Montreal’s Tram Obsession and Why It’s So Dangerous

The problem is your average politician doesn't understand the purpose of transit. Most politicians just think of trams or metros as just big capacity buses. Concepts like frequency, travel speed, loading times, walk times, lack of transfers, grade separation, transit not stuck in traffic, etc...don't mean much to them. To them the only different in transit is the vehicle size, which is a dangerously ignorant mindset. NY's metro succeeded where many other metros did not, because it does value all of the above. Imagine if NY tried to switch their metro system to a tram system with transfers.

Never would i have imagined a dangerous tram obsession

One of my grad school professors came up with a methodology for problems like these — he was referring to IT projects, but this would work just as well for transit. I named it Hemphill's Protocol, in his honor. 1. What do you need to do? Make this as high level as possible, ignoring tools, budget, er c. For example: get people from the north part of the city downtown for work, shopping, and entertainment. 2. What software will do what you need in #1? Prof H was thinking computers: in transit, you'd think in terms of ridership numbers, frequency, destinations, the need to avoid major disruptions, politics, budget & timeline, placating NIMBYs, et c. 3. What hardware will run the software to do #1? In transit, only at this point do you decide on the type of vehicles, elevated or underground, and so on. Anyone who says "let's build a tram!" has the entire process backwards.

I figure a couple years of the REM running and being a success will win people over.

I take the REM daily to go to school and I have one word to describe it: RELIABLE (something very rare these days). I never wait more than 3 minutes, it’s quick and there’s always security in the stations. Hope REM de l’Est will not be canceled 😢.

France has tons of smaller and very compact cities, it makes sense, that trams are THE mode of transport for french cities. But Montreal is maybe a little too big, to predominantly rely on trams? Even in Paris, trams are only there for the outskirts of the city to bridge gaps in the metro and RER systems.

You have no idea how much I appreciate your voice of reason. The original REM de l’Est plan was the right solution. It aimed at helping bring people from the far eastern end of the island and off island into the city core. Trams just aren’t designed for that kind of distance. It was so disappointing to see that project cancelled. Hopefully when people see how great the REM is they will resurrect it.

I always thought it ridiculous that some people thought that building the REM de L'Est as originally proposed would take ridership away from the green line. For riders coming in from further East or North this is immaterial, for people who live close to the green line they would continue to use it, and if there is some number of people who take this REM instead, they are doing so because it will be a more efficient way to get to where they are going. What we need is more and better transit for everyone, worrying about a temporary drop of ridership on the green line misses the point.

I think a lot of city planners see the modern tram/light rail model as a "jack of all trades" transit system and that's why they like it. What they want is something that can be like a tram in the city centre with slow speeds and frequent stops, and like regional rail outside of it with higher speeds and less frequent stops. They want one system with one kind of vehicle and built as cheaply as possible. This results in a system where crossing the city centre can take nearly as long as the suburban portion of the journey because the vehicles are going much more slowly and stopping much more frequently. Thus it doesn't attract as many people from the suburbs as it could unless their destination is on the right side of the city centre.

The best way to deal with thsi s to send a team from Montreal down to ride the trams in Toronto for a day, that'll cure them.

I live past Montreal est and anyone that proposes a tram here clearly doesn't live in the area. Trams require well maintained roads with no potholes, and Rue Sherbrooke is anything but that. I have to take the bus all the way down Sherbrooke to Honrore Beaugrand and the trip is bumpy and often times crowded. The crowds that filter in to the metro every morning are a human traffic jam and there is no way that is sustainable. I am so dissapointed by the nimbys in anjou and hochelaga that pressured to cancel the Rem de l'est. They had no idea what they were protesting.

Its funny how metros are nor socially acceptable but 8 lane highways dividing the city fabric are😂

As a British person I think the the UK is a great example of dangerous tram obsession. Manchester and Birmingham in the UK substitute tram-trains for a proper metro/underground rapid transit system and they're just too slow for the trips they cover (and most of them were already national rail lines as well).

It always comes down to money. You see it in Toronto too: they want to build what's cheap, not what's efficient.

The main issue is there are some "mass transit expert" in Montréal that think that Tramway is the only solutions to all transit problem. Since they are university teacher, they get a lot of attention. They wanted a Trams instead of the REM and said it would have been better. Tramways are nice for place that need it. One on Avenue du Parc would be amazing. But doing long distance in tramways would be a pain. The ARTM is not convinced right now about the Trams. But that do not really matter. ARTM is just a company that suck money from government without adding any values. There is no project that got out of the ATM or ARTM anyway. All project got out of the government because they are dysfunctional. The hope in Montreal is to have a government that will be pragmatic and will go forward with a REM like project. The added benefits of the project will far outweigh the drawbacks. A lot of those "no elevated rails", Tramways is better come from the leftist movement that is well rooted in the city. Not all bad things come from those people and their existence is probably one of the main reason Montreal do so much for bikes, walkable streets, etc. We just have to have a conversation and convince them.

The biggest issue here is jurisdictional wars between three different institutions. The CDPQ forces municipalities to shut down any service that might compete with the REM through its contract with the provincial government. The ARTM is constantly trying to centralize control around itself despite never having accomplished anything good since the Liberal party created it and the STM is constantly struggling to get funding from the auto centric provincial government, which makes the notion of any ridership transfer to an infrastructure it doesn't own and derives no fares from scares it.

“Tram Obsession.” “Find a mode and then make it fit to the project.” Sounds like the IBX proposal in NY City.

I feel like it's the same with my home city Bergen. A small light rail is just too small, being super crammed and too slow to be a better alternative to a bus.

The "disadvantages" of REM expansion are so wierd to me, since Prague use the same point as advantages on Metro D line. It´s northern expansion from Pankrác to Náměstí Míru (and potencionaly further to historical downtown including transfer station on Main Station) main pitch it take some ridership from line C that is the most used. It allow to people switch between mode of transport on more places making all of them less crowded.

Here in Valencia the government seems to have an obsession with the words "tram" and "metro". There are 4 tram lines in development (3 new and 1 expansion) and they recently added plans for 4 metroTRAM lines that are neither metro, or trams and they don't even have tracks. metroTRAM will be suburban BRT lines using electric buses that looks like trams (for example the Irizar ie tram)