Quote:
Originally Posted by Aylmer
The CDPQi process "worked" in that it's building a lot of transit infrastructure very quickly. But that isn't half of what makes a good transit project. The coordination with land use plans and supporting service and infrastructure has been a casualty of the Caisse's agility and speed. Stations have been moved, dropped, and brought back in a matter of weeks. On a larger scale, the unpredictability of outsourcing planning as fundamental as basic alignment means that municipalities can't plan around transit in the long term for things like zoning, the placement of large facilities, and infrastructure investment. You may have planned and invested in a town centre in one location, only to find that the metro extension it counted on has been moved kilometres away. Long after people have forgotten how quickly that line was built, they'll be dealing with out of phase station locations and awkward station access.
It's not a problem just with the REM (heck, very few of the existing Metro's stations could be described as well-placed). However, planning and building a project on the fly in the Caisse's model will almost inevitably sacrifice good planning and long-term usability. We need to find ways of balancing predictability and agility.
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Very true. The lack of a regional view to planning huge infrastructure projects like the REM puts aside many things that transit planners incorporate in their work, like planning for equity or considering actual or future loads in the transit system, so we don't end up with another situation like the eastern portion of the Orange line in ten years.
CDPQi's project delivery is impressive indeed but it is the product of a system that bypasses public output and region-wide planning. It's also fed by the government's short-term vision for public transit (the tram/LRT line on Notre-Dame Street being studied by the CDPQi right now is the perfect example of this), as the CDPQi does not act if there isn't a need officially expressed by the government. Thing is, government officials often don't have a clue about what the region actually needs, and they don't really care since they're usually in office for 4 years (max 8). So sure, we get projects, but we never get the best projects.
I personally like the REM and what it will bring to the Montreal area long term, but it's a Liberal political product and it scores a big zero for equity. Hundreds of thousands of people in the East end are still waiting for reliable access to jobs while the rich folks in the West Island will get their rapid transit link.
Our current government is suburb-oriented so it keeps financing studies for suburb-oriented projects while transit users in dense areas of Montreal are crammed in buses and in the Orange line day after day.
Sure, the public structure is heavy and doesn't favour a quick delivery of projects like the REM, but it does represent an important democratic aspect of our society. The slowest cog in the whole machine is, after all, the government itself, and the shortsighted vision of government officials.