Montreal Light Automated Metro

[KevinL]

"Quebec's pension fund manager, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, is proposing to fund an ambitious new commuter rail line that would change the face of public transit in Montreal.

The electric, fully automated 67-kilometre rail line would connect 24 stations stretching from the South Shore to Montreal's Trudeau airport and beyond, to both the West Island and Laval."


http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/c...-1.3548109

[tomh009]

Here is the map, courtesy of the Montreal Gazette (proposed line in light green):



Bombardier ART rolling stock?  Canard, we're waiting for your insight!

[KevinL]

On further analysis, I see that the existing Deux-Montagnes line - the only electrified commuter line in the city - will be folded into the network and form its core route. The new southern branches (Brossard, airport, Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue) are the true additions.

[Viewfromthe42]

The province buying $1 billion of Bombardier to stabilize it wasn't enough. Almost assuredly, Bombardier will win the portions of this $5.5 billion system which rely on its technology (what fraction of our system's ~$800M / ~$1.9B was Bombardier getting?), further propping up the company.

[Markster]

The province buying $1 billion of Bombardier to stabilize it wasn't enough. Almost assuredly, Bombardier will win the portions of this $5.5 billion system which rely on its technology (what fraction of our system's ~$800M / ~$1.9B was Bombardier getting?), further propping up the company.

If you take a look at the map, you'll notice that the spur going to the airport will have a stop right at Bombardier's front door!

It actually makes sense as a stop, being in the centre of a business park on the route, but it's amusingly convenient nonetheless.

[jamincan]

Will the AMT's new line to the east still head downtown with the conversion?

[plam]

On further analysis, I see that the existing Deux-Montagnes line - the only electrified commuter line in the city - will be folded into the network and form its core route. The new southern branches (Brossard, airport, Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue) are the true additions.

Yes. There is also commuter rail to Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue but I don't think it's that frequent. Things might have changed since I last looked at that line. Certainly there is no rail to Brossard or the airport. There are frequent buses. The airport bus works pretty well but has no lane priority so it gets stuck in traffic. The Brossard buses get to run contraflow on the Champlain bridge but I think that will change also.

The real difference here, I think, is that one would presume that light rail would run more often than every hour. The stations are really quite far apart.

[Canard]

Keep in mind that the term "Light Rail" here is not the same as "Light Rail" that we are getting - it will be more like a fully automated "Light Metro", like Vancouver's Skytrain or the VAL systems in France.

[DHLawrence]

Interesting that Deux-Montagnes is part of the project. It was proposed in the 60s or 70s that the line become the Metro's "Red Line" but the plans were cancelled. I wonder why AMT wants to get rid of it now; no plans to expand electrification?

[KevinL]

I don't think it's AMT wanting to 'get rid' of it, it's just that it's the only AMT line that's fully electrified and thus is easier to be transitioned.

[Canard]

[MacBerry]

Here is a HuffPost Quebec story about the proposed new Montreal Regional LRT.

J'veux un p'tit train électrique!

A provincial Conservative  MPP who wrote the piece probably got his crib notes for the from our local journalist hack Mr. Jeff O'Negative.

His opinion piece goes on to attack the local and provincial governments with many of the items taht we have seen over the last 4-5 years in our local media.  

Adrien Pouliot states that the cost per kilometer of the new Montreal region LRT is to be $82 Million dollars. JUst for chuckles he notes that in the U.S. they are built similar electrified transport for as little as $19 Million per kilometer in Salt lake and $57 Million peer kilometer in Los Angeles.

An artist representation of a proposed LRT station somewhere on the soouth shore is below. (More LRT stop envy for Canard). You can catch the rest in the opinion piece.

[Canard]

Just remember to compare apples to apples (or pommes to pommes!); the system Montreal is proposing is not Light Rail, it's Light Automated Metro, like the Vancouver SkyTrain. More expensive than LRT, and cheaper than subway, with capacity somewhere in between.

[plam]

A provincial Conservative  MPP who wrote the piece probably got his crib notes for the from our local journalist hack Mr. Jeff O'Negative.

Note that he's not actually an MPP (or an MNA as they're called in Quebec). No one votes for the provincial Quebec Conservative Party and they got tens of thousands of votes in the last election. If they were concentrated in one riding that may have gotten them a seat, but not across the 60 seats that they ran in. So that's worthwhile in evaluating the piece.

[plam]

I was reading Le Devoir yesterday and some other groups were complaining about this: 1) it wouldn't connect nicely to the metro system (approximately 0 stations in common, unless they spent another $1B) and 2) it would cannibalize the existing Train de l'Ouest service. They pointed out that it is somewhat difficult (expensive) to connect above-ground rail to underground systems.