Today is one of the most exciting days we’ve had in a long time.
Before I dive into this piece, logistics!
This weekend (July 29 & 30), the Montreal REM is “opening” with restricted hours from 9 AM to 7 PM, and this is the public’s first chance to ride the system. During the weekend, you’ll also be able to ride for free. As you can imagine, I will be riding around, and if you want my opinion the best place to start will be Central Station — as there will be more of a crowd which is always fun for events like this. If you want to get on the first train (hundreds of people can fit on one train so you can get it if you want to), I’d recommend showing up 1-1.5 hours before opening at 9 AM. This is a little later than most people showed up when the Elizabeth Line central section opened last year, but Montreal is also a smaller city. If you see me feel free to say “hi!” but be warned I will be running around so might not have long to chat!
Clik here to view.
This morning, there was a media event with politicians to officially cut the ribbon on the REM, and that meant we had access to the convenient service that is… the REM in order to travel from Brossard to Central Station. Having finally been on the system in operation now (after 5+ years of covering it), I can say it brought a smile to my face. The trains feel really fast, and they are actually really fast to boot. The stations are also probably the model for what a new rapid transit station in Canada should look like — light and open but not excessive, with a nice mix of finishings from wood, to tile, to steel and concrete.
What’s more is that the REM feels as modern as any transit system I have ever been on, from the Elizabeth line in London to the subways of Tokyo or Singapore. The screen doors at every stop were very nice, and the sound design of the announcement and door chimes is good enough to trade blows with that of the original métro. Perhaps whats nicest about the system, especially after regularly using the systems in other parts of Canada (*cough* *cough* Toronto), is that the design of the wayfinding and the system in general feels simple. It’s not a signage tornado, and even without speaking French nobody will have trouble navigating the system. I’ll also note, no matter how loud the REM might feel outside, I really truly didn’t find it loud onboard — which will probably change people’s perception of the system.
Clik here to view.
There’s also a lot here that reminds me of… Vancouver. From standing up at the front and looking out the windows (I think the front window on the Canada Line is still the best in the country being a single big pane), to the stations with no ticket booths.
The biggest takeaway is well, it’s big! Even just the first phase with 5/26 stations feels like a “proper” transit line, and the 20-minute ride from Downtown to Brossard covers a significant distance, a lot of interesting spots, and pieces of transit infrastructure. It’s really crazy to think that the system is going to get several times larger when it’s all open — it really is a network, and it feels like it will be about as substantial as the entire linear motor powered portion of the SkyTrain, with so many big pieces of infrastructure connected up from the Champlain Bridge, to the Mount Royal Tunnel, to the Airport connection.
Unfortunately though, there is a sad part to this story. Canada used to build transit cost effectively, and this is probably the last time we will do that for some time. The REM was only a few hundred million per kilometre — just a fraction the cost of recent Montreal, and Toronto subway projects, which in many ways feel like the opposite of the REM: No screen doors, elaborate and overbuilt stations, and tunnels deep underground.
Clik here to view.
And with statements from some politicians in Montreal like unfortunately “modern cities do not build above ground” (this is false, of course), any hope of the REM’s legacy continuing in Montreal is in serious doubt.
But some day in the hopefully not too distant future, I think we (or at least our leaders) will realize how good the REM and the SkyTrain projects of the late 20th century were — not because they were perfect, but because they made intelligent pragmatic compromises.