I'm really happy that Montreal made this work. We need more alternative examples of public transit build-outs in the west that actually work and come in on-budget. Copenhagen is another good exemplar here with their public/private collaboration for new lines.
I do think this article has a rather unrealistic tone for what the rest of us can learn from this though.
> One advantage is that CDPQ Infra was able to take advantage of existing rights of way to create the route, rather than needing to dig costly tunnels or demolish buildings.
This is huge. In many cities where we most desperately need public transit in the US, this just isn't realistic. We need net new lines either over or underground, and no matter how you slice that they're going to need right of way allowances and NIMBY disagreements. Plus most urban settings that will benefit the most from transit will need tunnel development as part of the cost projections.
> Quebec passed a law that requires municipalities to respond in a timely manner to CDPQ Infra’s requests for permits and other forms of cooperation.
Reading about California's highspeed rail project[^1], it seemed clear that there was deep government buy-in about the end state but the interim goals were over legislated. Counties in the central valley traded their buy-in for the project to starting the line build-out in their counties, even though population centers in LA and SF could have benefited way more from early wins. One thing this article missed was that we need to set more of a precedence for transit agencies / bureaucrats on the ground to make decisions that will further the end goal and circumvent the horse-trading at the legislative level.
King County in Washington State has been determined to avoid using any existing rail right-of-way, and insists on blasting new right-of-way at incredible cost.
The existing right-of-way (sometimes even with tracks still on them!) is turned into bike paths, that nobody uses most of the year because of rain.
They also decided to build a new tunnel under Seattle. What to do with the dirt they dug out? Why, they stuffed it into the old tunnel! Probably the most expensive use of existing infrastructure ever. (The excuse was the old tunnel needed some work to make it more earthquake resistant. All that needed to be done was add a liner.)
It gets even better. They decided to build another tunnel. So they bought a zillion dollar boring machine, and tunneled away. When the tunnel was completed, they cut up the boring machine for scrap! After all, nobody would ever need to build another tunnel.
Since the end of the tunnel was still in the major Seattle metropolitan area, and the machine was already there in place, just keep boring north. But hey, I surely am a dunderhead.
It's so awful one is tempted to characterize it as malicious.
Frustratingly despite CDPQ doing a great job on REM (with several stages left to deliver) the next phase of the project has been taken away from them. REM East was going to repeat plan and success for the REM in the eastern end of the island (historically the poorer parts of the city). It would also provide a whole new line into downtown, providing relief for the overcrowded green line
Some groups (including envrionment groups bizarrely) objected to the elevated rails, even though these would not split neighbourhoods the way elevated highways did in the 60s throughout north america.
The project was taken away from CDPQ who proved they can deliver transit on time and on budget in both Montreal and Vancouver and given back to STM who have a history of cost overruns. STM immediately proposed running the entire network underground and not running it into downtown, requiring a 2 seat ride onto the green line which is already over-crowded. That explodes estimated costs to $36B CDN from CDPQ's $10B and delivers fewer km of track and less function. What a mess.
Indeed, about 80% of the tracks for the new rail system, including the most expensive bits (across the st Lawrence river, through downtown and dense suburbs, under the Mont-Royal) were on pre-existing railways or rights of ways. The rest was built aboveground next to a highway (with a small branch dug underground towards the airport).
By comparison, the Blue line metro extension is being built from scratch, including expropriations, and the projected cost is CAD6.4B for 5-6km of new tunnels and give stations.
Something I’ve been hammering on recently: NYC could build new light rail lines relatively rapidly and cheaply, especially in Brooklyn and Queens: much of those boroughs was covered by streetcar lines until the 1950s, and all of the streets that those lines ran on are still graded for that purpose. In some places they didn’t even bother to pull up the old rails, and just paved over them instead[1]. The roads themselves are owned by the city too, sidestepping half of the bureaucratic process that comes with the state-run MTA.
This idea is brilliant. Cars are inefficient means of transit in dense urban areas. Mass transit easily has many multiples if not an order of magnitude greater ability to move more people/hr than autos. Our cities used to be structured around mass transit and walking before the advent of the car and the exodus to the suburbs. In the intervening century technology has rapidly progressed such that cities are no longer dirty, squalid environments, and in fact, places like NYC have the highest life expectancies in the nation. It’s time to return to proven solutions like street cars, or nowadays, Bus Rapid Transit.
Non-grade separated street cars are dangerous and can still get into accidents, while they only provide slightly more capacity than buses at the expense of a lot of flexibility. But they are more charming at least, in a city like Bern or Lyon.
Imagine me your sworn enemy. I hate you and you shall never be redeemed in my eyes. I own a home on the route. How much will it cost you to overcome me? Add that to the cost. That's the true cost.
Imagine I'll claim all sorts of things: environment, the poor, gentrification, toxic chemicals.
I was very impressed with Montreal and its decentering of cars the last time I visited...it seems to be a city that is leading bike and public transit-friendly development in North America.
It's not been without its detractors [0], but overall the mayor remains quite popular and making Montreal more accessible to bikes and pedestrians has been a consistent priority since the beginning of her mandate.
> CDPQ Infra was able to take advantage of existing rights of way to create the route, rather than needing to dig costly tunnels or demolish buildings. In one area, they repurposed an old rail tunnel
I'm listening to the podcast about Boston's Big Dig (https://www.wgbh.org/podcasts/the-big-dig), and one of the things that came up in Episode 6 was cost overruns in the 1990s, particularly on the I-93 segment (burying the highway to replace the elevated highway from the 60s).
The engineers and administrators had no idea what they would be getting into when they drew up the estimate, because no one really knew what was underground when they started digging 100 feet below street level next to Boston harbor and well below the water table. They found everything - old pilings, sewer tunnels from the 1800s, archaic utilities, and mud that was exceptionally sticky. It turned into a series of change orders which greatly increased the $7.7B original price ($10.8B adjusted for inflation) to $14.8B.
TFA mentions the Green Line extension in Boston which has been a costly disaster for different reasons, from ADA compliance to mislaid tracks.
It's funny that this is the big cost overrun that all Americans know, when it's so small. The SF-Oakland Bay Bridge cost $6.4 billion (2013 dollars) and that was 25x the original estimate, and we didn't get anything new out of the deal, it's a straight replacement of the bridge with an equivalent facility, same lanes, same route.
The article is way too rosy. Sure it didn't cost much but it also uses a shit rail technology IMO that is very noisy. Go ask the residents that live near it if they find that nice. They had so many complaints recently that they had to do urgent work to mitigate.
The problem we have in general is that the REM should have been expanded way beyond the Montreal suburbs. All the planning for public transit is controlled by local agencies and no larger integration vision. I have a family member that now has a longer commute because the bus go to the REM instead of straight to downtown Montreal.
It's also super useless if you live a bit further out than the immediate Montreal suburb like I do since you already have to take your car to the highway so it is faster to continue driving on the island vs getting out, finding a parking, waiting for the train, etc.
Personnaly I am very critical of how we handle public transit here vs what I saw can be done in Europe.
Direct bus lines don't scale. As the city grows large enough, you have to replace them with trunk lines. Otherwise there will be too much traffic and too little passenger capacity in the central parts of the city.
With trunk lines, you have to make compromises between speed and service level. Urban light rail moves slowly and stops frequently. Suburban lines are faster and have fewer stops, which allows them to provide a reasonable service over longer distances. Once you go far enough, suburban lines also become too slow, and you have to switch to regional heavy rail with faster trains and even longer distances between stops.
As you get farther away from the city center, the distance between stops on the trunk lines gets longer and the fraction of the area served by the lines gets smaller. If you live in a distant suburb or a satellite town and you are not near a local public transit hub, you can't get good service. Trying to provide it to you would be a waste of money. If you need better transit, you have to choose between driving and moving.
If things look better in Europe and Asia, it's because the people who use public transit have taken the level of service into account when choosing where they live. And every time the transit network changes, there are similar complaints to yours.
I don't know enough about it to weigh in on the economics (though I live in Montreal and this is the first good press I've seen so I'd take it with a grain of salt). But noise-wise, I was really surprised at how loud it is. I don't live along the route but I run along the Lachine Canal and and I don't know if it's because it's elevated but it is way louder than you'd expect for what looks like a small train going by and jarring in an otherwise very quiet area.
When C$119M is a “bargain” compared to US costs, it should come as no surprise why public transit has so little utility in most cities (as measured by utilization as a percent of total trips).
The REM is pretty sweet, the only down side is the bus system getting to it in the suburbs is a bit shambolic. Driving to the station takes 7 minutes, but parking is full by 6:30, while the most direct bus takes over half an hour!
the parking is free so of course it's quite popular. Having been there regularly on the busiest weekdays you really have to arrive close to 8:00 to see a full lot. I do agree the REM is sweet and very effective.
There's one thing that Montreal can do that's very cheap and would improve significantly the transit in the city: increase utilization of the local train network
It's simply stupid to have suburban trains running only every hour/30m
That isn't so simple. The issue is a lot of the tracks are one way so you aren't able to return the train sets in the suburbs during peak hours. This means that every frequency you add means an extra train set that you need to buy, maintain and store somewhere on the island during the day.
Having just stayed in Milan for a week i was really impressed with how the metro had been built and continually improved.
I wanted to know though, how was the tunnelling done so cheaply? I noticed the lines seemed to follow roads a lot, did they do cut and cover along the roads to keep costs down?
One thing to mind is that infrastructure project's financing and cost allocation is different in Europe vs North America. All countries and jurisdictions counts things differently. Are stations part of the cost, what about roads and paths leading to them, getting right of way, buying land etc. some of these costs are often incurred by local governments and municipalities and aren't considered part of the infrastructure project while other projects will include them as part of their costs.
The Milan project is fantastic, but it's difficult to have more than a ballpark comparison based on general numbers such as these.
Don't forget that Milan is a very old city (initially settled 400BC) so there was probably lots of old infrastructure and stuff to work around. Similarly old Amsterdam has a collection of all the objects found during the digging for one of the metro lines in one of the stations, with all sorts of very old coins, plates, knives, etc.
Makes me wonder if the right answer will be dedicated surface roads with a mix of buses and self-driving cars on them. It certainly seems like transit is overpriced by comparison.
The problem with that is it doesn’t solve the surface space problem, i.e. unnecessary city sprawl and reduced walkability due to 30% of space being dedicated to roads
https://transitcosts.com/ has a lot of data, but that focuses on underground while this is mostly elevated. Spain has built fully underground subways for less, but most of the world is a lot more expensive.
Try to get around the Montreal subway on a wheelchair or pushing a stroller. You can't. There are multiple flights of stairs to get anywhere. Accessibility has not yet been discovered there. There are no old people on the Montreal subway for some reason?
Accesibility is certainly not where it needs to be for our metro, and elevators at every station is long overdue.
That said, the STM _has_ been installing elevators, and currently 25 stations have elevators, which is a lot more than even a few years ago [0]. Five additional stations are under construction [1].
[+] [-] neonate|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] icyfox|2 years ago|reply
I do think this article has a rather unrealistic tone for what the rest of us can learn from this though.
> One advantage is that CDPQ Infra was able to take advantage of existing rights of way to create the route, rather than needing to dig costly tunnels or demolish buildings.
This is huge. In many cities where we most desperately need public transit in the US, this just isn't realistic. We need net new lines either over or underground, and no matter how you slice that they're going to need right of way allowances and NIMBY disagreements. Plus most urban settings that will benefit the most from transit will need tunnel development as part of the cost projections.
> Quebec passed a law that requires municipalities to respond in a timely manner to CDPQ Infra’s requests for permits and other forms of cooperation.
Reading about California's highspeed rail project[^1], it seemed clear that there was deep government buy-in about the end state but the interim goals were over legislated. Counties in the central valley traded their buy-in for the project to starting the line build-out in their counties, even though population centers in LA and SF could have benefited way more from early wins. One thing this article missed was that we need to set more of a precedence for transit agencies / bureaucrats on the ground to make decisions that will further the end goal and circumvent the horse-trading at the legislative level.
[^1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/09/us/california-high-speed-...
[+] [-] WalterBright|2 years ago|reply
The existing right-of-way (sometimes even with tracks still on them!) is turned into bike paths, that nobody uses most of the year because of rain.
They also decided to build a new tunnel under Seattle. What to do with the dirt they dug out? Why, they stuffed it into the old tunnel! Probably the most expensive use of existing infrastructure ever. (The excuse was the old tunnel needed some work to make it more earthquake resistant. All that needed to be done was add a liner.)
It gets even better. They decided to build another tunnel. So they bought a zillion dollar boring machine, and tunneled away. When the tunnel was completed, they cut up the boring machine for scrap! After all, nobody would ever need to build another tunnel.
Since the end of the tunnel was still in the major Seattle metropolitan area, and the machine was already there in place, just keep boring north. But hey, I surely am a dunderhead.
It's so awful one is tempted to characterize it as malicious.
[+] [-] theluketaylor|2 years ago|reply
Some groups (including envrionment groups bizarrely) objected to the elevated rails, even though these would not split neighbourhoods the way elevated highways did in the 60s throughout north america.
The project was taken away from CDPQ who proved they can deliver transit on time and on budget in both Montreal and Vancouver and given back to STM who have a history of cost overruns. STM immediately proposed running the entire network underground and not running it into downtown, requiring a 2 seat ride onto the green line which is already over-crowded. That explodes estimated costs to $36B CDN from CDPQ's $10B and delivers fewer km of track and less function. What a mess.
[+] [-] alephxyz|2 years ago|reply
By comparison, the Blue line metro extension is being built from scratch, including expropriations, and the projected cost is CAD6.4B for 5-6km of new tunnels and give stations.
[+] [-] thomastjeffery|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AniseAbyss|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] woodruffw|2 years ago|reply
[1]: https://www.nycsubway.org/wiki/Tracks_on_Broadway
[+] [-] BenFranklin100|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seanmcdirmid|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] renewiltord|2 years ago|reply
Imagine I'll claim all sorts of things: environment, the poor, gentrification, toxic chemicals.
[+] [-] gniv|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lordleft|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jszymborski|2 years ago|reply
[0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/bike-paths-park-ex-m...
[+] [-] ilrwbwrkhv|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ilamont|2 years ago|reply
I'm listening to the podcast about Boston's Big Dig (https://www.wgbh.org/podcasts/the-big-dig), and one of the things that came up in Episode 6 was cost overruns in the 1990s, particularly on the I-93 segment (burying the highway to replace the elevated highway from the 60s).
The engineers and administrators had no idea what they would be getting into when they drew up the estimate, because no one really knew what was underground when they started digging 100 feet below street level next to Boston harbor and well below the water table. They found everything - old pilings, sewer tunnels from the 1800s, archaic utilities, and mud that was exceptionally sticky. It turned into a series of change orders which greatly increased the $7.7B original price ($10.8B adjusted for inflation) to $14.8B.
TFA mentions the Green Line extension in Boston which has been a costly disaster for different reasons, from ADA compliance to mislaid tracks.
https://www.universalhub.com/2023/companies-built-green-line...
[+] [-] jeffbee|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Sytten|2 years ago|reply
The problem we have in general is that the REM should have been expanded way beyond the Montreal suburbs. All the planning for public transit is controlled by local agencies and no larger integration vision. I have a family member that now has a longer commute because the bus go to the REM instead of straight to downtown Montreal.
It's also super useless if you live a bit further out than the immediate Montreal suburb like I do since you already have to take your car to the highway so it is faster to continue driving on the island vs getting out, finding a parking, waiting for the train, etc.
Personnaly I am very critical of how we handle public transit here vs what I saw can be done in Europe.
[+] [-] jltsiren|2 years ago|reply
Direct bus lines don't scale. As the city grows large enough, you have to replace them with trunk lines. Otherwise there will be too much traffic and too little passenger capacity in the central parts of the city.
With trunk lines, you have to make compromises between speed and service level. Urban light rail moves slowly and stops frequently. Suburban lines are faster and have fewer stops, which allows them to provide a reasonable service over longer distances. Once you go far enough, suburban lines also become too slow, and you have to switch to regional heavy rail with faster trains and even longer distances between stops.
As you get farther away from the city center, the distance between stops on the trunk lines gets longer and the fraction of the area served by the lines gets smaller. If you live in a distant suburb or a satellite town and you are not near a local public transit hub, you can't get good service. Trying to provide it to you would be a waste of money. If you need better transit, you have to choose between driving and moving.
If things look better in Europe and Asia, it's because the people who use public transit have taken the level of service into account when choosing where they live. And every time the transit network changes, there are similar complaints to yours.
[+] [-] andy99|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alephxyz|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sokoloff|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] morkalork|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] euroderf|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] harryVic|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gigantaure|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raverbashing|2 years ago|reply
It's simply stupid to have suburban trains running only every hour/30m
[+] [-] igrekel|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iot_devs|2 years ago|reply
According to the Italian Wikipedia page the cost was of 1.3B € for 13kms.
For a cheaper 100m€/km
While the cost is comparable with Montreal, the Italian one is completely underground.
[+] [-] akdor1154|2 years ago|reply
I wanted to know though, how was the tunnelling done so cheaply? I noticed the lines seemed to follow roads a lot, did they do cut and cover along the roads to keep costs down?
[+] [-] igrekel|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sofixa|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] VHRanger|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] renewiltord|2 years ago|reply
Think of the jobs created. Montreal could stand to learn something.
[+] [-] m0llusk|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trothamel|2 years ago|reply
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/24cpr/pdf/AppendixA.pdf , page A-9.
Makes me wonder if the right answer will be dedicated surface roads with a mix of buses and self-driving cars on them. It certainly seems like transit is overpriced by comparison.
[+] [-] namdnay|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alright2565|2 years ago|reply
Unfortunately, this has disadvantages as well:
- lack of enforcement for bus lanes
- needing to share travel lanes with personal cars occasionally, making keeping the timetable harder
- low cost also means no long-term permanency. would you want to invest in transit-oriented development around a platform that could go away anytime?
[+] [-] anArbitraryOne|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] antoineMoPa|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darkclouds|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bluGill|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simonlc|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mlyle|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] orangepurple|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jszymborski|2 years ago|reply
That said, the STM _has_ been installing elevators, and currently 25 stations have elevators, which is a lot more than even a few years ago [0]. Five additional stations are under construction [1].
[0] https://www.stm.info/en/elevatoraccess
[1] https://www.stm.info/en/about/major_projects/major-metro-pro...
[+] [-] simlevesque|2 years ago|reply
> They are located in 25 metro stations.
https://www.stm.info/en/elevatoraccess
[+] [-] euroderf|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thriftwy|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] faeriechangling|2 years ago|reply
Let’s see it built for that price.
https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/the-cost-for-jus...