Canadian LRT/RT projects U/C

[FFX-ME]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

The Ottawa airport LRT plan is pure garbage. It will be far worse than existing bus service.

If they ever decide to interline it with the Trillium mainline, instead of using it as a spur, it should be pretty decent.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by ClaytonA

https://www.mtlblog.com/news/canada/qc/m...ade-incredible-progress-photos-and-video

Compilation of photos and a narrative describing the line when it's done.

How does Montreal build infrastructure so quickly? This and the Champlain bridge were built in roughly half the time that it would take to build a project of a similar scope anywhere else in Canada.

[Darkoshvilli]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

How does Montreal build infrastructure so quickly? This and the Champlain bridge were built in roughly half the time that it would take to build a project of a similar scope anywhere else in Canada.

Champlain was an emergency so they really had to get that one done fast and it was still delayed by half a year. As for Rem, it really is surprising how fast it materialized. Pretty uncommon for things to go that smoothly here.

[Marshal]

It's the dictatorship . . . just like China.

[Marshal]

Its a joke.

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by Darkoshvilli

Champlain was an emergency so they really had to get that one done fast and it was still delayed by half a year. As for Rem, it really is surprising how fast it materialized. Pretty uncommon for things to go that smoothly here.

P3 might actually work...? I guess too early to tell.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by FFX-ME

If they ever decide to interline it with the Trillium mainline, instead of using it as a spur, it should be pretty decent.

That requires double tracking which is decades away, if ever.

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by Marshal

It's the dictatorship . . . just like China.

Yup, and more projects should be handled like a dictatorship. Those two projects had legal protection for them to advance ASAP.

The government even asked the CDPQi instead of the proper Montréal transit authority for three new projects because the transit autority is so slow to act with all the regulations in place.

[SkahHigh]

Originally Posted by p_xavier

Yup, and more projects should be handled like a dictatorship. Those two projects had legal protection for them to advance ASAP.

The government even asked the CDPQi instead of the proper Montréal transit authority for three new projects because the transit autority is so slow to act with all the regulations in place.

Or maybe there are other reasons like a government that doesn’t believe in the new transit authority because it’s a Liberal government initiative.

Or maybe the government is too slow giving the green light for projects or doesn’t have the same vision for regional transit planning so it bulldozes over everything.

Or maybe the CDPQi isn’t restriced by the current public structure in place which requires a lot of approbation levels to move forward.

Like a lot of times before, you fail to understand the complexity of things...

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by SkahHigh

Or maybe there are other reasons like a government that doesn’t believe in the new transit authority because it’s a Liberal government initiative.

Or maybe the government is too slow giving the green light for projects or doesn’t have the same vision for regional transit planning so it bulldozes over everything.

Or maybe the CDPQi isn’t restriced by the current public structure in place which requires a lot of approbation levels to move forward.

Like a lot of times before, you fail to understand the complexity of things...

Or like many times, you fail to see how simple things can be when you remove all approbation layers... And your perception is where you were wrong many times. You fail to see the political aspects of things and how things evolve.

I had great hopes in the ARTM and like EXO mentionned last year : https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/grand...structure-jugee-lourde-et-meprisante.php

This is completely the ARTM's wrongdoing.

[Acajack]

Independently of the blame game, the efficiency of the CDPQi process for projects definitely provides a lot of food for thought.

[CityTech]

It's more that the creation of the CDPQi process actually.. worked.

When the Ontario Liberals created Metrolinx in 2006, it was intended to serve a similar function for Toronto.. a technical board of experts reporting to the province with independence from local politicians, that would have the ability to cut through all the bureaucratic red tape that slows down projects.

It would be interesting for somebody to do a scientific case-study of the two agencies and why one succeeded in this purpose and the other didn't. I would hazard a guess that it's because Metrolinx is still a government corporation (really just an agency of the provincial transport ministry), whereas CDPQi, while government-owned, is very arms-length, as it's a pension fund. But because it's mission is to benefit the people (by running Quebec's public pension fund) it's politically palatable to hand it over, whereas suggesting a "true" private corporation for the job would be political suicide.

The same thing would not be replicatable in Anglo-Canada, however, because we strictly abide by the belief that our pension funds have to be completely separate from government activities with mandates to maximize returns and long-term sustainability with no care of any other goals, whereas in Quebec it's part of the Caisse's mandate to invest some of its funds in Quebec for government-declared economic development goals. This has its ups and downs, on the one hand it means they can do things like the CDPQi process, but on the other hand, it does result in the Caisse having lower returns than it otherwise would (it's notable that the CPP has outperformed the Caisse on returns since the CPP converted to the active investment model).

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by CityTech

It's more that the creation of the CDPQi process actually.. worked.

When the Ontario Liberals created Metrolinx in 2006, it was intended to serve a similar function for Toronto.. a technical board of experts reporting to the province with independence from local politicians, that would have the ability to cut through all the bureaucratic red tape that slows down projects.

It would be interesting for somebody to do a scientific case-study of the two agencies and why one succeeded in this purpose and the other didn't.

That's what the government tried to emulate with the ARTM, and with a governance that was projected to have less political interference than Metrolinx. I had so much hope in the ARTM for that reason.

It has now been hijacked as mayor's Plante (and other regional mayors) as the pet project machine. There is also much distrust from the transit agencies because they find their operations to be way more politicised than they were prior to the creation of the ARTM. (which ironically was supposed to be the opposite...)

The CDPQi, on the other hand, is quite opaque by any governement agency standard. Many urbanists and local politicians are totally against the REM, because they kinda lost their planning control. You should see the LRT/streetcar fanatics in Montréal, it's flabergasting to see how they act. The REM was a single produce of optimizing operating costs versus infrastructure costs with optimal passenger revenue.

I was discussing with a director for the Blue Line extension last Friday and for every new project, they need to redo ridership studies which consumes so much time and money. In many cities, there are standard ridership models to be used, and the best transit lines to build are given automatically from the software.

This is what is lacking in Canadian cities, you have politicians that draw lines on a napkin, and afterwards, transit planner spend 2+ years to justify that drawing.

Some of you might remember the work I did for Ottawa fifteen years ago on the exact subject.

[Acajack]

I actually never saw ARTM (or the previous AMT) and especially not Metrolinx as similar to CDPQi. Contrary to CDPQi, the former bodies referenced above seem to be the same old, same old bureaucratically heavy regional transit authorities. So I guess I am not really surprised that often you really need to get outside the old structures in order to shake things up and make things happen faster.

[GreaterMontréal]

it does result in the Caisse having lower returns than it otherwise would (it's notable that the CPP has outperformed the Caisse on returns since the CPP converted to the active investment model).

CPP Investment Board, $400.6B (June 2019)
CDPQ, $326.7B (June 2019)

Quebec also have the Fonds de solidarité FTQ, $15.6B (May 2019). They are investors in many major projects in Montréal, like Solar Uniquartier, a TOD in Brossard next to a REM station.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by CityTech

The same thing would not be replicatable in Anglo-Canada, however, because we strictly abide by the belief that our pension funds have to be completely separate from government activities with mandates to maximize returns and long-term sustainability with no care of any other goals, whereas in Quebec it's part of the Caisse's mandate to invest some of its funds in Quebec for government-declared economic development goals. This has its ups and downs, on the one hand it means they can do things like the CDPQi process, but on the other hand, it does result in the Caisse having lower returns than it otherwise would (it's notable that the CPP has outperformed the Caisse on returns since the CPP converted to the active investment model).

You could also take a right wing perspective to this. The general incompetence of Metrolinx is evidence that the perceived, democratic benefits of public sector agencies are often undermined by scope creep, parochial local interests and all the other things that affect the planning of large, complex and needed infrastructure projects - all supposedly in the name of transparency and accountability.

An arms-length pension plan that does all the planning behind closed doors* just gets things done more quickly, while avoiding “designed by committee” solutions that water down actual plans.

Had the Relief Line/Ontario Line been planned/funded/built by a CDPQi equivalent, it would probably be built by now - the long term ROI is impeccable.


*it’s not like public sector agencies conduct planning in a democratic way anyway. A lot of those community consultations are just kabuki - and can you blame them?

[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.

[Acajack]

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. Long after people have forgotten how quickly it was built, they'll be dealing with out of phase station locations and suboptimal 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.

I don't entirely disagree with you, though if I may be the devil's advocate for a minute, that's exactly what the Metrolinxes, ARTMs, and OC Transpos of the world would say, and precisely why so many times nothing or very little gets built, or it takes an eternity to get something built so we're always losing the catch-up game with demand and falling further behind it.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

You could also take a right wing perspective to this. The general incompetence of Metrolinx is evidence that the perceived, democratic benefits of public sector agencies are often undermined by scope creep, parochial local interests and all the other things that affect the planning of large, complex and needed infrastructure projects - all supposedly in the name of transparency and accountability.

An arms-length pension plan that does all the planning behind closed doors* just gets things done more quickly, while avoiding “designed by committee” solutions that water down actual plans.

Had the Relief Line/Ontario Line been planned/funded/built by a CDPQi equivalent, it would probably be built by now - the long term ROI is impeccable.


*it’s not like public sector agencies conduct planning in a democratic way anyway. A lot of those community consultations are just kabuki - and can you blame them?

I am trying to think of where and how the possible implantation of something like CDPQi could take place in other provinces - assuming the political will were there. Which I don't think is the case, frankly.

For starters, the financial weight that is behind CDPQi goes back to the 1960s. You don't build something like that up overnight, though one can assume that a province as big as Ontario could find a good chunk of cash and earmark it for "projects" in a dedicated agency. But as I said earlier I don't think even a Liberal or NDP government in that province would have the will to do that.

About the only place that would have some money sitting around like that would be Alberta, with their Heritage Fund. Next sentence is "AS IF"...

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I am trying to think of where and how the possible implantation of something like CDPQi could take place in other provinces - assuming the political will were there. Which I don't think is the case, frankly.

For starters, the financial weight that is behind CDPQi goes back to the 1960s. You don't build something like that up overnight, though one can assume that a province as big as Ontario could find a good chunk of cash and earmark it for "projects" in a dedicated agency. But as I said earlier I don't think even a Liberal or NDP government in that province would have the will to do that.

About the only place that would have some money sitting around like that would be Alberta, with their Heritage Fund. Next sentence is "AS IF"...

That's what the Infra Bank was set up to be, a proxy for foreign and institutional investors.