le REM couvrira non seulement ses frais d’exploitation, mais Ã©galement les coÃ»ts d’immobilisation, ce qui dÃ©montre la trÃ¨s grande efficacitÃ© du modÃ¨le d’affaires. PrÃ©tendre le contraire revient Ã induire le public en erreur.â€

Effectively heâ€s again repeating this will be a great project, and it will supposedly cost the public the same in subsidies as the current public transit system — and to be pretending otherwise would be to â€œmislead the publicâ€.

Itâ€s the pot calling the kettle black.

Enter Bill 137

This brings us to bill 137. Itâ€s a rather concerning development, a bill proposed by the government of Quebec to fast-track the REM project.

The bill

Disallows those being expropriated from contesting the expropriation.
It exempts the REM from municipal taxes.
It simply declares that the REM will be deemed in compliance with the BAPE.
It overrides the act respecting the preservation of agricultural land allowing the REM to convert a bunch of agricultural land.
It stipulates that the ARTM (the AMT replacement) will have to transfer 512M$ to the REM project â€œin lieu of land value captureâ€ (receiving no equity in return).
It forces the ARTM to enter into an agreement with the REM for the ongoing financing of the REM — and if the ARTM doesnâ€t do it, the minister can just decide the terms of the agreement.
It gives servitudes to public roads in order to build the REM.

This is basically a law that that overrides existing rules and gives powers, large amounts of subsidies and resources to a private company that will privatize essential transit assets, move it out of public control, and extract large amounts of money from the public to run it.

And just like CDPQInfra keeps trying to construct an alternate reality to advance their project, the government is constructing an alternate reality where the REM doesn’t break the rules of the environmental consultation process and the preservation of agricultural land.

My trust in this company is rather low at this point, but apparently the Liberal government trusts it more than actual public agencies.

I look at this with concern and agree with UdeM urbanism professor GÃ©rard Beaudet, who calls the REM the creation of a â€œBarony in the heart of the Metropolisâ€.

La Controverse Autour du REM est Devenue une Guerre MÃ©diatiqueâ€¦

ant6n — Mon, 17 Oct 2016 14:23:43 +0000

English version below. The following was written as a response to the most recent ‘opinion’ published by the CDPQInfra in La Presse and Le Devoir.

La controverse autour du REM est devenue une guerre mÃ©diatiqueâ€¦ sur un projet de transport en commun! Ã‡a nâ€a aucun sens. Le projet devrait Ãªtre Ã©valuÃ© selon son mÃ©rite, avec lâ€objectif de construire un rÃ©seau intÃ©grÃ© de transport.

Au lieu de cela, on se chicane sur des faits. CDPQInfra ne cesse de publier des article pour â€œcorrigerâ€ ceux qui soulÃ¨vent des problÃ¨mes. Mais CDPQInfra ne fait que souligner les chiffres en leur faveur et tente de brouiller le dÃ©bat sur les chiffres qui leur sont dÃ©favorables, pour nous convaincre que le REM est Ã©conomiquement viable.

Par exemple, leur plus rÃ©cent article paru dans La Presse et Le Devoir compare le coÃ»t de construction par kilomÃ¨tre du REM avec celui du Canada line et du Confederation line, pour montrer que le chiffre est infÃ©rieur pour le REM, ce qui en ferait un meilleur projet.

Mais cette comparaison nâ€est simplement pas pertinente! Les lignes Canada et Confederation ont Ã©tÃ© construites de zÃ©ro; des tunnels neufs ont Ã©tÃ© creusÃ©s dans le centre-ville, la partie la plus onÃ©reuse des projets. Câ€est complÃ¨tement diffÃ©rent du REM: la moitiÃ© de la ligne et le tunnel existent dÃ©jÃ ! Il est donc tout Ã fait normal que le coÃ»t par kilomÃ¨tre soit moindre. Cela nâ€en fait pas un meilleur projet, malgrÃ© ce que CDPQInfra voudrait prÃ©tendre.

Le coÃ»t par kilomÃ¨tre est un chiffre que la CDPQ brandit Ã tout vent car elle obscurcit tous les problÃ¨mes qui font du projet un mauvais investissement:

1) lâ€utilisation inefficace de lâ€infrastructure existante, particuliÃ¨rement du tunnel du Mont Royal. Cet actif stratÃ©gique devrait Ãªtre partagÃ© entre le REM, les lignes de lâ€AMT et de Via Rail, mais la CDPQ refuse de prendre en considÃ©ration un tel partage, car ils nâ€ont que faire des coÃ»ts occasionnÃ©s aux autres agences, ni du dÃ©veloppement Ã long terme du transport Ã MontrÃ©al. Sans accÃ¨s au tunnel, les lignes de lâ€AMT et de VIA Rail ne pourront jamais rÃ©aliser leur plein potentiel.

La CDPQ continue de prÃ©tendre que ce partage est impossible technologiquement, prÃ©tention rÃ©futÃ©e Ã maintes reprises par des experts indÃ©pendants et par Via Rail.

2) la reconstruction non-nÃ©cessaire de la ligne Deux-Montagnes. Contrairement Ã ce que la CDPQ laisse entendre, la reconstruction nâ€augmentera en rien la capacitÃ© aux heures de pointe. Le REM ne fera quâ€Ã©tendre le service durant la journÃ©e, alors que lâ€infrastructure actuelle permet dâ€atteindre ce rÃ©sultat avec des amÃ©liorations beaucoup moins chÃ¨res.

3) les antennes vers lâ€Ouest de lâ€ÃŽle gÃ©nÃ¨reront trÃ¨s peu dâ€achalandage. La ligne est construite sur le bord de lâ€autoroute, lÃ oÃ¹ trÃ¨s peu de gens habitent, et est mal connectÃ© au rÃ©seau dâ€autobus. La ligne dÃ©pend presque exclusivement sur le parking incitatif, davantage mÃªme que les trains de banlieues existantes, ce qui en limitera lâ€achalandage.

Si le REM nâ€est pas fait pour maximiser la frÃ©quentation, pas construit pour optimiser lâ€infrastructure existante, pourquoi voulons-nous aller de lâ€avant? Parce que nous avons mandatÃ© une entitÃ© privÃ©e pour planifier notre transport en commun, Ã profit. Beaucoup de profit. Ce profit, qui sera extrait du public quÃ©bÃ©cois, car nous devrons repayer la contribution de la Caisse dâ€une faÃ§on ou dâ€une autre.

Et ce motif de profit explique la guerre mÃ©diatique. La CDPQ veut le projet, mÃªme sâ€il ne fait aucun sens, mÃªme sâ€il ne maximise pas lâ€utilitÃ© publique, car elle nâ€est concernÃ©e que par le profit. Nos agences gouvernementales sont restÃ©es particuliÃ¨rement silencieuses sur ce projet, et la plupart se sont rangÃ©s derriÃ¨re la CDPQ malgrÃ© les failles du projet.

Ã‰tant donnÃ© lâ€inaction de nos institutions publiques, câ€est au public quÃ©bÃ©cois de sâ€assurer que la CDPQ soit redevable, et de demander les amÃ©liorations qui sâ€imposent.

The REM controversy has become a media war

The REM controversy has become a media war — over a transit project! It’s completely crazy. It should be about merit, about weighing positive and negative impacts. About building an integrated, regional transit network.

Instead, weâ€re arguing about facts. The Caisse keeps writing articles trying to â€˜correctâ€ people bringing up issues. The Caisse only highlights facts to try to make them look good, and misleading the public about others, all to prove that their project supposedly makes financial sense.

For example, in the most recent article in La Presse et Le Devoir, CDPQInfra compares the construction cost per kilometre of the REM with the Canada line and Confederation line – showing that it is lower, supposedly to prove theirs is a much better project.

But this comparison is simply not apt. The Canada and Confederation lines were built from scratch, including downtown tunnels, which is the costliest part. This is completely unlike the REM: Half the the line already exists today; the downtown tunnel exists today. Most of the new stretches are along highways, where it is cheaper to build, but where it will have less ridership. It is normal that the cost per km is lower, but, contrary to what the CDPQ wants us to believe, that doesnâ€t mean itâ€s a better project.

The cost per kilometre is a number that the Caisse provides try to obfuscate the problems that make this project an inefficient investment:

1) The inefficient utilization of existing infrastructure. In particular the Mount Royal tunnel. This strategic infrastructure asset should be shared by REM, three AMT lines and VIA. But the Caisse simply refuses to consider sharing, because they do not care about the cost to other transit agencies and long-term transit development in Montreal. Without direct access to downtown, the AMT and VIA lines they will never be able to realize their full ridership potential.

Instead theyâ€re arguing about whether a shared system is possible, a fact which many independent experts and VIA rail itself have explained multiple times.

2) The unnecessary rebuilding of the Deux-Montagnes line from scratch. Contrary to the claims of the Caisse, these upgrades will not improve capacity during peak hour. The REM will merely extend service throughout the day. The existing infrastructure could support this with simple, much cheaper upgrades.

3) The West Island antennas have very little ridership. This is because the line is planned along highways, where almost nobody lives, and it has poor connections to buses. The line relies almost exclusively on parking, even more than the existing commuter rail lines, and this will keep ridership low.

If the REM will not be not built to maximize ridership, not built to maximize utilization of existing infrastructure assets, Why are we building it? Itâ€s because we’re asking a private entity to plan our transit, for profit. A lot of profit. This profit will be extracted from the Quebec public, we will have to pay back the financial contribution of the Caisse one way or the other.

And the profit motive explains the media war. Once we take infrastructure planning away from our democratic institutions, and give it to a private entity to produce profit, then that entity will fight for the project no matter whether it makes sense, no matter whether it maximizes public utility. Our public agencies have been incredibly quiet, most are getting in line magically despite the obvious flaws of the project.

Given the lack of oversight from our public institutions, it is up to the public to hold the Caisse and the government accountable and demand improvements of the project.

How VIA Rail Torpedoed its Own â€œHigh-Frequency Railâ€ Project and Montreal’s chance for Regional Rail

ant6n — Tue, 04 Oct 2016 16:20:49 +0000

VIAs high-frequency rail project is a great opportunity for an integrated rail network in the greater Montreal region. This would require shared access to the Mount Royal tunnel, which the Caisse refuses to consider with the REM project. Instead of fighting for track sharing at the environmental impact hearings, VIA decided to throw themselves under the ~~bus~~ train.

The dream of high speed rail in Canada
VIAâ€s new approach: â€œhigh-frequency-railâ€
How would HFR be an opportunity for Montrealâ€s Regional Rail?
How will the REM affect the HFR project?
VIAs Reaction to the REM
Track Sharing is the Main issue
VIA at the BAPE hearings
Why did VIA torpedo the BAPE process and their own passengers?
The concern of privatizing public infrastructure planning

The dream of high speed rail in Canada

Canadians have long dreamed of High Speed Trains in the Quebec-Windsor corridor. Many studies were done, but the problem was usually cost: a 2011 study put the cost at 19 to 21$ Billion.

Map showing two possible route options proposed by the 2011 HSR study (Page s-6).Both options use the same route through Montreal, using the Mount Royal tunnel

VIAâ€s new approach: â€œhigh-frequency-railâ€

With the appointment of Yves Desjardins-Siciliano as VIA CEO in 2014, the focus changed from speed to frequency. Instead of competing with flights, they decided to compete with cars. And in the short term, the new plan will only focus on Montreal-Toronto, and worry about Quebec to Windsor later.

Instead of spending 10$ billion high speed rail, VIA would build lower speed, dedicated tracks for 3-4$ billion, mostly along existing rail corridors. This would allow VIA to run trains as often as they want at full conventional speeds. According to Desjardins-Siciliano, â€œitâ€s a third of the cost for two-thirds of the benefitâ€

Slide from 2015 presentation

VIA also started a procurement process for new rolling stock that would be able to travel at 200km/h in diesel or electric mode, allowing gradual electrification.

The hope is to get this project up and running in the fall of 2019.

So far, the Federal government has only provided funding to prepare studies. But VIA has been in discussions with several large public-sector pension funds to get investment for the project. Itâ€s interesting to note the projected return on investment on the slide posted above:

â€œmid-teen %â€ for HFR
â€œ6.9%â€ for HSR

(holy cow, Iâ€d like portfolio returns like that).

How would HFR be an opportunity for Montrealâ€s Regional Rail?

To understand the opportunity for Montrealâ€s regional rail, we have to consider that VIA wants to build dedicated tracks along existing rail corridors, and then share them with the AMT and other transit operators. Yves Desjardins-Siciliano explains the vision behind dedicated tracks as follows:

â€œWeâ€re not promoting high-speed-rail, weâ€re promoting high-frequency-rail, which means dedicated tracks on which only passenger services run.

And when I say passenger services I mean not only the VIA rail intercity service but the metropolitan or regional services of our partners, metrolink here in Toronto, AMT in Quebec and whatever other operating enterprise the Caisse de Depot may come up with as part of its new mandate.â€

The map below shows the likely trajectory of the VIA HFR line in red:

REM proposal, VIAs HFR proposal and AMT lines (including the St-Jerome line rerouted into the tunnel)

The map shows that the VIA and AMT lines overlap on the Vaudreuil-Hudson line in the West and on the St-JÃ©rÃ´me line in the North.

So if VIA and the AMT could share these new, dedicated, electrified passenger tracks, this could be a great opportunity for the AMT to greatly expand service.

The electrification makes operating trains much cheaper, which allows more frequent service. Electric trains are also faster and can stop more often, allowing the addition of more stops within the city. With updated signalling, VIA and AMT trains could run only minutes apart on the same track.

Imagine: service from downtown Montreal to Parc-Extension, Chabanel and Laval, every 10 to 15 minutes all day long. In the North we could create a new rapid transit line serving new areas while relieving the overcrowded Orange Line.

In the West of Montreal, we could implement the Train-de-lâ€Ouest project that West Islanders have been demanding for decades: frequent service on the Vaudreuil-Hudson line, with the possibility to serve the airport as well.

And the cost for all these upgrades could be shared with VIA, whose higher-paying passengers would finance a large amount of the capital costs. We would get new transit lines almost for free.

How will the REM affect the HFR project?

The REM proposed by the Caisse de Depot adds a giant snag to this plan. Instead of adding to the synergy of the regional rail network, the Caisse is doing its own thing and destroying regional network opportunities.

The big issue is the sharing of the Mount Royal tunnel. VIA, AMT & REM could all use the tunnel, which could provide a high-capacity trunk line through Montreal serving the whole region and cities beyond.

The REM will cut off direct access to downtown for many lines

But the Caisse wants to privatize the tunnel and monopolize it. They insist on converting it to an incompatible technology, citing regulation and the need for frequency. But the automated light rail technology to be used by the REM and the heavy rail technology used by the other lines could be made compatible with each other and provide service at high frequency.

Some might say itâ€s crazy to have all these lines share a single tunnel. But consider that the REM and AMT will each only need a capacity of about 20,000 passengers per hour per direction (PPHD). Since two-track rail tunnels can accommodate 40,000 to 60,000 PPHD, it makes a lot of economic sense to have all lines share the same tunnel.

But the Caisse stubbornly refuses to consider this option, and its privatization and monopolization plan appears currently supported by all levels of government.

If the Caisse monopolizes the tunnel, the synergies between VIA and the AMT fall apart, and so will the chance for a large regional network.

VIAs Reaction to the REM

When the REM project was first announced, VIA didnâ€t seem to understand the implications of the project. In an interview with the Financial Post about a month after the REM project was unveiled, Desjardin-Siciliano only spoke of issues of funding:

â€œThe Caisse announcement is somewhat bittersweet, (…) On the one hand, it supports our suggestion; on the other hand, their people will now be focused on delivering a very aggressive project on a very aggressive timeline, so it makes our project less of a possibility for them.â€

Track Sharing is the Main issue

Since then, the issue of track sharing has come up numerous times. VIA itself has said that track sharing is technically possible if VIA and the Caisse sat down and designed the project together. They provided numerous examples of heavy and light rail sharing tracks, to show that is possible technologically. They also provided examples that show that it is possible to circumvent get around the regulatory issues for sharing of light and heavy rail.

CDPQInfra has simply dismissed this possibility. For instance, Jean-Vincent Lacroix, claimed the example of the O-train in Ottawa is not a relevant example because it has a different frequency and traction system than the REM — but completely misses the point of the example, which is to prove the willingness of Transports Canada to give waivers to antiquated rail-safety regulation if it is proven that safety can be provided by other means.

At the environmental assessment consultations, the BAPE hearings that ended last week, numerous experts came forward and described the possibility of track-sharing between REM, VIA & the AMT. Several environmental and municipal groups demanded track sharing as well.

Around the same time, Jacques Fauteux, Government and community relations at VIA Rail Canada wrote:

“Il est essentiel que le rÃ©seau de transport ferroviaire canadien [offert par VIA Rail] conserve son accÃ¨s direct au centre-ville de MontrÃ©al [via la gare Centrale] pour optimiser la fluiditÃ© des transports et la connexion entre les rÃ©gions du QuÃ©bec et la mÃ©tropole.”

Just days later, on the last evening of the hearings, towards the end of the session, VIA gave a presentation at the BAPE as well.

They did not submit a brief beforehand, and only made a verbal declarationÂ (for video, see Jeudi, 29 septembre 2016, 19:00).

VIA at the BAPE hearings

Given the importance of track sharing, and how VIA has talked about the possibility of track sharing, most people expected that VIA would bring it up again. After all, the reason of the BAPE is to identify possible impacts, and to make recommendations to reduce them. It was a perfect opportunity to get the commission to recommend that the Caisse should investigate track sharing.

But at the BAPE, CEO Desjardins-Siciliano affirmed the opposite.

Instead of talking about impacts and warning about the need for integration, he declared the REM project basically perfect, that it â€œgot to be executed without delayâ€. Despite the fact that VIA wouldnâ€t be able to access the Mount Royal tunnel if the REM goes forward without track sharing, he also claimed that both the VIA HFR and REM project are complementary and that there are zero impacts for VIA beyond the â€œusual construction impactsâ€ that youâ€d expect from a project of this size. He dismisses concerns about the long-term impacts:

â€œIt is not surprising that the project at the scale as the one projected by the Caisse de Depot whose scope is transformational has elicited its share of comments and opinions. But they should be analyzed without losing sight of the longer-term objective: implementation of a sustainable transportation infrastructure for the 21st century.â€

Desjardins-Siciliano claims to advocate for â€œsustainable transportation infrastructure for the 21st centuryâ€ as the â€œlonger-term objectiveâ€, yet in the same breath pushes for the destruction of any possibility of an integrated regional network in the long term.

The commission seemed to be quite puzzled at these statements, given the many people who talked about track sharing before. They asked Desjardins-Siciliano numerous times about VIAs plans and the REM impacts, and the VIA CEO would merely repeat the same words over and over.

For any transit advocate interested in regional integration and concerned about the long-term effects of the decisions of today, this is a really frustrating hearing to watch. It felt like VIA Rail was sinking their own ship (and taking all of us with them).

â€œthere’s a way to increase ridership, as long as you only have one thing in mind, one concern: the customersâ€ (2:06:17)

However, despite all the obfuscation, VIAâ€s CEO eventually did admit that their plans included the use of the Mont-Royal tunnel to reach Quebec City, and that it would have significant time savings, â€œwe have an edge of one hourâ€.

But rather than admitting the importance of the Northern alignment via the tunnel, he used the fact that the travel time is much faster as an argument to dismiss the impact of the forced transfer, which is far away from downtown, in the middle of an industrial park, and inconvenient with luggage:

â€œ…if it would cost 3-5 minutes of that hour (to transfer), this would still remain an important difference, so that most people would take it, independently of a transferâ€.

He also kept repeating the fiction that forced transfers will not have an impact as long as you integrate tickets.

Why did VIA torpedo the BAPE process and their own passengers?

VIA rail could have just said something like â€œwell it would be nice to have shared access to the Mount Royal tunnel, but if it is not possible, we can find a way around itâ€. But it took them several questions from the commission to even admit that it was in their plans.

Why would they argue so strongly for the project in its current incarnation, be so dishonest about the impact, and simply not answer questions regarding the technical feasibility of track sharing at all?

We can only speculate, and may never find out what happened here.

Maybe by the time the second phase of HFR will be built, which requires the use of the tunnel to connect to Quebec City, the VIA rail president wonâ€t be in charge anymore so it is not his problem. He did previously say that VIA are looking at â€œstrictly Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal as the first phrase to profitability and then expansion by other generations after my time.â€

Or maybe it was an order from above to get in line.

Or more likely, maybe the Caisse promised some funding for their HFR project if they shut up about problems and get in line. After all, VIA did hope for private funding of their project, given that governments donâ€t seem very eager to invest in rail infrastructure. VIAâ€s presentation describing the project was done at a PPP conference, and Desjardins-Siciliano promised a high rate of return to investors. And he did describe the REM project as â€œbittersweetâ€ when it first came out, as it had shifted the infrastructure funding priorities of the Caisse away from VIA.

It would be especially cynical if the reason that VIA will allow the cutting of the Quebec-Windsor corridor in half, adding two transfers for anybody travelling through Montreal, if it is done to ensure funding of the HFR project in the short term — after Desjardins-Sicilianoâ€s big pronouncement that we should not lose â€œsight of the longer-term objectiveâ€.

The concern of privatizing public infrastructure planning

When the REM project was first announced, there were some rumblings from the AMT about how this will affect their network, but they quickly got in line.

Now, with VIA also getting in line and torpedoing the experts at the BAPE calling for a shared, regional system between AMT, VIA and REM, it strengthens the Caisseâ€s case for privatizing the strategic infrastructure assets and building a line that will prevent building a regional network in the long term.

How a private equity firm suddenly has so much power to make public infrastructure decisions against the long-term best interest of the public, against the warnings of expertise, how heads of big public agencies are made to make pronouncements against the interest of the people they serve – thatâ€s the truly scary part.

We could go ahead and build a shared system. The technical and regulatory hurdles arenâ€t even that big. But we donâ€t, because we are in the process of moving decisions affecting the public for decades outside of the democratic control of our public institutions and into the control of private equity.

And we will only understand the impact of these decisions when itâ€s too late.

Le REM perd le nord

ant6n — Fri, 16 Sep 2016 23:18:57 +0000

This text was published as an opinion in the metro newspaper on September 15, 2016, excluding the last paragraph.

Le tunnel Mont-Royal

Des nos jours, des centaines de milliers de montrÃ©alais du nord et de lâ€est de lâ€ÃŽle de MontrÃ©al sâ€entassent durant des heures chaque jour dans les bus des lignes 67, 139, 32, 48, 49, 60 et 121 pour se rendre au travail.

Cette situation est incongrue puisquâ€un train existe Ã proximitÃ©: la ligne Mascouche de lâ€AMT, anciennement le Train de lâ€Est.

Cette ligne traverse le nord de MontrÃ©al, prÃ¨s du lieu de rÃ©sidence de 200 000 personnes – autant que le West Island au complet – et se rend directement au centre-ville via le tunnel du Mont-Royal. Mais presque aucun montrÃ©alais lâ€utilise.

La ligne de Mascouche, construite il y a quelques annÃ©es par lâ€AMT, a Ã©tÃ© conÃ§ue et optimisÃ©e pour les banlieues seules: presque aucun arrÃªt dessert MontrÃ©al, les tarifs de lâ€AMT sont plus chers que ceux de la STM, les autobus de la STM ne se rendent pas aux gares et le service est tellement peu frÃ©quent quâ€il est inutile pour les rÃ©sidents de MontrÃ©al.

Mais il est encore possible dâ€amÃ©liorer le service, par lâ€ajout de voies et de nouvelles stations. Il ne faut pour cela que de la volontÃ© politique pour nÃ©gocier une entente avec le CN, qui possÃ¨de la ligne.

Ces amÃ©liorations, beaucoup moins chÃ¨re que la construction dâ€une nouvelle ligne de mÃ©tro, permettrait aux rÃ©sidents de MontrÃ©al Nord et de lâ€Est de se rendre au centre-ville 15-20 minutes plus rapidement!

Tel est le rÃªve dâ€une ligne de transport rapide pour MontrÃ©al Est et Nord: une connexion rapide, construite Ã une fraction du coÃ»t dâ€un mÃ©tro.

Et ce rÃªve meurt avec le RÃ©seau Ã©lectricque mÃ©tropolitain (REM).

Ce nâ€est pas seulement parce que le REM sâ€accaparera du financement dÃ©diÃ© au transport en commun pour la dÃ©cennie Ã venir, et dont lâ€Ouest de lâ€Ã®le en sera le principal bÃ©nÃ©ficiaire. Non. Câ€est que le REM, tel quâ€il a Ã©tÃ© conÃ§u, bloquera toute amÃ©lioration future Ã la ligne de Mascouche.

PremiÃ¨rement, le REM coupera lâ€accÃ¨s direct au centre-ville, puisque le tunnel du Mont-Royal sera monopolisÃ©e par le REM. La ligne de Mascouche sera donc coupÃ©e et les usagers devront y transfÃ©rer vers le REM pour se rendre au centre-ville. Un terme technique existe pour cette situation: une â€œrupture de chargeâ€, un transfert forcÃ© qui rendra la ligne moins attrayante et rÃ©sultera en une diminution de son utilisation.

DeuxiÃ¨mement, si on dÃ©cide, aprÃ¨s le REM, dâ€amÃ©liorer la ligne de Mascouche et que des dizaines de milliers dâ€usagers empruntent cette ligne, leur transfert vers le REM causerait une surcharge. AprÃ¨s tout, le REM a Ã peine assez de capacitÃ© pour accommoder lâ€achalandage provenant de lâ€Ouest.

Il serait possible de concevoir le REM pour quâ€il puisse partager la voie avec le train de Mascouche, et Ã©galement avec les trains de VIA Rail et de la ligne de St-JÃ©rÃ´me. VIA a dÃ©jÃ prÃ©sentÃ© Ã plusieurs reprises les options possibles.

Mais la Caisse refuse systÃ©matiquement de de considÃ©rer un partage de voies, optant plutÃ´t de monopoliser le tunnel et, ce faisant, dÃ©montre un dÃ©sintÃ©rÃªt total pour les besoins des rÃ©sidents de lâ€Est.

(Ceux qui habitent le Nord et lâ€Est de lâ€ÃŽle ne sont peut-Ãªtre pas intÃ©ressÃ©s par un projet du West-Island, mais ils devraient y regarder de plus prÃ¨s. Nous devons exiger que les infrastructures soient partagÃ©es pour que lâ€Est ne soit pas laissÃ© pour compte, aujourdâ€hui et dans le futur.)

The New Champlain Bridge – Barely Built for Rail

ant6n — Fri, 09 Sep 2016 16:00:41 +0000

An investigation into how the New Champlain Bridge is being built for only very light railway axle loads, and how this would make it difficult to build an integrated regional rail system shared between REM, AMT and VIA, but not impossible.

The New Champlain Bridge (source)

One issue regarding the REM light metro project that has come up during the BAPE hearings, and that has come up in the news several times, is the one of sharing the Mont-Royal tunnel.

The Caisse intends to privatize the tunnel and monopolize it, although the Mascouche and St-Jerome line of the AMT, and VIA rail need to access it. VIA rail needs access the tunnel for its proposed high frequency train between Quebec City and Montreal – the routing via the North Shore and Trois-Riviere is 45 minutes faster, and has more population along the way.

The refusal of the Caisse to design a shared system between the REM, VIA and the AMT is probably the main issue, which also informs most of the concerns related to privatization.

One of the issues for for a compatible system is the change of the electrification from 25KV to 1.5KV. The former is usually used on mainlines and on regional and commuter rail systems, the latter on metro systems.

25kv vs 1.5kv Railway Electrification

25KV provides more power, and due to the higher voltage there are less resistive losses. This means substations, the equipment buildings along the line that feed electricity into it, can be further apart. Fewer substations is great for a system involving large distances. So most long distance, regional and commuter rail systems use or will use 25Kv electrification (including VIA).

However, 25kv electrification also requires heavier transformers on the trains that convert the power to be used by the motors, so the trains were historically heavier.

The Deux-Montagnes line was actually converted in the 90s from 1.5KV to 25kv, and new, more powerful trains were ordered, the MR-90 railcars. Back then, this project cost 300M$. We are now reverting the electrification back, although we donâ€t know the expense for that.

The MR-90 vehicles (source)

When I asked the REM people about the reason for changing the electrification, they told me that â€œ1.5KV is more appropriate for a light rail systemâ€, and that trains using it are lighter. They also told me that the weight of the trains is a big concern, due to the low allowed axle weights on the Champlain bridge, which is built to light rail standards.

They said you that you couldnâ€t just extend the existing Deux-Montagnes line with its MR-90 vehicles onto the Champlain bridge because they are too heavy.

This seems strange. Weâ€re building a new rail bridge thatâ€s still under construction; and there are already weight concerns?

Rail Weights in the Specification of the Champlain Bridge

I decided to investigate the issue. What are the exact weight requirements on the Champlain bridge?

I e-mailed the New Champlain Bridge to ask about rail axle weights. They forwarded my request to Infrastructure Canada, which pointed me to the Project Agreement between the Canadian Government and the â€œSignature on the Saint Lawrence Groupâ€, a consortium of SNC-Lavalin and others to build the Champlain bridge.

This is a giant document, provided as a collection of pdf files in English and French, which come in a 175MB zip file. Infrastructure Canada pointed me to Schedule 7, Part 7, Section 4.2.3.3. It reads:

For the SLR phase (as defined in Section 4.1.1 herein) the live loads shall be taken as rail traffic in accordance with EN 1991-2: Eurocode 1- Actions on structures – Part 2: Traffic loads on bridges. Section 6 of the Eurocode together with the Project-specific application rules contained in this Agreement shall be considered applicable for SLR loading.

The structure shall be verified for both Load Model 71 and Load Model SW/0. Classified vertical loads shall be applied. The factor alpha referred to in Clause 6.3.2 (3) of the Eurocode shall be taken as 0.50 and shall be applied to both load models except that the classified value of the axle load Qvk to be used in Load Model 71 shall be taken as 146 kN.

This sounds good! The railway is defined according to a standard, a European one on top of that! They know how to build trains, right? But we still donâ€t really know what the actual weight requirement is. So the search continues, now for what this â€œEN 1991-2â€ specification is, what the â€œLoad Model 71â€ and â€œLoad Model SW/0â€ are, and how those alpha and QvK values fit into that.

Load Model 71 in EN 1991-2

The EN 1991-2 standard is only a quick Google search away, and on Page 68 it explains the weight model using this drawing (the other load model SW/0 is less constraining and thus not relevant to this discussion):

This basically explains that a train is allowed where four following axles may all be at least 1.6m apart, and each may apply a force of 250kN (25.4T) to the track. These correspond to the bogies (trucks) of two adjacent railcars, which each hold two axles. Beyond that, the train is allowed to apply 80kN (8.2T) per metre.

The text of the specification also explains the value alpha. It allows scaling the model to deal with different kind of traffic. For example, A factor of 1.3 would allow traffic that is 30% heavier than the figure, for heavy freight, a factor of 0.75 would allow traffic that is 25% lighter than the figure, for example light electric multiple unit trains.

The specification of the champlain bridge has an alpha of 0.5, except the value QvK (the axle load), which is allowed to be 146kN. So the particular model for the Champlain bridge looks as follows:

One interesting bit about this is that an â€˜alphaâ€ value of 0.5 is outside of the spec of EN 1991-2, which allows a minimum value of 0.75. This results in minimum weights that are outside of any European track norm.

The Champlain bridge allows only 14.9T per axle and 4.1T per metre. The lightest track that exists in Europe, the nowadays only seldom used track class A, allows 16.0T per axle and 5.0T per metre.

It seems odd that the Champlain Bridge was specified using a load model following a standard specification, but then overrides values to be outside that spec.

But there we have it, the maximum allowed train weights for the Champlain bridge:

14.9T per axle
4.1T per metre

What is the Axle weight of the current vehicles used on the Deux-Montagnes line?

The MR-90 vehicles used on the Deux-Montagnes train consist of motor and trailer cars. The motor cars weigh 57T, the trailer cars weight 44T. The railcars are 25m long. Given that there are four axles per railcar, this gives a weight of 14.25T per axle and 2.28T per metre for the motor car. Good news, thatâ€s (barely) within spec!

When I pointed this out to one of the technical directors of the REM, he was actually pretty surprised.

But thereâ€s a problem: we also have to add passengers. Itâ€s an ancient wisdom in railroading that everything would be much easier without passengers.

Each vehicle is allowed to carry up to 200 passengers, and using 80Kg (176lb) as the average weight per passenger, the weight of the motor-car goes up to 73T. This gives us the following weights:

18.25T per axle
2.92T per metre

This means the axle weights of the vehicles are 22% too heavy, without any padding. Therefore, the MR-90 vehicles of the Deux-Montagnes line can not go on the new Champlain Bridge.

Anything that has a locomotive in front or bilevel-rail cars is so heavy that it will never be able to go on the Champlain bridge. So forget your phantasy maps drawing high speed rail lines across the bridge to the United States.

Why did we design the bridge for such a light standard?

We have to remember that itâ€s been decades that weâ€ve been talking about putting a light rail system on the Champlain Bridge. The plan kept changing back and forth, sometimes there was talk of a metro, sometimes of expanding the busway, usually the goal was a â€˜light railâ€ solution. This usually assumed a very light rail system, something like a tram, sometimes maybe like the Vancouver skytrain.

The Champlain Bridge Rail as envisioned in AMT’s annual report for 1999 – a tram

Itâ€s only with the Caisseâ€s REM plan, first announced in April of 2016, that there was any official plan to connect the heavy rail Mont-Royal tunnel and the Champlain bridge light rail. One transportation official of Montreal I talked to called the idea of connecting the Deux-Montagnes line and the Champlain bridge corridor â€œgeniusâ€.

I would not be so generous. I would call it necessary.

The Champlain bridge LRT always had the problem of access to downtown. Previous plans assumed some sort of aerial station south of the downtown, always with the problem that a direct access to downtown and connections to the metro would be very expensive. Later plans called for a streetcar going downtown via Peel street, which would have the problem of very long trams frequently piling into dense downtown.

Making the connection into Gare Centrale is an ideal solution. Thereâ€s a right of way leading into the station from the South, and another line that continues North. Thereâ€s plenty of space, for many rail lines, and the potential for many connections.

The idea of connecting the two lines terminating at Gare Centrale, coming from the North and South, then becomes more obvious. The resulting connected line would provide the starting point for a regional network composed of a high-capacity trunk line and many branches in the North and South. In the downtown section, there would be the chance to connect to three metro lines, assuming the construction of extra tunnel stations.

All these ideas come together fairly easily if you look at how other cities design transit, for example the several RER lines in Paris. Montreal shouldâ€ve always followed those examples.

Example Paris RER A: a regional network built of a high capacity trunk line with many metro connections and multiple branches

So with these ideas in mind, the Champlain bridge shouldâ€ve always been designed with enough flexibility of axle load to create such an interconnected system.

Given this constraint it will be difficult to build a shared system. Weâ€d need a vehicle that can both mix with the heavy rail trains used by AMT and VIA, but be light enough to go on the bridge.

At this point itâ€s moot to argue about the planning mistakes of the past, the contract is drawn up and the bridge is under construction. The issue now is whether we can salvage our regional rail system.

The main question is whether it is possible to purchase mainline rail vehicles that are light enough for the Champlain bridge, but are nevertheless compatible with heavy rail (and its 25kv electrification).

Are there 25kv mainline rail cars that are light enough for the Champlain Bridge?

We have to remember that the MR-90 vehicles were built 25 years ago. The vehicles are longer than the ones used on the REM (25m vs 20m), and they were not optimized for weight. In fact, the configuration of motor-car and trailer-car encourages more weight on the motor car: since weight gives you better adhesion, you want as much weight on the motored axles as possible, and as little weight as possible on the deadbeat trailer cars. This way you can maximize the power you can apply to the rails.

In the last twenty years, railway technology has improved tremendously, as has the technology of 25kv transformers, which have become much lighter. If you optimize a rail vehicle for weight today, is it possible to make a mainline rail vehicle that is much lighter?

The answer is yes.

There are not too many mainline railcars that that light that they can go on the New Champlain Bridge, but they do exist in places that optimize for weight. In Japan the Shinkansen E6 is a high speed train that weighs only 11.8T per axle, fully loaded (see page 6). The main way they accomplish that is by distributing all equipment evenly along the train, every axle is powered (also, they only have seated passengers, so there are fewer of them overall).

Hamburgâ€s urban rail system (S-Bahn) also has vehicles that are light enough (class 474, class 490).

But the most relevant examples are in Britain. There, the weight of vehicles is largely optimized to reduce maintenance costs. The result is that manufacturers build very light trains. Two vehicles are being produced right now to be used on networks that are each composed of a downtown tunnel connected to many branches (sound familiar?): Thameslink and Crossrail.

Both use automation in in the tunnel section, both use 25KV electrification, and are based on railcars 20m vehicles (like the REM). And both use rolling stock that obey the 14T axle limit:

The class 700 built by Siemens for Thameslink
The class 345 built by Bombardier for Crossrail

British Rail class 345 and 700

Both these vehicles show that it is possible to fulfill several constraints of a possible shared system for REM, VIA, and AMT, using existing technology that has already been built.

Regulatory issues

While these vehicles could be used almost directly in shared Mont-Royal tunnel and the New Champlain Bridge, including providing the automation that the Caisse is so keen on, there are regulatory issues when mixing a European-built train with AMTs and VIAs passenger trains built to North American standards. Other agencies have gotten waivers to allow this sort of intermingling, and there are signs that the regulations itself are changing, but this is a big issue that is better explained in another post.

Alternatively, it may be possible to utilize the technology that makes new railway vehicles lighter in order to build ones that are compatible with North American Heavy rail standards, although such a custom-built vehicle may be more expensive.

What these trains do demonstrate is that it is possible to built lightweight mainline trains using the same electrification as exists today; and that obey the necessary weight limits.

This is one of the hurdles to building a shared system has already been overcome.

REM – A Look At The Ridership Study Summary

ant6n — Wed, 31 Aug 2016 05:10:08 +0000

Ridership Study Reveals Suburban, Car-Centric, Peak-Centric Focus; Airport Ridership is Abysmal; brings into Question again the Cost-benefit of the West Island and Airport Branches; ignores urban network effects.

Things are starting to roll for the REM, the BAPE (environmental impact) hearings started this week, there are more presentations and people have started asking questions. The process is moving super fast, and it can feel difficult to keep up. The process is strange, with people asking questions from the high level-political, financial and high-level technical on the one hand, to people asking about some specific impact near their house, all jumbled together in one giant process for a giant project worth billions.

One very interesting question asked at the BAPE was the first one, by journalist Michel Morin, who asked what the Caisse expects as a return for this project, 6%, 9%? The Caisse people didnâ€t answer the question. He then went on to say that if the return is that high, then why shouldnâ€t the government just borrow money, at 3%, and pay for the damn project itself!

We’ve also gotten confirmation that the REM is refusing to share track with VIA rail.

Meanwhile weâ€re getting drowned in paperwork, studies over studies that makes it hard to identify issues.

One document published yesterday is the ridership study for the REM, or better, a summary thereof. The most interesting tables are the the daily ridership per branch…

…and the table showing ridership in the morning peak per station:

Here are some observations:

1. The First-Year Ridership and 20th-year Ridership are very similar

Most new transit lines take years to grow their ridership to their target level. Apparently the REM will have most of its ridership in the first year of operation already. Iâ€m not sure what the reason for this is; is it due the used model or will this actually happen like this? This is a concern since the capacity of the line is chosen a bit low, being a light metro. Will the capacity be sufficient twenty years after opening?

Update: It has been pointed out to me that the per-station ridership is shown without ‘adoption progressive’, i.e. without assuming high ridership growth. If you look at the per-branch table (above), which does show ‘adoption progressive’, you can see a 30% ridership gain over twenty years. The question whether we will have enough capacity in the future does remain.

2. Nothing New in the North And South

The ridership study considers the four branches of the REM: the existing Deux-Montagnes line, the West Island (St-Anne-de-Bellevue) branch, the airport spur and the Champlain bridge corridor serving Brossard, also known as the A10 corridor.

Out of these, the A10-corridor and the Deux-Montagnes line bring in the most ridership, the numbers are in line with what weâ€ve seen before. There are few surprises.

One thing I did find interesting is that the South Shore branch has a relatively large percentage of ridership coming from the terminus of the line. In my mind this was basically just a giant parking lot and bus terminus at the edge of the developed area of Montreal, surely it shouldnâ€t bring in much ridership. But it brings in about half the ridership of Panama, the major station on the A-10 corridor. I expected to see three quarters of the ridership at Panama.

The terminus station will also see some of the largest growth of any station. Thatâ€s a concern; ridership growing at the end of the line probably means sprawl in action.

3. The Mascouche Line is Assumed to stay Crippled

The Mascouche line is apparently assumed to stay abysmal, if we go by the ridership numbers by station. Only 2,440 riders during the morning peak means that there will be at most 4,880 trips per day that are transfers from the Mascouche line. Given that 95% of the Mascouche line riders goes downtown, and that the Orange line connection is assumed to be much less convenient in the study, this would actually mean a reduction of the ridership on that line, which was 6,400 per day in 2015 (see page 9 of the AMT annual report).

The Mascouche line was supposed to reach 11,000 users eventually, on the line as it exists today. Iâ€m not sure whether the study just ignores future growth, or whether the forced transfer the REM will create will reduce ridership.

If we build the REM relying on these ridership numbers, we cannot add stations and increase service on the Mascouche line which passes by hundreds of thousands of transit-underserved people in Montreal-North and Montreal-Est. An upgraded Mascouche line, besides having the forced transfer rather than direct connection downtown that we have today, would have the problem that the REM simply wonâ€t have enough capacity to get people downtown.

4. The study Ignores All other Transfers

Besides the Mascouche line, the ridership study clearly ignores most network effects within Montreal. The study ignores transferees from the St-Jerome line, and doesnâ€t include the Edouard-Montpetit station, so ignores transferees from the Blue line as well. The Blue line has more riders per day than is projected for the whole REM network (about 250K vs 150K), and many would probably transfer to the REM if given the chance to get more quickly downtown. So Blue line transfers could overload the under-designed light-metro.

If we design now a regional network with line-capacities built around the conclusions of this study, we may end up having severe capacity issues, an issue Iâ€ve raised back in May.

5. The West Island Branch is Suburban, Car-Centric, Peaky & Low-Ridersip

The ridership on the West Island Branch is actually more than originally shown – instead of 11,000 trips per day, the branch will generate 16,800 trips. Instead of a third of the ridership of the most busy bus lines in Montreal, it will receive half their ridership.

Whatâ€s interesting is how this ridership compares to the parking along the stations of that Branch (Autorute 13, des Sources – St-Anne-de-Bellevue):

The five stations will have a combined capacity of 5,300 parking spaces. Since every parking space can generate two transit trips, this means 10,600 trips per day may come from car drivers, assuming full parking utilization and one single occupant per car.

This means that depending parking utilization and how many people travel together in a car, 63% of the ridership will come via car.

The REM people have promised that they will design the stations for bus connections first. But in reality, this whole branch is designed for cars.

Also, if we compare the daily ridership on that line with the peak morning ridership, we get that the 5 stations on the West Island branch have 8,240 trips during the morning peak — thatâ€s almost exactly half of the presumed daily ridership (which would be 8,400 trips).

This means outside of rush hour, the trains will be empty. But the system is built to run frequently all day long.

If ridership on the St-Anne-de-Bellevue branch mostly comes by car, mostly during the Peak time, then what is the point of building this all-day high-frequency light metro? This driving, peak-only clientele can be perfectly adequately served via the existing Vaudreuil-Hudson line, assuming some improved service, which also has the virtue of continuing to towns a bit further out and actually connects more centrally to communities.

There may still be a case for a transit line in the North of the West Island, but maybe only as far West as Fairview. The line should also be closer to actual population, and built with better & more direct connections to buses.

6. The Airport has Abysmal Ridership

The airport branch appears more and more abysmal. Iâ€ve written about how airport connectors suck, worrying that the 10,000 ridership numbers for the airport spur seem optimistic. Now it seems the line wonâ€t have more than 3,000 or 4,000 riders – slightly less than the 747 bus line.

The recent decision by the REM people to build an expensive 4km deep-bore tunnel, to avoid impacting the wetlands North of the airport, means the cost-benefit of this branch is more and more in question. A short spur from the Vaudreuil-Hudson line would be much cheaper, and a much more reasonable investment given the low potential ridership.

Conclusion

The ridership study reinforces the conclusion I had when trying to analyse the cost/benefit of the REM: The project will mix good transit lines with bad ones, and the public doesnâ€t get to pick what actually gets built.

The Deux-Montagnes line and A-10 corridor have good ridership and some sort of rapid transit is justified; the West Island spur is very questionable. The airport spur looks like only a political decision.

The West Island corridor is suburban and car-centric, the claim that this line is designed for bus feeders first is specious at best.

The Caisseâ€™s Debunking Debunked

ant6n — Mon, 29 Aug 2016 13:18:31 +0000

Last Friday, the CDPQInfra released an article entitled â€œClaims and Realities regarding the REM projectâ€. It appears they want to address some of the criticisms that many have raised.

Unfortunately, their article of supposed â€œclaimsâ€ vs supposed â€œrealityâ€ includes many big inaccuracies, so Iâ€m feeling compelled to provide counterpoints to their â€œrealityâ€. I know at the end of the day their article is just a PR exercise, but Itâ€s a bit puzzling that they would resort to writing articles that come so dangerously close to being misinformation.

In short, Iâ€m aiming to debunk the caisseâ€s debunking of concerns.

In the following it shows the claim the CDPQInfra presents, then their response, then my response to that.

CLAIM #1: Buses, streetcars or tram-trains are technological options that offer the same service and the same performance as automatic light metro, but are much less costly.
CLAIM #2: The REM will have a negative impact on existing infrastructure and public transportation networks.
CLAIM #3: The REM stations serve low-density areas
CLAIM #4: CDPQ Infra will acquire high-value public infrastructure without compensation.
CLAIM #5: CDPQ Infra has not adequately consulted with stakeholders and has not discussed the concerns of citizens and its partners.
CLAIM #7: To ensure that the REM is profitable, CDPQ Infra will have to set higher rates for users.

CLAIM #1: Buses, streetcars or tram-trains are technological options that offer the same service and the same performance as automatic light metro, but are much less costly.

(The Caisseâ€s) REALITY:
CDPQ Infra has chosen the solution that combines the most advantages to efficiently meet identified transportation needs. The automated light metro option (part of the LRT family) offers a dedicated corridor, ensuring fast, reliable service. It also guarantees greater safety and lower operating costs than most other systems. Finally, the capacity and flexibility of the automated light metro meets current and future demand, with the REM having the potential to achieve a frequency of 90 seconds. Throughout the world, there are approximately 800 km of automated light rail networks today, four times more than what existed 15 years ago.

(actual) REALITY:
The CDPQ claimed they studied various alternatives, but they didnâ€t make this study public. They claim their automatic light metro is the best solution, but they provide no numbers or facts to back up that claim.

I would argue that our trunk line, the Mont-Royal tunnel, should be a high capacity line, continued as a heavy rail line (that is, for high capacity) that can serve several times the ridership that the Caisse is proposing.

Some people complain that right now, people get a direct connection downtown from Brossard, a single seat ride on a bus. In the future people will be forced to transfer at Panama, and this transfer may increase the perceived â€˜costâ€ of travelling to make it uncompetitive. Also, buses do have more flexibility for line routing than a fixed rail system. Their claim is that the future BRT on the Champlain bridge would provide sufficient capacity. After all, this has been the plan for years until the Caisse proposed a different one in April.

Others lament that we are spending billions building a metro serving the edge of the metropolitan area, with large parking lots that will induce sprawl. They would rather see the billions of dollars spent in more urban areas, where more people live, where they are more likely to take transit and where the billions could create more ridership — and they claim that could be better done with trams, which integrate well with the urban fabric and make cities stronger.

Basically both the supposed claim and the response from the Caisse are very vague here, there are many arguments that could be made to support many related ideas. In no way is the Caisseâ€s claim a strong argument for or against their project. If they have studies proving precise versions of their claims, they should make them public so we can analyze them.

CLAIM #2: The REM will have a negative impact on existing infrastructure and public transportation networks.

(The Caisseâ€s) REALITY:
The REM will significantly improve public transportation in the Greater MontrÃ©al area. This complementary service will be seamlessly and effectively integrated into existing networks, metro, bus and commuter trains. Working groups are in place with transit authorities to align the REM with other networks in the metropolitan region, to speed up travel time and intermodal transfers. Operation of the REM will modify certain services, such as buses running along the reserved lane on the Champlain Bridge . But mobility in the Greater MontrÃ©al area will be significantly improved.

(actual) REALITY:
The main issue is the monopolization of the Mont-Royal tunnel and conversion from a potential high capacity trunk line serving many areas to a medium capacity light metro serving fewer areas. Yes those areas (West Island, Brossard) will receive improved service in some sense, but we do that at the expense of serving other areas (North, Est). Expansions to those other areas will be blocked in the future as well, due to the use of incompatible technology and lack of capacity in the tunnel.

In particular this pertains to the Mascouche line, which has the potential to serve more people than the West Island branch of the REM. Right now it doesnâ€t, due to lack of stations and lack of service, but those could be added. The REM will cut the line and force a transfer, and not provide enough capacity for future upgrades — this means the people in Montreal-Est will never receive a direct connection downtown via an updated Mascouche line.

The issue also pertains to the St-Jerome line, which has the potential to be a rapid transit line serving the North of Montreal and Laval.

It also pertains to VIA rail, which needs to access the tunnel for the most efficient routing between Quebec City and Toronto.

A second issue is that the connections with the existing bus and metro network. In particular the bus connections will be long and awkward, the stations are placed at bad locations far away from the bus corridors. For example, the Fairview stations is 1.3km from Boulevard St-Jean, a major bus boulevard, meaning a 5-10minute detour to reach the station.

At Panama, the transfer from bus to LRT will also involve long walks, meaning the overall time for a bus+LRT trip in the future may not be compatible with buses today, which go directly downtown. So even if the LRT is faster, the long transfer may undo most of the benefit.

A third issue is that of financing. Right now the more profitable metro is used to cross-subsidize feeder buses. If the REM project is more profitable due to the feeders bringing in passengers, but those profits are all kept by the Caisse, it may increase the burden on the public to provide those feeder buses.

CLAIM #3: The REM stations serve low-density areas.

(The Caisseâ€s) REALITY:
The REM will serve public transit corridors that are currently saturated. This is the case with the bus system on the Champlain Bridge and the Deux-Montagnes train line, whose capacity will be enhanced by the REM. Furthermore, by following existing railway lines or roads, the REM will considerably reduce environmental impacts, while reaching areas that are densely populated. Integration of the REM with other metropolitan transportation networks will allow stations to effectively serve a larger territory and maximize ridership. The REM will ensure faster service over long distances, while buses will facilitate home-to-station access.

(actual) REALITY:
Note how the issue isnâ€t addressed: the concern is the placement of new stations in low density areas, the response relates to the capacity of the existing corridors. Then it goes on to claim that the suburbs are densely populated, without backing up that claim or even claiming that the stations will serve those populations directly.

I have actually provided some data showing the density near stations in this post, and the density near REM stations is pretty low indeed:

There are several branches for the REM, and some of the corridors do have decent ridership (the Deux-Montagnes line claimed as â€˜saturatedâ€ has about the same ridership as the most busy bus lines in Montreal). The issue is that the stations are placed so that few will live within walking distance of them. This means people will have to get to the stations either by taking bus feeders (which are not well designed), or by driving to the stations (encouraging driving).

The main issue is that most new stations of the REM will be built along highways, where people donâ€t live today and donâ€t want to live in the future. Instead of building transit that will strengthen urban areas, they will weaken them.

At the same time, stations will be far away from downtown both in the West Island and in the South shore. The termini are in unpopulated areas serving only parking lots that will encourage people to live even further away because they can driveâ€nâ€ride quickly downtown. In effect, this will encourage sprawl.

The low-density issue has a strange twist in Brossard — 80,000 people live in Brossard, and there will be three stations:

one serving a parking lot at the end of the line (where nobody lives): Rive-Sud
one serving real estate developments near the Dix30 (where few people live): Du Quartier
one station for everybody else: Panama.

Basically the whole city is bypassed, providing only a single station to maybe 80% of the ridership, forcing everybody to pass through that station — while providing two more stations for few people in the middle of nowhere.

CLAIM #4: CDPQ Infra will acquire high-value public infrastructure without compensation.

(The Caisseâ€s) REALITY:
CDPQ Infra will pay fair market value for the the Deux-Montagnes line, including the Mont-Royal access tunnel, and will preserve public ownership of this infrastructure. The Deux-Montagnes line is currently saturated. The REM will triple the capacity of this line and will quadruple that of the Mont-Royal tunnel. The passage running under Mont-Royal will be provided through a completely electric service. Acquisition and transformation of this line by CDPQ Infra will make transportation in the metropolitan region more efficient, benefiting a much higher number of users.

(actual) REALITY:
There are several claims in this response, which are somewhat unrelated to the supposed claim.

First off, nobody claimed there will be â€˜no compensationâ€. The Caisse has always maintained they will pay â€˜fair market valueâ€ for the infrastructure. The problem is that there is no market for subway tunnels in Montreal. So right now there is a market of only one buyer – the Caisse. So â€˜fair market valueâ€ will be whatever they deem to be fair.

The public has invested hundreds if not billions into the infrastructure to slowly build a regional rail network centered around the tunnel. Itâ€s an incredibly important piece of infrastructure, the only direct access downtown — itâ€s replacement value would be billions today. Note the difference here: â€œmarket valueâ€ (which cannot be determined) and â€œreplacement valueâ€ (which can be determined). The caisse will not pay the replacement value for our infrastructure.

Since the Caisse will kick out all but their own lines from the tunnel, the public may be eventually forced to build another tunnel to bring all the extra lines downtown after all — and that will be a giant waste of money (billions), because we have a tunnel today that could have enough capacity to get all our rail lines downtown.

The caisse is not interested in sharing this infrastructure, they want to monopolize it. They intend to rebuild our infrastructure with not enough capacity to build this regional network we need.

This brings us to the capacity claim. Note the caisse they said they will â€œquadrupleâ€ the capacity, without saying what it is today and what it will be in the future.

Right now, the actual scheduled minimum headway in the tunnel is one train every 7 minutes. Each train can hold up to 2000 people. This gives a theoretical maximum capacity of 17,000 PPHD for the tunnel itself, without any upgrades. The system is not used at this frequency continuously, because the AMT doesnâ€t have enough trains, and the Deux-Montagnes line is missing double-track sections, reducing the maximum possible headway. These issues are unrelated to the tunnel itself, and could be fixed using tens or hundreds of millions instead of billions.

The REM on the other hand proposes to have one train of 600 passengers as frequent as every 90 seconds, although it is unclear whether such frequency can be reliably sustained for such a heavily branched line with few downtown stations. Assuming this will work, it would provide a maximum theoretical capacity of 24,000 PPHD. So the capacity increase is not 300%, itâ€s 40% — after spending several billions of dollars.

The 2007 study to put stations at Edouard-Montpetit and McGill envisioned one 2300 people train every 5 minutes (see page 6 of the study). Achieving this frequency could probably be done with very minor signalling upgrades, if they are necessary at all, and would provide a capacity of 27,600 PPHD. Thatâ€s 15% more than the REM proposal, at a fraction of the cost.

If we upgraded the existing rail system aggressively, the minimum headway could be reduced from every 7 minutes today down to as often as every 2 minutes, as many cities have done with their heavy rail tunnel (like the RER in Paris). We could get a line with a capacity of 40,000 PPHD or maybe even 60,000 PPHD, which could serve the whole region.

But once we sell the tunnel to the Caisse, this cannot happen, because the contract between the Caisse and the government disallows the public to take any control, and the Caisse intends to convert the infrastructure to an incompatible technology that can not be applied along existing rail corridors that also serve freight.

It is a legal fiction that the assets of the Caisse are owned by the public — they are being managed by the caisse for its depositors. And most of those depositors (62%) are the employee pension funds of government and university workers. Effectively our infrastructure will be mostly owned by these private individuals via the employee pensions, with the aim of generating profit.

And even if the infrastructure were wholly owned by the Quebec Pension Plan (which is actually only 23% of the caisse today), we still have the problem that the interests of public pensions and transit users do not align. Pensions need profits to grow, and good transit is not always good for profit. The Caisse has essentially a legal obligation to sacrifice good transit for good profit.

I took a closer look at all the issues relating to privatization in my post “How the Caisse’s “public-public-partnership” is privatization in disguise”.

CLAIM #5: CDPQ Infra has not adequately consulted with stakeholders and has not discussed the concerns of citizens and its partners.

(The Caisseâ€s) REALITY:
Since the REM route was announced on April 22, CDPQ Infra has met with more than 120 representatives from different municipalities and organizations interested in the REM project, including mayors, environmental groups and heritage specialists. We have organized six open house evenings, at which more than 1,500 citizens were met. An online survey enabled more than 1,000 respondents to share their concerns and propose solutions. Following these consultations, CDPQ Infra refined its project to minimize its impacts. Furthermore, CDPQ Infra requested public hearings on the REM project, led by the Bureau dâ€audiences publiques sur lâ€environnement (BAPE).

(actual) REALITY:
The solution by the CDPQ was largely presented as is, presented in April has a near final solution without discussion with any stakeholders. Since then the CDPQ supposedly has talked to many people, but there have mostly been only small cosmetic changes. So far, big issues have not been addressed.

Since the project is privately planned, and the AMT is currently being dismantled, itâ€s unclear whether any public expertise in transit has had any meaningful influence on the project.

At the same time, many important documents, like the ridership studies, evaluation of route options, evaluation of technology choice, financing scheme, the purchasing agreement, and even the original mandate that the government gave to the Caisse have not been published.

(The Caisseâ€s) REALITY:
Under the CDPQ Infra model, the government will continue to be responsible for identifying needs and priority projects, and for setting the main project parameters. The government can however entrust CDPQ Infra with the responsibility of proposing technical and financial solutions, and taking over execution and operation of infrastructure projects.

For the REM, committees and working groups involving different ministries are in place and construction of the project is conditional upon the governmentâ€s green light. Calls for tenders will comply with international best practices in terms of transparency and competition, and the integrity of the process will be validated by an independent expert. Bidders will be required to obtain a certificate from the AutoritÃ© des marchÃ©s financiers.

(actual) REALITY:
The â€œclaimâ€ is misrepresented. The issue is that the government will have no control over the project once the agreement is finalized as early as next year. From then on we will have privatized transit built for the purpose of generating profit mostly for private individuals. It says it right in the agreement between the Caisse and the Quebec government:

â€œ… the Government:

must not exercise control over the assets of the project;

must not assume any risks and derive any benefit inherent to the ownership of such assets; Â must not automatically become the owner of the project or benefit from an option to purchase at a preferential price;

must not pay for the majority of the assets through its contributions;

must never have the authority to direct the financial and administrative policies of Caisse.â€

Right now the government could control the project, but since the whole scheme was concocted between the Liberal government and the Caisse, it seems they are really keen on getting this built, without worrying too much about details. It is quite possible that the Caisse is meeting with the MTQ, but that ministry has fairly little expertise in transit. The project was basically presented as is, and the Caisse has shown that they are only willing to make cosmetic changes, while being unwilling to address major flaws.

CLAIM #7: To ensure that the REM is profitable, CDPQ Infra will have to set higher rates for users.

(The Caisseâ€s) REALITY:
The fares paid by users will not be set by CDPQ Infra but rather by the future AutoritÃ© rÃ©gionale de Transport mÃ©tropolitain (ARTM), in consultation with CDQP Infra. The ARTM will be responsible for managing and planning transportation in the Greater MontrÃ©al area. Its mandate will be to integrate and simplify the hundreds of different fares (over 700) currently used in the metropolitan region. CDPQ Infra expects that REM users will use a single transportation ticket and will pay a rate, to be integrated and comparable with rates currently in effect. The REMâ€s profitability will instead come from high ridership, very competitive bids and a rigorous control over operating costs.

(actual) REALITY:
This is all good and well, but these are just promises. Promises like great integration with the existing metro and buses; or the promise by Finance minister Leitao that no existing lines will be privatized (weâ€re now privatizing the Deux-Montagnes line).

People have done calculations that appear to show this scheme cannot be profitable without substantially increasing fares. All we got from CDPQInfra as a response is promises like the one above, but they didnâ€t give us their business plan, or an exact idea of how the costs will flow and what the ticket prices will be.

The CDPQInfraâ€s mandate is to make profit from the line, so pointing to the ARTM as the organization that will set fares is just bizarre. The public needs to know how much we will pay for every single rider, and how this financing will work, because we have to pay the fares and we have to finance the line using billions of taxpayer money and more billions worth of public assets.

CLAIM #8: CDPQ Infra is working hastily and its compressed timetable does not allow it to properly carry out this major project.

(The Caisseâ€s) REALITY:
CDPQ Infra is committed to efficiently carry out the public transit projects under its responsibility. This efficiency implies no decline in rigour. For this purpose, CDPQ Infra has proposed an ongoing optimization process and a request for proposals that allows bidding companies to propose creative and more competitive solutions. Several projects around the world have been successfully carried out with schedules comparable to those proposed by CDPQ Infra.

The public has only been aware of this project in its current form since April 2016. The CDPQ seeks to have their contracts and financing set in stone early in 2017. For a project this big, that will affect transit for the next hundred years, that will cost billions of dollars, will affect development for decades, we have less than one year to study and evaluate the project, then it will be set in stone.

Most transit at this scale is built from regional transit plans that go decades into the future to identify needs and corridors to build transit. Having a project at this scale from the first time we hear about it to the time itâ€s set in stone of less than one year is simply insane.

Transit plans should be made decades into the future, and this is actually one of the major weak spots of the REM. After this project, what follows is again unknown – especially due to the use of technology thatâ€s incompatible with other lines, and the low capacity in the trunk line. Iâ€m concerned about how future lines will connect to it, in particular VIA and the transit corridors that are currently the Mascouche and the St-Jerome line, which have the potential to serve as urban rapid transit.

We need a proper regional rail plan that will cover not just this one project, but the ones that follows and the ones after; and the REM should be built to integrate with that.

How the Caisseâ€™s â€œPublic-Public-Partnershipâ€ is Privatization in Disguise

ant6n — Wed, 10 Aug 2016 22:57:44 +0000

Iâ€ve been staring at the documents of the REM projects for months now. The more I look at them, the more I feel weâ€re about to make a big mistake.

Iâ€ve been having this sinking feeling in my stomach, the feeling you have as you watch a trainwreck unfold in slow motion and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. The feeling of the guy in the Titanic’s bird’s nest, as the iceberg approaches, doing the math on distances, speed and momentum and coming to the inevitable conclusion: it’s too late.

Because that’s what the Caisse is: the iceberg to our transit.

And we are running out of time: the BAPE process started two weeks ago, this is one of the last steps before it becomes unfixable. If we do not wake up soon, we may be making a mistake that will haunt us for years to come

********

In 2015, the Government of Quebec passed a Bill to allow the creation of CDPQ Infra, a subsidiary of the Caisse de dÃ©pÃ´t et placement du QuÃ©bec (CDPQ) that engages in transit-related projects. An agreement between Quebec and the Caisse subsequently laid out the groundwork of the collaboration between the two entities.

This newfound model was proudly touted as a new form of PPP, a â€œpublic-public partnershipâ€. But for the government, this whole thing comes down to an accounting sleight-of-hand: the government refuses to invest enough money in transit infrastructure, so if the Caisse takes responsibility for its construction, then these projects get taken off the governmentâ€s books. Any debt or deficit incurred belongs to the Caisse, not the government. Or, as the government puts it: â€œce projet-lÃ se ferait Ã l’extÃ©rieur de notre pÃ©rimÃ¨tre comptableâ€.

This agreement also aims to minimize the impact on the Governmentâ€s debt and deficit in compliance with Canadian accounting rules. Thus, in order for the main objectives of this agreement to be reached, the portion of assets or of investments financed by Caisse in connection with any project must comply with the following criteria and, as such, the Government:

must not exercise control over the assets of the project;
must not assume any risks and derive any benefit inherent to the ownership of such assets;
must not automatically become the owner of the project or benefit from an option to purchase at a preferential price;
must not pay for the majority of the assets through its contributions;
must never have the authority to direct the financial and administrative policies of Caisse.

â€œWho cares?â€ you might think. If the Caisse builds infrastructure, shouldnâ€t they own it and manage it outside of the Governmentâ€s purview?

Maybe, if they built a whole line from scratch, using their own money. Maybe even with the public paying for half the construction costs (i.e. billions), we could perhaps, after much consideration and some public planning, allow the Caisse to own the infrastructure.

But thatâ€s not what theyâ€re doing.

In their REM proposal, the Caisse lays claim to the existing Deux-Montagnes line (the most profitable line in the AMT network) AND the Mount-Royal tunnel, the backbone of Montrealâ€s commuter rail network. Itâ€s our only direct access downtown, and one of the most important pieces of transit real estate we have. Both assets belong to the AMT, an organization that is currently being slowly dismantled and whose people can offer little resistance if they want to get hired at the newly formed organizations next year.

Taking over this transit line is a bold move, one that the government itself may not have seen coming. After all, Mr. Leitao, the Minister of Finance, who is responsible for the government side of the deal (and not the Minister of Transport, as one would assume) and whose West-Island riding will benefit from the REM, repeatedly assured that the Caisse would only own new lines, not existing ones:

â€œ(…) c’est un partenariat avec une entitÃ© publique qui va devenir… qui va non seulement construire mais devenir propriÃ©taire et va exploiter cette nouvelle ligne de transport, Ã§a ne s’applique pas aux existants.â€ (May 12, 2015)

â€œDonc, c’est trÃ¨s prÃ©cis, c’est dans le transport collectif, une nouvelle… Et donc c’est doublement clair, parce que c’est une nouvelle infrastructure, donc ce n’est pas une infrastructure existante, on ne va pas prendre une ligne de mÃ©tro existante, c’est une nouvelle infrastructure de transport collectif.â€ (May 27, 2015)

Now, the Caisse wants to take our most valuable public transit asset and privatize it.

The Caisse will have us believe that they are the public, and no doubt they believe it too. And sure, in theory, their assets belong to the State. But a legal fiction is not the same as policy on the ground.

For all practical purposes, privatization is what this is: the elected government loses control of the asset to some independent entity. It says so black on white:
the Government:

must not exercise control over the assets of the project;

must not assume any risks and derive any benefit inherent to the ownership of such assets;

must not automatically become the owner of the project or benefit from an option to purchase at a preferential price;

Privatization is the proper word here. And weâ€re doing it without any competitive bidding process, weâ€re simply handing over public assets in return for some amount of money we donâ€t even know.

The Caisse is a crown corporation, a legal entity in its own right. Its mission, by law, is to

â€œreceive moneys on deposit as provided by law and manage them with a view to achieving optimal return on capital within the framework of depositors’ investment policies while at the same time contributing to QuÃ©bec’s economic development.â€

Donâ€t be fooled by the fancy words. The Caisse is nothing more than a holding company whose primary purpose is to generate profits for its clients (or â€œdepositorsâ€). As such, it has fiduciary duties first and foremost towards its depositors, not us, the public.

Many, including the Minister of Finance, want to believe that the public is the depositor:

â€œle rendement que la caisse obtiendrait, c’est un rendement qui va bÃ©nÃ©ficier Ã tous les QuÃ©bÃ©cois, tous les dÃ©posants dans la caisse.â€

But the devil is in the details.

Exactly who are those depositors?

Common knowledge says the CDPQ manages Quebecersâ€ retirement fund, and itâ€s known as â€œle bas de laine des quÃ©bÃ©coisâ€. In reality, the CDPQ manages the assets of 32 depositors, consisting of mostly pension funds and some public insurance funds.

The Caisseâ€s numbers show that the actual â€œbas de laineâ€, the Quebec Pension Plan, only accounts for 23% of the total assets managed by the CDPQ. The bulk (61,7%) is actually composed of pension funds belonging to government employees, which are essentially private pensions.

So who is going to benefit from the bulk of the CDPQâ€s activities? The private pensions.

And those depositors are not happy either.

The Caisse and transparency

Mr Donald Tremblay, president of the â€œassociation quÃ©bÃ©coise des retraitÃ©(e)s du secteur public et parapublicâ€ (AQRP), already expressed concern over the Caisseâ€s handling of the question. Back in May 2015, during the parliamentary hearings on Bill 38, the Bill that allowed the Caisse to create CDPQ Infra and carry out infrastructure projects, Mr Tremblay complained that:

â€œ[D]ans ce cas-lÃ , une entente aussi importante, pas un dÃ©posant n’a entendu parler de Ã§a avant le 13 janvier, et c’Ã©tait le matin assis devant notre tÃ©lÃ©viseur. Il y a anguille sous roche ou c’est complÃ¨tement Ã l’inverse de ce que croit M. Sabia par rapport Ã la transparence, la consultation, la qualitÃ© des investissements.â€

If the Caisseâ€s own depositors, whose money the Caisse is managing, question its transparency, how can we the public, the broad, non-depositor public, have any hope of any kind of accountability? If one of the Caisseâ€s biggest clients only get to hear about major critical actions on the news, how are we expected to be aware of anything the Caisse does?

The same happened when they announced the REM project this year. Everybody I talked to was taken by surprise: municipal politicians, groups pushing for transit to the West Island, people working at the MTQ. Based on how mayor Coderre and Prime Minister Couillard spoke about the project just before it was announced in April, it seems even they were unaware of the plan:

En entrevue Ã La Presse, Philippe Couillard a toutefois spÃ©cifiÃ© que ce lien n’irait pas au-delÃ de l’aÃ©roport puisque Â« la frÃ©quentation au-delÃ de l’aÃ©roport soulÃ¨ve des questions de rentabilitÃ© Â».

Many knew that the Caisse was supposed invest and implement the South shore light rail, the airport and the West Island train, but nobody expected them to take over and privatize the Deux-Montagnes line to do it.

The Caisseâ€s behaviour after they announced the REM project is also not very reassuring. They held no real public consultations. The only thing we got was PR poster sessions (the â€œtown hall meetingsâ€), and only in boroughs that would benefit from the REM, not the ones that are going to get screwed over.

Moreover, they are still refusing to provide very important documentation:

Ridership study
Cost estimates
Evaluation of route Options (they just claim â€œthis is the best trajectoryâ€)
Evaluation of technology (they just claim they studied diferent technologies and this is the best)
Any documents describing the overall economics, and how this scheme will work with respect to real estate development
More information about the tax-increment financing scheme
Information about fares

On top of that, we donâ€t even have access to the actual mandate they received from the government (according to 3.1.2 & 3.2.1 of the agreement). All we have is a Press release where they announce theyâ€re going to build light rail to the South Shore, West Island and airport.

The Caisse promises that some of this information will be available in the future at some point. But maybe only after the BAPE hearings, which they tried to have expedited supposedly in order to maintain their unnecessarily tight schedule. (Why are we in such a hurry to build transit all of a sudden?) Thatâ€s not good enough. How can they claim that we can have a meaningful environmental review process if the public doesnâ€t have access to basic information?!

The Caisse has so far played its cards masterfully. It got a legal mandate to engage in infrastructure projects. It offered the government a sweet, sweet deal: take transit off the Publicâ€s books, build more transit, and make money in the process, a win, win, win! Armed with a government mandate (we take their word for it), they dazzled us with a daring, ambitious network we couldnâ€t even dream of and were probably hoping to surf on a wave of public approval to get its papers rubber-stamped before people started asking too many questions.

What does a privatized tunnel mean for transit?

What the Caisse plans to do with the tunnel is painfully clear from their REM plans: they are planning to â€œupgradeâ€ the tracks, and consciously chose a new technology that will be incompatible with any other rail line, which means that the REM will be the only trains able to go through the tunnel.

At that point, since the tunnel will be privately held, the public will not be able to prevent the Caisse kicking out all the rail lines out of the tunnel that need to go downtown. Why not? Because â€œthe Government must not exercise control over the assets of the projectâ€! Once the government agrees to this scheme in a couple of months, there will be no turning back. The line will be privatized, and we wonâ€t be able to undo this decision for decades.

Furthermore, the Caisseâ€s depositors, who need to protect their own assets, are demanding guarantees that the government shall not interfere with the Caisseâ€s management of its assets!

Let me reiterate how bad this is: the Mount Royal tunnel is the backbone of regional transit in the Greater Montreal. The public has spent billions to build a regional rail network around it.

It is the gate to downtown, and we are giving the Caisse the key.

The Caisse has no interest in shared regional transit planning beyond their own mandate to connect the West Island, the airport and Brossard. They only have to consider riders from those parts of town, which means they donâ€t need to deal with the regional impact of their actions. They donâ€t need to care about the forced transfers they create and how it will cripple the affected lines. Actually, forced transfers are good business: the REM will make more money for everyone coming from the St-JÃ©rÃ´me and Mascouche lines or VIA who has to transfer to the REM.

By privatizing the tunnel, we will have effectively given a profit-driven corporation the ability to block any further transit development that involves the Tunnel.

Yes to transit, no to privatization!

Of course the REM is an important project and we want the lines to be built. The connections to the South Shore and the West Island are important. But we should not let our excitement get the better of ourselves. The fancy technology and pretty pictures are distractions and the Caisse is trying to pull a fast one. And the most discouraging part is that Montrealers are so transit-starved that they are bending over backwards to give the Caisse whatever theyâ€re asking for.

Development should not be made at the expense (now and in the future) of Montreal North and East, Anjou, Laval, Longueuil, and Via Rail. The REM branches have to be part of a larger regional network. They have to use compatible technology. The capacity of the tunnel should be increased rather than decreased. And privatization of our existing infrastructure is out of the question. We have to continue working towards a regional network and hold the liberal government to their promise that no existing lines will be privatized.

The BAPE process started last week, and everybody can participate. This is basically the last time that the public has any direct influence on the project, so everybody who can should get involved.

Walksheds Visualized:Showing Population and Places of Workwithin Walking distance of Montreal Rail Stations

ant6n — Fri, 22 Jul 2016 04:52:33 +0000

A while back I published a map of Montreal showing the populations living within walking distance of rail stations in the region. At the time, many asked me to add places of work as well, and proposed new stations. Today Iâ€m publishing a map that includes these, and Iâ€ve made it look prettier as well.

The area that is reachable within walking distance of a station is called its walk-shed. The actual walking distance depends on the geometry of the street, and also on the person. Some are more willing to walk a longer distance than others. I picked the commonly used 800m or half a mile distance (as the bird flies) as a reasonable approximation.

The population data comes from the same census as the previous map (which is the most recent one we have), the work places are extracted from a census map as described here.

Note that in places where the stations are closer together, the walk-sheds will overlap. This is intentional, as I want to show the density just as much as an absolute number.

Every residence and every work place within walking distance of a train station is the potential beginning or end of a transit trip that does not require parking or a feeder bus. Both can be very expensive, and also make using transit less desirable. The system is most effective and most financially sustainable when as many people as possible live within walking distance of stations.

I tried to estimate the cost to provide feeder buses and parking in this previous post.

Here are some observations:

Downtown is insane

One thing I noticed when adding workplaces to the map is just how many people work downtown, and how important they are. When considering just population, Cote-Sainte-Catherine was the station with the most density around it, 28,000 people. Once you add in work places, the combined total reaches 160,000 for McGill and Gare Centrale. Those stations are incredible trip generators!

Downtown Montreal. So many workplaces you canâ€t even visualize it.

According to the STMâ€s data, McGill and Berri-UQAM are actually the busiest stations. I believe that the census data did not consider the universities as â€˜places of workâ€ for students. So McGill, Concordia, Berri-UQAM and Udem possibly each have another several tens of thousand students nearby who are not accounted for in the census data.

Badly paced outlying stations

Another thing I realized is how bad some of the outlying stations are. One in particular is the Anjou station on the Mascouche line. I know there is a lot of population near that line in Montreal North and East, about as many as in the whole West Island (about 200,000 people). So why is the Anjou station doing so badly?

The answer can be found if you just look at it from above:

The stations is sandwiched between a highway, a large boulevard and a low-density industrial area. Basically the only thing within walking distance is a parking lot. The station was basically only designed for drivers coming in via the highway and using the parkâ€nâ€ride. So its ridership can only ever be as large as the parking lot — thatâ€s an ineffective use of space, money and transit; and focusing only on drivers is inequitable as well.

What about proposed stations?

Iâ€m a little bit concerned that the transit projects that we have in the pipeline right now donâ€t consider walkability enough. The Blue Line extension appears to do okay, about as well or maybe a bit better as the Eastern Branch of the Green line.

The REM stations on the other hand, being almost exclusively along highways, really donâ€t connect to much within walking distance. We hear how important the Technoparc Saint-Laurent is, with 7,000 workers — but if we compare that to the metro stations, itâ€s obvious that itâ€s really a small number.

Even stations in predominantly residential areas will have that many places of work, even though most of their surrounding area is for housing. And really, the Technoparc just a suburban office park, of supposedly â€˜cleantechâ€ firms, but the area mostly consists of parking. In fact, if you work in one of those places, your car gets more space than you do:

Technoparc Saint-Laurent: worthy of a rapid transit stop?

The REM proposal also includes stations that are absolutely abysmal, like the Technopark Pointe-Sainte-Charles (2,000 workers). Moreover, the proposed station near Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue is the only station with zero population and work places within walking distance in the whole Montreal region. At this point, it will mostly serve to induce sprawl.

There are proposals for some Transit Oriented Development, but since the corresponding are stations near highways, it will be difficult to build walkable neighborhoods from scratch. I really wish the 5.5 billion dollars in transit investment would result in better connections to existing neighborhoods.

Looking at all the data, it really makes me wish we would focus more on connecting to people within walking distance and making transit as effective as possible.