Lots of comments about using Lucien L'Allier as a downtown hub which is great! The issue with Gare Centrale I see is that getting all services there is even harder than Lucien L'Allier, so it seems like the realistic option is probably keeping them split or converging at LL, a local would know better than me if keeping them split is really better. Anyhow, Montreal needs to be expanding the service, and acquiring modern trains (ideally DMUs and not bilevel push pull sets with mixed boarding height)!
Thank you for working so hard to keep a positive practical outlook on Montréal regional rail. The stasis over YUL connection, GC refurbishment and intercity express lines puts me between SMH and depression. I'm pleased that you found a way to offer a lead out of the REM quicksand with a cut-and-dried proposal. And I especially liked your tunnels without a station!
Hi! Local here! Thanks for the video, it is very interesting and our Exo lines definitely need some love. Regarding converging all the lines to LL, the issue I see with this is that the lines going to LL are on top of a cliff. That's why the Turcot interchange is up in the air rather than on the ground. For the lines to converge, the southern ones would need to either go west almost all the way to the airport, or you'd need to dig a tunnel in which the trains would need to make a tight turn, while also climbing, and then squeeze between the Ville-Marie highway and the current existing lines (unless you want to bulldoze the residences currently lining the tracks, which would be problematic given the current housing crisis). An other alternative would be to burrow the lines currently going to LL so they'd go down to the level of the southern ones and then you could have the station underground, but digging is very costly and would probably require the service on those lines to stop for the duration of the work. At this point I'm not sure if it's simpler to just continue the LL tracks under the buildings there to Gare Centrale (I'm not an architect, I have no idea how deep the foundations are... ) Long story short, I like the ideas, but I'm not sure they're all physically doable given Montreal's geography. Definitely worth looking into! And more service is absolutely a must! Short term, the easiest solution would be to give 15-20 min between arrival and departure, and allow people holding a train ticket to take the subway for free between the two stations. Both are connected to the subway, and only one stop over. I'm not sure if the idea you propose around 9:30 is meant to use the subway tracks that are already there. If it doesn't, it would either mean destroying a lot of residential areas, or digging loads of tunnels.
not sure how you're going to get Exo 3 up the St-Jacques escarpment to get into Lucien L'alliier. That's a pretty steep climb for cars and trucks as it is.
Lucien Lallier has a better corridor, Gare centrale is better situated and is nicer. My compromise is to split it and restore the beautiful Gare Windsor to its actually being a gare, lift the Centre Bell above the tracks or raze it. Easy Peasy /s
@@valerian4486 it currently is actually quicker on foot that taking the metro between Lucien-L’Allier and Bonaventure because of the dept of the stations.
I’m impressed that viarail doesn’t offer routes towards Fredericton and Saint-John in New Brunswick, let alone Sydney in Nova Soctia… seems like obvious lines for tourism and commuters. But then again, viarails may need to be severely nudged
@@RMTransit good thing we have amigoexpress! That app really came in clutch when last I was visiting Quebec and New Brunswick. I am still bewildered that there is a train line between Saguenay and Montreal but not between Saguenay and Quebec. But considering your comment, I suppose i can let it sly…
as someone who regularly takes EXO 2 to get downtown not as a commuter I totally agree with all this and hope it can be implemented, we NEED better service
I could not agree more. REM is one of the worst designed transit plans in North America. I don't mind the fact that the Two Mountains line was converted, half as much as the fact that there's one less commuter rail line at Central Station, or that the Mount Royal Tunnel (which was built as one of the longest rail tunnels in North America) is basically being converted into a subway tunnel (pretty much taking away its title), OR the fact that the Mascouche line no longer provides direct service to Central Station! WHAT IDIOT IS MAKING THESE DECISIONS!?!?!?
Politicians and the media in Québec need to see this. Public transit discussions here sometimes feel like groundhog day. Have you seen the announcement for the new REM de l'Est project? For some reason they thought it necessary to put it underground for the whole length, ending up with a 36 billion dollar price tag. It looked like they were purposefully trying to make it look as expensive as possible, even indexing the price for inflation for the next 15 years. Would be nice to have your take on that project.
Extremely limited service with very high fares means Exo’s commuter trains continue to roll around empty. Nothing says “tell the planet to shove it” like increasing fares this July to stick a fork into its ridership levels.
and even with the new fare structure, the prices are really expensive. Like more than $5 to ride the metro from Henri-Bourassa across the river to Laval? That's a distance of less than 2 km. Had the new fare structure have Vancouver TransLink prices in the corresponding zones, it would've been so much more affordable.
I mentioned it in another comment, but that's likely due to Exo/ARTM being obligated to pay a subsidy of $0.72 per passanger-km to the CDPQ for the operation of the REM (and losing the revenue from the Deux-Montagnes line at the same time.) If the government doesn't step in with a major cash infusion anytime soon, I expect we may start seeing service cuts.
A decade ago, AMT proposed a huge plan to upgrade all the regional lines, a little bit like what is going on in Toronto. Their proposal was to put an halt to extensions for 10 years and upgrade frequency everywhere. For example, the Vaudreuil line would have trains every 15 minutes…. Then AMT was scraped and now this plan seems to be completely forgotten by politicians.
This. That would have had a real, meaningful impact at a much lower cost, but it wasn't as sexy as a brand new REM taking over the DM line and with it all money available for any other projects. While the REM made sense for the south shore and west island as a new service, having the tunnel to Gare Centrale for exo trains provided the necessary capacity for the northern lines, including bringing a connection for the St-Jerome line. As for a model for Montréal, the Deux-Montagnes electrified line was exactly that....
0:52 The GO train to London is cancelled effective Oct 13th due to low ridership. They were only getting 1200-1400 riders/month which isn't surprising for a 4- hour trip that takes 2 hours by car and 1:45 by Via.
Yeah it’s sad really. I was one of those riders. I regularly (as regular as the train is lol) took it to Kitchener. I wish there were more trains between London and Kitchener. Heck, they should add a GO bus line to replace the train
The fact that even that many people were riding that service is proof that an enormous demand for it exists. The bus is about $25-30 dollars. If you can get a train around that price that takes 2 hours or less and runs on weekends (and late enough for sporting events) - it'll be a major success
@@EBobyayat translates to 40 people per day. Less than the capacity of a bus. Doesn’t sound like it’s an efficient use of a GO train for 40 people. Especially when the bus takes half the time. It’s a chicken and egg problem. No one wants to invest in line upgrades unless there’s demonstrated demand. And no one will take the service to demonstrate the demand without line upgrades.
@ccudmore you cant judge the lack of appeal of a bridge by the number of people that swim across. The fact that this many chose to "swim across" however shows that there is real need for an infrastructure upgrade
One thing I like so much about RMtransit is how detailed the suggestions are in videos like these. It's one thing to want better services, but to illustrate exactly how to do it? Makes for a great video 👌👌👌
Good that you bring attention to this problem! I never understood how we could completely ignore existing transport option upgrade while creating all new option, both should live together! The Exo 2 line has been my nemesis for the last 15 years now, I remember waking up at 5am just to make it to my 8am class, my only choices at this time where arriving an hour early or 30 minute late, and that was at highest frequency. Even now, I live 5 minutes away from this line and my parent are almost as close to it in Ste-Thérèse, but I still can't use it to go see them! I almost have a door to door train, but it's timing is so bad that I can't use it! In my dream the portion of this line that are going through "high" density area would be a good candidate for a future REM extension, with a regional train going to Mont-Tremblant.
As someone who lives on the south shore but works on the island, I find the run times are way too short. The last train home for me is 6:20 so there's no way for me to really hang out downtown after work.
While I can agree with most of the ideas in this video, I really can't get behind terminating all lines at Lucien L'Allier. Whilst I do agree that there are major benefits to having a single unified terminal for your rail services, most Exo lines aren't setup to really benefit from it. Today, it takes a while for Exo2 trains to get around the mountain, so much so that its actually faster to take the Metro from De La Concorde to Lucien L'Allier than it is to take Exo, which is why the line only reaches LL during rush hours, and the service only exists for those who really don't want to transfer. Now while this could possibly be remedied by having faster trains or various trackside improvements to speed up the line, I can't imagine it'll reach a point where it would be that useful for anyone who isn't travelling to the direct vicinity of LL. This issue is compounded with the Mont St-Hillaire and especially the Mascouche Lines. I can't imagine a scenerio where riding the Mascouche Line all the way around the mountain to Lucien L'Allier will ever be preferred to taking the cross platform transfer at Cote de Liesse and just cutting through the mountain on the REM, and the diversion for Exo3 trains to reach Lucien seems like a pointless way to add travel time, both to reach Lucien, and for needing to transfer to the REM to reach Gare Centrale. So sure, you get a Central all-in-one station for all exo services, but its a station that will only be useful for riders of 2 of the 5 lines, at least until you get that 2nd Mont Royal Tunnel built, and so I'm not sure having this single mega station is worth this much hassle. If anything I'd probably advocate long term for ditching Lucien L'Allier completely, and centralizing all services to Gare Centrale. That way when the city center tunnel is built you can have a single mega station not just for Exo, but also for Via HFR and Amtrak services.
Yeah that was my impression as well, the routes seem pretty tortured around the center there approaching Lucien L'Allier, didn't know about the tunnel being the issue even as I'm from Vancouver and not as familiar with Montreal's transit. Also while I understand the theoretical utility of having a transfer pulse I'm not sure how much sense it really makes as it's all built around specifically transfers between the somewhat distant destinations in the region. Any shorter and you're interacting with REM, any longer and you're interacting with inter-city rail and I really have to question whether there's that much demand for people specifically going from Saint-Jerome to Mont-Saint-Hilaire that a centralized station with pulsed service would enable, I'd imagine that the vast majority of people are going to be transferring to one of those other modes after coming off the commuter train. Given that and after a bit of sleuthing to find out where Gare Central fits in the Rem/Metro network my thinking was to give the regional rail two termination points for the regional service, one near the Gare Centrale area and another further west on the REM allowing at least the Blainville-Saint-Jerome and Mascouche to stay away from the difficult crossing of Montreal Island with tunnels and such. I think so long as you pick a single line for regional rail and inter-city rail to do all their transfers through ( instead of say transferring to REM, then a Metro line, then perhaps another one ) a transfer in the middle isn't so bad for regional rail.
Well, the trains still need a terminal station, where they will likely stay stoped for a certain amount of time because of the schedules, to handle the conductor changing from one end of the train to the other and all that. And while it can be managed in simpler/smaller stations when the frequency and amount of trains using the line is small, with increased frequency using a bigger station as terminal could be useful to handle that
Thanks for the comment - the ARTM needs to think bigger with EXO, speeding up travel around the mountain should happen anyways - regional rail should be able to travel much faster than the metro (that being said reducing the need to use the metro for the "middle" of a regional trip is also a really important consideration). I don't find the approach to Gare Centrale to be fast at all, so not sure a well designed routing of MSH line into Lucien L'Allier needs to be much slower. The issue with centralizing around Gare Central is capacity, you have to handle what will be increasingly frequent VIA services, plus possible REM expansion, plus the throat has only 2 mainline tracks whereas Lucien could be easily expanded to 4.
I watched this on my morning commute to work on Exo 1. It's my best option to commute but I have to plan my day around it. My local station (Lachine) isn't served by any bus routes, I can't miss the 6.30pm train or I'm waiting till 9.15pm or taking a massive detour to go get my bike back. I can't in good continence tell any friends to use it to come visit me because it's to infrequent. I hope with REM de l'est probably not happening the ARTM can focus improving this service.
Fellow Lachine resident here--it's a pretty 'dead' station unfortunately. The buses do run to the streets below (195, 496, etc.) but nothing to the actual train station, which seems odd, especially compared to Dorval and many of the stations after which have direct bus stops (i.e. the 211). As for times, if it's not peak hours, it's not very useful. I went to high school in Montreal-West and if we had an exam finish after 12:30pm, it was a waiting game until the 3:21pm train. Bit crazy that that hasn't changed in a decade--though I do understand the CN/Exo conflict, I feel like something could be done.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on the West Coast Express and what expansions could be done. It seems like such a neglected part of TransLink’s service when they have so much other really good things going on. Regional rail down to Tswassen, far Surrey, up the valley to Abbotsford and Chilliwack, and up the Sea to Sky to Squamish and Whistler seem like such no-brainers and the tracks already all exist (albeit single-tracked and owned by freight companies), but instead all we get are 6 trains a day from Mission into the city in the morning and back out in the afternoon.
The problem I see is that pretty much all these right of ways are not great places to send regional trains-either they don't serve anywhere particularly useful like the main Grandview Cut missing like all the population centers of Vancouver and Burnaby, taking a circuitous route to New West Burnaby or Surrey or the current WCE line passing on the south shore of the inlet where barely anyone lives, or like the Squamish-Whistler line would require enormous upgrades to not be a miserable experience. But yeah, I would hope something like this is on Translink or the province's radar, since we can't keep extending the Skytrain forever.
What bothers me the most about exo is that its two northern lines (saint-jerome and mascouche) don’t always run into downtown and force the metro to supplement its downtown bound passengers. For the mascouche line this isn’t a huge deal because the trip via the taschereau yard takes 50 minutes but it’s really inconvenient on the saint-jerome line. Forcing people on the metro as a valid excuse not to run trains all the way downtown? Over my goddamned dead body. The metro should be used as another transit option, not a flat-out substitute, and same goes for the REM with the mascouche line.
It is all about the mighty $$....imho. Besides the train, they force you to use the metro... Then there is the probelm of finding parking around train stations; enough said
Thanks for being so positive. I really hope the exo team gets this video and sees the support in the comments lol. I once emailed them about weekend service into Pointe aux Trembles because I have family living there, or later service into St-Jerome (the last train leaves at about 7pm) becasue I have friends living there and the response has been: "Yeah that sounds good, but why would we do that when we don't have demand..?" Which is stupid. How do they even gauge demand if they're just reducing service? Of course there's no demand for what doesn't exist. People don't just queue up at platforms for trains that aren't even in Google Maps. So exo has been focusing on their buses instead, which, funny enough, run along their rail lines!!! Unbelievably silly. So for all this to happen, exo needs to go into demand inducing mode, just making changes and seeing what happens. I'm super close to starting a petition where people could put their desired service and have exo try out like daily hourly service in addition to their current schedule 6am-midnight, nothing too outlandish. Just so they can see what the demand _really_ is. Another little sidenote/fun fact: all their current locomotives are dual powered because Montreal mandated that all trains running through tunnel Mont-Royal be electric because of the fumes. So they and CN electrified the bare minimum of the tunnel - not an inch longer. So they have a clear pattern of doing the bare minimum to stay functioning... Sorry for a long comment, I feel strongly about seeing disfunctional exo stations I could be passing in a train instead of a car lol
@@SkaN2412 That's not really true. The Deux-Montagnes line was fully electrified in the 90s, and ran EMUs on it. The only other line requiring electric operation was the Mascouche line, which joined the Deux-Montagnes line shortly before Mont-Royal to go through the Mont Royal tunnel, so it used dual-mode locomotives. The other 4 Exo lines never went through the tunnel and never required dual-mode operation. Half of Exo's locomotives are diesel-only.
Also to your point about demand, there are fairly well-established ways to predict how a service change will impact ridership. And the unfortunate truth is that most of Montreal outside the middle of the island has pretty terrible land use that doesn't make a great place to run transit. It wouldn't be at all surprising to me if their models showed even 30-minute all-day service would only see a modest ridership bump given the investment which would be required.
@@ashcla If the Deux-Montagnes line was electrified, they've removed it from most of the line in later years. As for the other lines, they definitely reuse these locomotives as I've seen them on the Mont-Saint-Hilaire and Mascouche lines. And if you insist on details, they never had EMUs, only electric locomotives. As to the increase in demand, I'll insist on a more positive view. It's true that there are stations with terrible land use. My "favorite" is Longueil with car rentals outside the station. BUT, I'll say the majority of their stations are historically located within residential and commercial areas of towns. Yes, you'll find a good 10-15% of stations with parking lots next to a highway, but that's not most. I can make a list of stations with good land use vs bad. And even stations like Lachine can have potential - it's in the industrial zone where people could use it to go to work. Or they could use buses to get to and from the stations. Or bring their bikes on board because it's free. Models are one thing, but actual human behaviour is sometimes hard to model. The vast majority of people I talk to about transit say they wish there was something next to their place and they'd drive much less, if that was the case. But as long as companies like exo tell them that it's not feasible and convince them that it won't work, guess what... It won't work. It's the narrative and the attitude that needs to change. The good land use will come with it.
Reece your ideas are great. I just hope someone from the ARTM will be watching. As someone who has been living in the Montreal area for 25+years I have wanted a similar experience to Toronto. Keep up the good work .
Interesting stuff but I really don't think making trains terminate at Lucien L'Allier is a good idea. The station is isolated, has poor onward connections to other lines and transit modes, and would require excessive infrastructure to route other lines into. The more logical approach if you ask me would be to route all the Exo lines into Gare Centrale, where better connections would exist to more Metro service, the REM, buses, and Intercity rail for all passengers, rather than requiring needless short one station transfers (which are horrible). The only way I could see using Lucien L'Allier would be a good idea, would be if a cross downtown tunnel was built, but you'd need to decide on that super early in the plans for such a solution to even be relevant long term.
Yeah, agreed. It feels like the better solution is to tunnel under the Bell Centre to reach the Gare centrale, so that all services terminate in the same spot. It would potentially even allow through-running. The Gare centrale feels like it has room to grow, and LL is an outdoor station right outside the hockey arena that already feels crowded. A tunnel would be expensive, but worth it if the goal is to improve service quality and frequency.
Gare Centrale is much more challenging for trains to access than Lucien L'Allier, and if onward journeys are a concern there are already connections points to the metro in a few places. Lucien l'Allier is still central enough that if you are going to downtown you should generally still be within walking distance.
I think I'm with Reece on this one, you can build better connections and upgrade the station, which will benefit everyone in the long run. Although if they can tunnel under the bell centre, that would be fantastic and the best case scenario.
Well, currently, one strike against Lucien L’Allier, from an operating perspective, is the station has no storage or lay over space. Nowhere to park a disabled or no longer needed train without a long, time and fuel consuming deadhead move. Imagine for a second that the nearest place to Union Station that GO could park a train with a mechanical issue was the Willowbrook maintenance complex. Does that seem logistically sensible? Also, for the record Lucien L’Allier’s platforms don’t even have canopies. People getting on and off have to walk in whatever weather.
I occasionally take EXO3 downtown from Longueuil-St-Hubert. It is a great way to get into town, but needs much more frequent service. Right now it only runs weekdays and only morning and evening rush. I would love to see it run all day, 7 days a week. Problem is it is shared route with freight trains. Keep up the great videos, love the channel!
The biggest issue with the EXO lines is CN/CP's inflexibility in terms of scheduling. Passenger rail schedules are slim at best to have open slots for merchandise rail. Slots that mainly go unused. The federal government does nothing to improve this.
Two points from this European, Roger Sexton. Firstly, the current situation you describe in Montreal reminds me of Birmingham (England) until about 50 years ago. Happily the regional transport authority got to grips with the situation and Birmingham now has a passable network of regional suburban trains. (But not as good as Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow.) Secondly, the arrangement you advocate at Lucien-L'Allier is what German-speaking transport planners would call a 'Voll Knoten' which I translate as 'full knot.' It should be stressed that at many Voll-Knoten (eg Zurich and Bern) trains DO NOT TURN ROUND but work cross-city.
Living along Exo 1, the fact that there are stations within 15-minute walking distance to most residents along the route (in the West Island, not off island) is just about the only thing going right with this line. Removing stops would necessitate driving to trains or massively improved bus schedules and undermining the advantage of Exo being suburbs to downtown with no transfers.
Love the shoutout to "your bikepacking trip outside the city". With frequent all-day EXO, towns like Saint-Jerome could really lean into being a car-lite outdoorsy destination, rather than being a costco stop for those driving further north.
That metro tunnel would really transform the regional rail. A cut and cover tunnel up Parc to Parc station could hold both EXO and REM depending on which lines are converted, and a diamond could be made between the Mascouche and St Jerome lines to allow both to continue into it. If the St Jerome line becomes a REM, it could get some branches along Laval stroads and lead to some TOD. (Similar to the REM C from your substack but reusing St Jerome and possibly Mascouche lines - might require a 4 track tunnel)
The rail mega-project Montreal needs is a new tunnel from the Lucien-L'Allier CP tracks under Gare Central to Gare Parc, which could be used for both northbound exo (to Laval and St-Jerome) and intercity trains (to Trois-Rivières and Quebec City as part of the new "High Frequency" route. There's a lot going on underground in the area between the two downtown train stations though, so am not sure how feasible it would be without going "very" deep.
One thing to note about the lack of tunnel through the mountain rn is that it extends the duration of the trip a ridiculous amount. Cote Saint-Luc is a railyard and speeds are limited at what feels like a snails pace while riding it.
I ride the Exo3 line and, as you mentioned, the train only passes by during rush hour on weekdays. There are a total of 14 departures on weekdays (7 departures towards downtown mostly in the morning and 7 from downtown mostly in the late afternoon) and zero departures on weekends. The train is often packed, so I think having more frequent departures would be welcomed by commuters. But additionally, there is not an option for people to head to the city for leisure in the evenings and weekends. And given that there are a lot of opportunities for hiking, biking and spending time in nature close to many of the towns served by Exo, I am sure a lot of people who live in the city would enjoy coming to the suburbs for recreation as well without the need for a car. It boggles my mind how a lot of suburbs are developing "net zero" climate plans, but there is not a lot of transparency about how they are planning to improve public transport options. Obviously the majority of these suburbs were built for cars and not people as we already know, but I think many suburbanites acknowledge that car dependency is not sustainable and are looking for a change.
If the Mont-Saimt-Hilaire line offers service seven days a week, we could have the Saint-Hyacinthe buses debark passengers at Gare Mont-Saint-Hilaire to icrease ridership of this train line. Lots of possibilities!
The biggest problem is some of the rail they used (if not all) are owned by compagnies where their goals is to move products. Thus, Exo cannot give frequent service and be reliable without dedicated lanes or be prioritized.
Thank you! I live near the commuter rail and it is great ... WHEN it ever runs. It is sooooo uselessly infrequent for anyone who does anything but downtown M-F 9-5 work.
By contrast when I was younger living in Salem, MA, fairly far from downtown Boston, I still could count on trains as a way to go home from Boston in weekends and evenings.
Interesting CN is so friendly to GO Transit. Here in Chicago, Metra gets absolutely screwed over for the routes on CN tracks, like the Heritage Corridor or North Central Service
Other than the choice of station this is a great video! As many people said, Lucien L'Allier is not a great choice of location. The area is cramped and there isn't a lot of space to build around. On top of what people said, there are very often events at the Bell Centre which causes hour long queues at the different mode of transportation and while it would be nice to jump directly in a train home after a game or a concert I think to spread the traffic in this case would be beneficial.
Reese, one quick correction in what you said in the video - most of Exo's trains operate on CP lines, not CN, and CP has been fairly hostile to Exo expanding its operations lately (though they happily take Exo's money for track and infrastructure upgrades.) One major obstacle that Exo is facing is the fact that ARTM (Exo's parent, analagous to Metrolinx) is required to pay a subsidy of $0.72 per passenger-km to CDPQ for the operation of the REM. This is a subsidy that far exceeds the subsidy being received by any other transportation mode in the city and will severely kneecap Exo's ability to raise funds. Since they lost their biggest revenue producer to the REM in the Deux-Montagnes line, the pain is twice as harsh and if they don't get a serious infusion of cash from the province - which is unlikely under the Legault administration - I predict we'll be seeing service cuts on the commuter trains and regional bus lines in the coming years. We've already seen fare increases. One of my main issues with the REM (that I think I've already argued with you about) is that it shouldn't have been built in its current form but rather as a sort of Crossrail/RER type of system that could have been more readily integrated with the existing Exo network and wouldn't have required the need for a second tunnel under Mt. Royal. This is what happens when your regional transportation agency's planning department is completely ineffective and to compensate, a for-profit entity is given free reign to operate as they see fit.
3:59 As someone who takes the EXO 1 regularly, you would NOT want a reduction in stations here. Although the REM does run in the west island, it's above the highway 40 (trans Canada), making it less accessible to people living south closer to the EXO train line
Just to add that the EXO1 runs though the most densely populated parts of the West Island (which began as railroad suburbs) -- but the REM will not be accessible for anyone living along the EXO1 line - I live near an EXO1 station but it would take me as long to take the bus to the closest REM station as it would take me to drive downtown.
The service really is disappointing, they just don't seem to understand how people might want to travel by train outside of peak hours or on weekends. I live near the end of EXO1, Vaudreuil station and it takes over an hour to get downtown even on the weekend, trains are slow, it's faster and cheaper to drive if you're two people. It was such a shame that the REM didn't extend off the island to help reduce bridge traffic on Highway 40. The Ile aux Tourtes bridge is scheduled for replacement with no REM, no BRT and no dedicated transit at all, traffic will be a nightmare until the bridge is replaced (currently 2 lanes each direction vs 3). It's such a missed opportunity to improve transit in a rapidly growing region (Vaudreuil-Soulanges area) Do Better Montreal, Quebec, ARTM and EXO, please!
I agree, I live near vaudreuil and am in disbelief that the rem wasn’t extended. Think of all the opportunities, a massive new hospital providing new jobs and a destination, in an area that is growing extremely quickly. Everything points to expanding the rem but nooo Quebec and Montreal just can’t 😤
I live in Philadelphia and this sounds a lot like SEPTA service. We have similar services: bus, trolley, heavy rail subway and elevated train service as well as an extensive commuter rail network. Like Montreal while it is a good network service levels on the commuter rail as well as suburban busses could be a lot better. We do have one thing you mentioned in the video about the commuter rail service. The city decided to unify the old Pennsylvania Railroad and Reading Railroad commuter trains by building a center city rail tunnel. So now you could ride through center city to other outlying suburbs. If the train you were on did not go through to the other suburban destination you could transfer to the other trains in any of the center city stations. Of course it would be better with more service since our off peak and weekend trains tend to run only once an hour. The good news is that SEPTA is in the process of upgrading and redoing all the modes in the service area with trying to make it a more easy to use no matter which service you are using. So I hope Montreal also tries to coordinate and improve their overall network. A good overall transit system gets good ridership and helps reduce traffic for the metro area.
I'm fairly certain that's a temporary change. The reason for this is because VIA is planning to completely refurbish London Station, meaning that GO isn't able to park their trains there overnight, and whilst I believe CN did offer them to store the train at the CN yard, Metrolinx' high security requirements made them rescind it. I assume the moment the reconstruction finishes, GO will be returning to London.
Removing stations from the Vaudreuil line is a non-starter. You can't replace a station there with one on the REM - the catchments just aren't the same and it defeats the point of a whole integrated network. Speeding up service to the furthest reaches requires additional services that skips stops. The ARTM already run these although confusingly only in the counter-peak direction. That corridor is chock full of rail and is at least four-tracked the whole way out of Montréal so capacity is only an issue insofar as any whinging freight carrier makes it so. An hourly service making all stops could easily be combined with an additional hourly service making the following stops: Vendome Montréal-Ouest (optional, but if the corridor is still shared with 3+ lines it makes sense) Dorval - which as we know should be a REM interchange but won't be Beaconsfield and whereever you fancy afterwards; that would bring journey times to Vaudreuil under an hour easily, improve the journey time out to Hudson if the ARTM were so inclined, and provide additional & express services to the busiest stations. Double that in the peak and you have a 4tph service which honestly still seems like too little. But the clockface timetable really is the greatest improvement that could come to exo1 and should be the test bed for such - in as much as it should happen today and no later. The best way to time these, of course, is not that they *depart* at 15 minute intervals, but rather they *arrive* at 15 minute intervals - ensuring that service to each destination is as regular as possible and ensuring that express services are not held up. And you're right too - modern multiple units (and electrification) would better journey times too, enabling you to make even more stops.
Interestingly when I visited Montreal in 2016, I was actually able to use AMT (as it was known then) Candic Line to visit Exporail mueseum in st constant. We were lucky it was a weekday. We took the first train out from the city at 11ish, and then had only about 1.5 hours to spend at the mueseum before we had to take the train back because it was the last train back into the city. Had we tried to do the same trip today we wouldn’t have had any time to go to the mueseum because the first train out of Lucien Allier goes out to Candiac before immediately going back to Montreal. That being said, it is still possible to take the bus one way, even if it is slower.
Note that with the construction of the REM, the EXO 5 line is going to stop going downtown and instead end at the REM Côte-de-Liesse Station. (since the mont-Royal tunnel will be inaccessible to trains other then the REM going forward)
Exo 5 used to use the mont Royal tunnel to get to central station. Now its been re-routed due to the REM renovations in the tunnel. It takes forever to go east from downtown because it travels westbound before going north and eventually east. It’s a half hour detour with no stops along the way!
This. I’m planning a trip to montreal later this summer and I was thinking about taking the candiac line to the canadian railway museum. You can walk from the saint-constant station. Looks like the schedules are weekday peak-direction only so nope.
Thank you for making this video, I‘ve been interested in hearing your take for a while! I think one of the key things Exo needs to do, apart from running more trains, is to provide good connections to the REM and Metro to reach downtown from the east and north. The loss of the Mount Royal tunnel is really a big problem I think, because it means that travel times for lines approaching from those directions are way longer into downtown. Ideally, the REM would‘ve gotten its own parallel Mount Royal tunnel. As it stands though, providing good connections to the REM, so that people can get off Exo early, and then speed into the city on REM, seems very important
Great video ! For Exo 2 proposed extansion to St-Jerome, it would be complicated because northern rail tracks to the North have been replace by the city center of St-Jerome and then by a trail :/
Hourly service is nothing to be proud of. Hourly trains might as well not exist for the most part. The bare minimum standard for even quiet routes should be half-hourly if you want to attract riders. Nobody is going to want to sit at a station for an hour because they just missed a train. For a suburban commuter line I find a frequency of 2-4 trains per hour is pretty good, and then when multiple routes converge into a main corridor you get very frequent service as you approach a terminus.
Great video! I love the idea of a crosstown tunnel and a loop around the mountain, but I just don't see how that would be feasible at Lucien-L'Allier - which is already pretty elevated - and has the metro running deep below it. Such a great plan might require a brand new central station (à la Berlin Hauptbahnhof) which could link the North-South/East-West lines. I'd also push to strengthen the spine of the network going from Victoria Bridge (or perhaps build a new bridge as it is used by many freight trains) all the way up to St-Jerome. Most urban sprawl is along Highway 15 so we need a rapid, convenient solution to get people out of their cars, and density along the rail lines while we're at it.
We can all dream but I think the metropolitan transit plan should focus on connecting trip generating locations in a fast and reliable way. the REM is great at this (10-30; IdS TOD; Griffintown TOD; downtown; UdeM; Airport). EXO lines just don't serve hospitals (except MUHC), universities (concordia and mcgill are kinda close to LL), CEGEPs, stadiums (except Bell Centre), TOD (except in Laval) or other significant destinations. Burbs should prove that they deserve higher frequencies by creating destinations close to stations.
Exo lines already connect to a couple of TODs in St-Jerôme, Vaudreuil, Ste-Thérèse and Saint-Hilaire, 9 CEGEP, 5 University Campuses and 3 hospitals. It's hard to justify developments around stations without descent service.
Hey Reece, a do enjoy your videos and especially this one however i do have a few things you might want to know... exo5 (Mascouche Line) will be Terminating at the Cote-de-Liesse REM Station when its opens. so having it connect to exo2 (Saint-Jerome Line) towards Downtown would be kind of redundant. 2nd. There would be not enough Tracks for Lucien L'allier to be functional. However in about a year the Lucien L'allier Train station will close for renovations (the Metro station will stay open during the renovations) altough I highly doubt they will do something similar to what you suggest they do, I do hope it becomes more of a Toronto Union type of station cause that would be so much more useful for our needs. Lastly, the frequency on ALL lines are crap. exo1 only has 2 trains in each direction off-peak, exo2 only does Parc - Saint-Jerome during Off-Peak, exo3 & exo4 is basicially an Inbound AM & Outbound PM service for both lines & exo5 only does 3 Train to Downtown in the morning and 3 in the evening back to Mascouche while the rest starts/ends at Ahunstic. Also Weekend services BEARLY exists on exo1 & exo2 while the rest have none. (exo2 does not even go to Montreal during the weekends lol.) Plus we have the fact of so much untapped potential which is just sad. So yes were in need of a refresh and one bigger than you think.
Connecting Lucien L'Allier with Gare Centrale and then constructing a new set of tunnels around Mount Royal should get more attention, for both EXO and the Via Rail High Frequency Rail Project.
As someone who uses the saint Jérôme line a lot to get back home on the weekends to tremblant, it really annoys me that the train lines that built that entire region got ripped out when the highways started getting upgraded. Like there is so much traffic now going in and out of the Laurentiens especially during ski season. And the thing is that they still have the old train corridors! Yes it’s a bicycle path but build parallel to it like they did around saint Jerome!
Wow Reece (and team), part montrealer here, and I really feel like you covered a lot of ground and made some very sound propositions, from the train terminal upgrades, to the frequency, ownership and rolling stock. A really complete video that packed quite a punch. Just one comment on the length of the system: I think maybe the key would not be to extend regional service of commuter rail, which might encourage sprawl (as was noted when the PQ proposed it in 2018 I think), but maybe have the province propose some alternatives? Like what you see in regional service in Germany for example, which would have the advantage of providing some service, but without inducing super commutes. although in Canada this raises questions as trains are supposed to be federal constitutionally. Anyway, food for thoughts.
I think rail based sprawl, as long as the design is carefully thought out is frankly ok in Canada. Our cities are growing fast and to some extent they will sprawl, making that sprawl transit centric is a big step up
Also, we didnt expend the subway on the island in the last 35 years and the railway system for mid to long distance (Quebec, Toronto, New York) is completely outdated. We are decade behind in public transpot and still doing almost nothing.
I got to visit Montreal recently, but only for like 15 minutes sadly. In those 15 minutes, I can gladly say that Montreal is one of the most beautiful cities I’ve been to on this continent.
@@DavidHaTzadikfunnily enough, that was the reason I was in Montreal for very little time. I was going to Quebec City for the rest of my time in Canada (about a week) and I thought it was great as well!The historic city center took me by surprise and was just so stunning! They could use more transit though
As someone who uses the Exo daily, updating and upgrading it is something I think about daily too. I hope that this video reaches the right people to make a difference
Exo’s problem is also literally Metra’s problem. Pretty much all the issues you mentioned about Exo literally are the exact same. The one major difference between Metra and Exo is that Exo has more up to date trains than Metra does. Metra still operates trains from as early as 1953 and the average age of their locomotives is 47 years old. Like Exo, if Metra really wants to improve, they need to make a lot of changes, which unfortunately Metra isn’t willing to do
Great video! You should make one talking about SEPTA’s regional rail in Philly, it leaves a lot to be desired but is also quite good in some ways, I feel like it draws an interesting comparison to the Exo network and Chicago’s Metra.
I visited Montreal recently and was enamored with the transit and bicycle Infrastructure! Unfortunately, the Adirondack line currently does not allow bicycles, as far as I'm aware there's no way to take the train from NYC to Montreal with a bike.
The Amtrak service between Montreal and Albany has been suspended due to rail neglect. And the extra hour lost at the border because the Gare Centrale customs still isn’t ready after so many years in the making.
Another alternative to consider is to realign exo5 starting at Pointe-aux-Trembles so that it goes down the east side of the island. It would require rebuilding the the existing ROW to Av. Marien but at least the ROW still exists. It would then reach Lucien-L' Allier via the new connection you proposed. I would then make the existing exo5 alignment a new rapid transit like O-Line 2 from Pointe-aux-Trembles to Lucien-L' Allier . Those living in Montreal-Nord and Riviere-des-Prairies would gain a new transit option and would be able to reach downtown via connection at at Sauvé on the Orange line and the airport via Montpelier once the REM is complete. And it would still connect to the other exo lines since it's still terminating at LLA. Update: I would actually have the rapid transit line be Mascouche (your version) to LLA
Sounds suspiciously like a sanely implemented REM de l'Est... Honestly I think exo 5 would be the least concern among the 4 lines which would need re-alignment from Lucien-L'Allier, since it's getting a purpose-built terminus integrated right into the REM. With the REM's frequency, any transfer going downtown is guaranteed to only be a few minutes, and then you have your choice of 3 stations downtown instead of just getting dumped at Gare Centrale.
@@ashcla Honestly I completely forgot about REM de l'Est when I wrote that 😅 but after re-familiarizing myself with the proposal I see what you mean. I forgot about the purpose-built terminus at for the REM. If exo5 keeps the current alignment then my initial opinion is that it would be a good idea. My only concern then is the lack of transit access from Hampstead and more so Cotê Saint-Luc. Combined frequency of exo1, 2, and 4 during rush hours would somewhat meet the demand but then the whole area would only have Montreal West for access (very north of Hampstead can use Namur on the the Orange line). So I guess in the end, if exo5 stays the way it is with termimus at the REM I would still at least want some rapid service from LLA to at least that terminus, and I think it would still be a good idea to have that service onto of exo5 up to Mascouche. Update: I realized now I would need to build a new curve at the rail yard so that the rapid service can join the tracks in between Cotê Saint-Luc and Hampstead. Easy fix through right?? 😅
A rail tunnel under St-Laurent would be great but it would also be too expensive and disruptive to the entire Le Plateau Mont-Royal area. Considering the price of the blue line extension and the pink line proposal, I wouldn't look forward to it. Instead, it might be good to build a terminal station at Gare Canora, which provides interchange with the REM system. It could be built pretty cheaply, and could help building a new city centre around Côte-des-Neiges and Outremont.
I spent a year studying in Montreal in the late ‘90s having previously lived in the UK. I was frankly flabbergasted when I heard what the service frequency on those lines was, what is even the point of a local train service that only runs a couple of times a day and then only in one direction at a time? I lived on the Loyola campus of Concordia uni which is fairly close to the picturesque Montreal-Ouest station but not once did I, or anyone I knew, use that train service.
Bicycles make life and cities better. They are part of a good transportation system. Proper bike lanes and places to park and lock bicycles are needed to work together with mass transit options.
You know the system must be bad when you talk to people in the city who have lived here for years and have never used it and some havent even heard of it
Having grown up 10 minutes from it, I suspect that the level-crossings on either side of the Montréal-Ouest station would create a serious bottleneck if exo frequencies increased to what we would all like to see. I've always thought the tracks there need to be lowered (and bridges introduced on Westminster and Elmhurst), though note that the proximity of the Montreal West CBD will make any improvements challenging. Maybe the entire CP track route between Montréal-Ouest and Lucien-L'Allier should be closed and M-O and Vendôme improved simultaneous to LL's upgrade. Money's no object, right?
And while I'm dreaming, new infill stations at Cavendish, Cote-St-Luc, Decarie Square, Namur (with a second southern entrance to the metro close to the tracks), Wilderton/Canora (REM connection), before reaching Parc.
I have always thought about the track-lowering at MW (but the expen$e!) and trying to keep a track or two open while construction was in progress (maybe a couple of years?). My thought is that within 15-20 years, the line(s) will become REM-style and be elevated through MW station - eliminating the level crossings (at a cheaper price). The fancy new pedestrian tunnel that they are building appears to me as a waste of money. It's located at the centre of the platforms, while most people (like me) arrive from either end.
Immediately after viewing this video I watched a video posted on TH-cam by Svensk Järnväg entitled Tåg på Strängnäs station. I have visited Strängnäs twice, the first time was in about 1997, just after the station had 're-opened.' It had a single track, primitive waiting facilities and a small bus station. I visited again about six years ago. I was astounded. There was this magnificent Resecentrum with fantastic waiting facilities and a much larger bus station. There was a second track Strängnäs (15,000 people) is an example to the rest of the world including Montreal and Quebec province. Put a station in a small town, give it a good service to a nearby big city (in this case hourly to Stockholm, 83 kms in 46 minutes) and many people will use it!
The problem is that they decided to invest so much in the rem instead wich is a kind of suburban rail but the rem is clearly more expensive. A suburban line that was going downtown now stop in the middle of nowhere because the rem use the tunnel under the mount royal.
This is top notch posting; like whether or not anything in there is realistic, I wonder if you might catch some reactions from the powers that be about whether they're willing for exo be more than a (to be fair top notch) branding exercise that can build buildings occasionally, but when it comes to trains, pays a contractor to run on pre-existing CN and CP lines that have existed for many decades and that's about it.
yes kitchener line js good if you want to travel to somewhere around brampton. but not if you actually wanna reach kutchener. it needs to have faster all day service on that line ASAP.
I think it's all awesome ideas, the only problem is the share with CN and CP. As a former user of those trains I can tell you that merchandise pass before human so it's affecting the service a lot. You need to build new tracks, new Bridges (dedicated tracks). The REM is the reference for the future. Since it need all those investment for those trains they will plan more like combined solutions like new REM, tramway and special bus line. They also have proposed pkan of creating rail system in the middle of highways which have space available, no need for expropriation so will be lot more cost efficient. We will see what the future holding off I guess.
I get the idea of uniformity of connecting lines through Lucien L'Allier but could it be cheaper in the short term to have a smaller station outside downtown (around the turcotte) linked to the southshore REM line to give that downtown access? Maybe that would ward off too many users but it would eliminate some of the expense and that savings could go back into the rest of the service upgrades you suggest. The link to Lucien L'Allier could be a longterm instead of short term goal.
So much of what you said in this video could also be applied to the MBTA commuter rail, which has also seen many empty promises for electrification and regional rail…
honestly... those plans sound expensive, and the result will be trains that are heavy diesel rail still manned, and threatened by interlining with freight, which is the main problem in the west at least. I think for similar amounts of cash, you replace the whole thing with more REM service, and it's fully grade separated, automated, electrified, and using lighter equipment for lower initial construction and operating costs. It feels more promising to replace AMT with REM, than to try to revitalize it.
Two interesting ideas: perhaps Mascouche could be converted to REM, and Mont-Saint-Hilaire either transferred to REM, VIA, or Montreal's Yellow Line as part of a broader Longueil extension to Metropolitain Airport
I'm surprised line to Granby was listed, that seems a lot more viable to it or at least some of the exoburbs on the way to it then just expanding the existing lines. That idea has been toyed with but the main issue is that places those lines could expand to like St-Jean-sur-Richelieu or Saint-Hyacinthe already have bus lines that are faster due to the Autoroute shoulder BRT system, the only direct expansion that could work would be to Hudson which used to have a station until their local government deemed it not worth the expense due to low use. While there is plenty of room for improvement, I think the main reason EXO's in a holding pattern is the fact that there's sort of an understanding that their days are numbered. It's not just that they lost the Deux Montangue line to the REM and St-Jerome seems next on the chopping block for REMification, but there's the simple fact that due to Quebec's lack of urban sprawl that you see across the continent the type of distances where improved heavy rail would be a good investment usually get to distances that are under VIA.
The 6 trains on the EXO 2 St.Jerome-Lucien L'allier Line only covers the northern stations on the weekends. They don't cover any of the Montreal stations on the weekends nor on stat holidays :( That line is my prefered way to go to downtown Montreal as it is more efficient and direct a route.
I see an opportunity for 2 additional new routes as well. 1 that can take same route as Exo-12 (formerly 2) and then go east from Laval to Terrebonne. This avoids the weird routing (via an explosives proving ground I believe as well) that Exo-15 currently does. In total Exo-16 is 33km (from Côte-de-Liesse). with stops in: - ?Lucien L’allier - Côte-de-Liesse* - Bois de Boulange* - de la Concorde* - Rene-Laennec - Pie-IX - Terrebonne (old station near St Charles) - Mascouche * shared with Exo-12 The 2 seat ride downtown however is *not* optimal. And I think a widening of the tunnel through the mountain to accommodate the trains from North would be optimal, but not sure if possible. Otherwise running the trains around the mountain, while it is slower, is a better option, IMHO. The second route - Exo-17 I suppose - would immediately be a busy route I think. It would go across the busy Victoria Bridge (which may one day need an upgrade, but I digress) to serve St Lambert (alongside Exo-13 (formerly Exo-3). It splits right after St. Lambert however and goes north-east mostly along the abandoned right of way (tho I see it using Highway 132 (A. Rene-Levesque), which is abandoned in favour of just a boulevard, which is already there. In total Exo-17 is 30km with stops in: - Gare Central* - St Lambert* - Old Longueuil / US@L - Roland-Therrien - Boucherville - Varennes * shared with Exo-13
The regional rail is 30-40km?? That seems quite short to me, I don't see why you need to run a regional rail style service instead of a suburban train. Is the density that low as soon as you leave the core? Looking at the map, it seems like it is for 3 of the lines, but the other 2 seem to run majority through built up areas. Edit: that seems to be the idea with the suggestion to use European emu's, but imo for such uses, you'd need much better frequency. And Reece has suggested 5 min. Is that still regional rail? Straight up sounds like a metro to me.
I live in Pointe-Claire, adjacent to the EXO-1 station located there and have been using this train line regularly over many years. Currently I work from home and so I have more visibility to see/hear the freight trains that run those same tracks throughout the day. Yes, there is definitely some capacity to increase the number of trains per day but not to the extent you describe. Through most of the length of the train line on the island of Montreal there seems to be room to add an entire new rail line, I only think at the Lachine station is it presently too crowded for this. With an extra railway it would make the passing of passenger and freight much less of an obstacle. I definitely like your idea of canopying and expanding the LL station and also agree to go there instead of Gare Centrale considering VIa's HFR plans. Heh; speaking of Via's HFR, they also will need to share CNs tracks through that same rail path as EXO heading west until they can reach the new tracks Via will own off-island - this will surely act as a bottleneck.
I think the best solution is the city tunnel like the "passante ferroviario" in Milano you cited. For commuters traffic it is very good and with its combined frequency among the different lines is useful like a sort of heavy metro. Stopping in LL is a bit useless, imagine if it will go via the city tunnel to other suburbs...
Lots of comments about using Lucien L'Allier as a downtown hub which is great!
The issue with Gare Centrale I see is that getting all services there is even harder than Lucien L'Allier, so it seems like the realistic option is probably keeping them split or converging at LL, a local would know better than me if keeping them split is really better.
Anyhow, Montreal needs to be expanding the service, and acquiring modern trains (ideally DMUs and not bilevel push pull sets with mixed boarding height)!
Thank you for working so hard to keep a positive practical outlook on Montréal regional rail. The stasis over YUL connection, GC refurbishment and intercity express lines puts me between SMH and depression. I'm pleased that you found a way to offer a lead out of the REM quicksand with a cut-and-dried proposal. And I especially liked your tunnels without a station!
Hi! Local here! Thanks for the video, it is very interesting and our Exo lines definitely need some love.
Regarding converging all the lines to LL, the issue I see with this is that the lines going to LL are on top of a cliff. That's why the Turcot interchange is up in the air rather than on the ground. For the lines to converge, the southern ones would need to either go west almost all the way to the airport, or you'd need to dig a tunnel in which the trains would need to make a tight turn, while also climbing, and then squeeze between the Ville-Marie highway and the current existing lines (unless you want to bulldoze the residences currently lining the tracks, which would be problematic given the current housing crisis).
An other alternative would be to burrow the lines currently going to LL so they'd go down to the level of the southern ones and then you could have the station underground, but digging is very costly and would probably require the service on those lines to stop for the duration of the work. At this point I'm not sure if it's simpler to just continue the LL tracks under the buildings there to Gare Centrale (I'm not an architect, I have no idea how deep the foundations are... )
Long story short, I like the ideas, but I'm not sure they're all physically doable given Montreal's geography. Definitely worth looking into! And more service is absolutely a must!
Short term, the easiest solution would be to give 15-20 min between arrival and departure, and allow people holding a train ticket to take the subway for free between the two stations. Both are connected to the subway, and only one stop over.
I'm not sure if the idea you propose around 9:30 is meant to use the subway tracks that are already there. If it doesn't, it would either mean destroying a lot of residential areas, or digging loads of tunnels.
not sure how you're going to get Exo 3 up the St-Jacques escarpment to get into Lucien L'alliier. That's a pretty steep climb for cars and trucks as it is.
Lucien Lallier has a better corridor, Gare centrale is better situated and is nicer.
My compromise is to split it and restore the beautiful Gare Windsor to its actually being a gare, lift the Centre Bell above the tracks or raze it. Easy Peasy /s
@@valerian4486 it currently is actually quicker on foot that taking the metro between Lucien-L’Allier and Bonaventure because of the dept of the stations.
The most disappointing rail systems are the ones that don’t exist where they should, especially abandoned lines.
The Northstar commuter rail would like to have a word with you, 2 inbound trains in the morning and 2 outbound trains in the evening.
@@maxorca24What the hell? You might as well not run the train at all.
I’m impressed that viarail doesn’t offer routes towards Fredericton and Saint-John in New Brunswick, let alone Sydney in Nova Soctia… seems like obvious lines for tourism and commuters. But then again, viarails may need to be severely nudged
The issue is that the potential of a system that exists but doesn't run frequently is so much higher!
@@RMTransit good thing we have amigoexpress! That app really came in clutch when last I was visiting Quebec and New Brunswick. I am still bewildered that there is a train line between Saguenay and Montreal but not between Saguenay and Quebec. But considering your comment, I suppose i can let it sly…
as someone who regularly takes EXO 2 to get downtown not as a commuter I totally agree with all this and hope it can be implemented, we NEED better service
Pulse Timetable ah getting the Swiss idear hope it will succeed
I live next to one of the stations on Exo 2. They need to increase service on the line and introduce service on the weekend!!
I could not agree more. REM is one of the worst designed transit plans in North America. I don't mind the fact that the Two Mountains line was converted, half as much as the fact that there's one less commuter rail line at Central Station, or that the Mount Royal Tunnel (which was built as one of the longest rail tunnels in North America) is basically being converted into a subway tunnel (pretty much taking away its title), OR the fact that the Mascouche line no longer provides direct service to Central Station!
WHAT IDIOT IS MAKING THESE DECISIONS!?!?!?
As an european person the fact that hourly trains is something to be proud of is funny to me lol
Politicians and the media in Québec need to see this. Public transit discussions here sometimes feel like groundhog day. Have you seen the announcement for the new REM de l'Est project? For some reason they thought it necessary to put it underground for the whole length, ending up with a 36 billion dollar price tag. It looked like they were purposefully trying to make it look as expensive as possible, even indexing the price for inflation for the next 15 years. Would be nice to have your take on that project.
IMO there is a lot of content that Reece has made that Quebec politicians need to see.
Where do I register as a railway projects subcontractor..... :P
Extremely limited service with very high fares means Exo’s commuter trains continue to roll around empty. Nothing says “tell the planet to shove it” like increasing fares this July to stick a fork into its ridership levels.
Thank ARTM for that
I am surprised no service is being added.
and even with the new fare structure, the prices are really expensive. Like more than $5 to ride the metro from Henri-Bourassa across the river to Laval? That's a distance of less than 2 km. Had the new fare structure have Vancouver TransLink prices in the corresponding zones, it would've been so much more affordable.
@@naturallyherb the new fare structure punishes suburbanites for taking transit into the city, exactly the people who most need to be incités.
I mentioned it in another comment, but that's likely due to Exo/ARTM being obligated to pay a subsidy of $0.72 per passanger-km to the CDPQ for the operation of the REM (and losing the revenue from the Deux-Montagnes line at the same time.) If the government doesn't step in with a major cash infusion anytime soon, I expect we may start seeing service cuts.
A decade ago, AMT proposed a huge plan to upgrade all the regional lines, a little bit like what is going on in Toronto. Their proposal was to put an halt to extensions for 10 years and upgrade frequency everywhere. For example, the Vaudreuil line would have trains every 15 minutes…. Then AMT was scraped and now this plan seems to be completely forgotten by politicians.
This. That would have had a real, meaningful impact at a much lower cost, but it wasn't as sexy as a brand new REM taking over the DM line and with it all money available for any other projects. While the REM made sense for the south shore and west island as a new service, having the tunnel to Gare Centrale for exo trains provided the necessary capacity for the northern lines, including bringing a connection for the St-Jerome line. As for a model for Montréal, the Deux-Montagnes electrified line was exactly that....
I member the Trainbus 935 and the plan for the Saint-Jerome line to take tunnel mt royal. Scrapped entirely
@@sangokudbz79 Sad. But they could connect the St-Jerome line to the REM via the Canora station.
0:52 The GO train to London is cancelled effective Oct 13th due to low ridership. They were only getting 1200-1400 riders/month which isn't surprising for a 4- hour trip that takes 2 hours by car and 1:45 by Via.
Yeah it’s sad really. I was one of those riders. I regularly (as regular as the train is lol) took it to Kitchener. I wish there were more trains between London and Kitchener. Heck, they should add a GO bus line to replace the train
The fact that even that many people were riding that service is proof that an enormous demand for it exists.
The bus is about $25-30 dollars. If you can get a train around that price that takes 2 hours or less and runs on weekends (and late enough for sporting events) - it'll be a major success
I am watching the space, the service was well used given the circumstances, whats really needed are major line upgrade works.
@@EBobyayat translates to 40 people per day. Less than the capacity of a bus. Doesn’t sound like it’s an efficient use of a GO train for 40 people. Especially when the bus takes half the time.
It’s a chicken and egg problem. No one wants to invest in line upgrades unless there’s demonstrated demand. And no one will take the service to demonstrate the demand without line upgrades.
@ccudmore you cant judge the lack of appeal of a bridge by the number of people that swim across.
The fact that this many chose to "swim across" however shows that there is real need for an infrastructure upgrade
One thing I like so much about RMtransit is how detailed the suggestions are in videos like these. It's one thing to want better services, but to illustrate exactly how to do it? Makes for a great video 👌👌👌
Good that you bring attention to this problem! I never understood how we could completely ignore existing transport option upgrade while creating all new option, both should live together!
The Exo 2 line has been my nemesis for the last 15 years now, I remember waking up at 5am just to make it to my 8am class, my only choices at this time where arriving an hour early or 30 minute late, and that was at highest frequency.
Even now, I live 5 minutes away from this line and my parent are almost as close to it in Ste-Thérèse, but I still can't use it to go see them! I almost have a door to door train, but it's timing is so bad that I can't use it!
In my dream the portion of this line that are going through "high" density area would be a good candidate for a future REM extension, with a regional train going to Mont-Tremblant.
As a Swede, Montreal is probably the only city in NA I would seriously consider living in. I even took French in high school! 😉
As a Canadian, Montreal is the only city in NA I would live in.. Perfect mix between NA and Europe
As someone who lives on the south shore but works on the island, I find the run times are way too short. The last train home for me is 6:20 so there's no way for me to really hang out downtown after work.
If you wanna hang out with friends, get a car. If you're too poor to get a car, you're too poor to spend money downtown 🤣
@@SkaN2412 how can you be watching a video about public transit and still be this cringe.
@@devonallie bro, sarcasm
@@SkaN2412 😵😵😵😵😵
Love these plans! Signed, a exo1 commuter - always going the opposite of the rush hour, so only 2 trains a day :)
While I can agree with most of the ideas in this video, I really can't get behind terminating all lines at Lucien L'Allier. Whilst I do agree that there are major benefits to having a single unified terminal for your rail services, most Exo lines aren't setup to really benefit from it. Today, it takes a while for Exo2 trains to get around the mountain, so much so that its actually faster to take the Metro from De La Concorde to Lucien L'Allier than it is to take Exo, which is why the line only reaches LL during rush hours, and the service only exists for those who really don't want to transfer. Now while this could possibly be remedied by having faster trains or various trackside improvements to speed up the line, I can't imagine it'll reach a point where it would be that useful for anyone who isn't travelling to the direct vicinity of LL.
This issue is compounded with the Mont St-Hillaire and especially the Mascouche Lines. I can't imagine a scenerio where riding the Mascouche Line all the way around the mountain to Lucien L'Allier will ever be preferred to taking the cross platform transfer at Cote de Liesse and just cutting through the mountain on the REM, and the diversion for Exo3 trains to reach Lucien seems like a pointless way to add travel time, both to reach Lucien, and for needing to transfer to the REM to reach Gare Centrale.
So sure, you get a Central all-in-one station for all exo services, but its a station that will only be useful for riders of 2 of the 5 lines, at least until you get that 2nd Mont Royal Tunnel built, and so I'm not sure having this single mega station is worth this much hassle. If anything I'd probably advocate long term for ditching Lucien L'Allier completely, and centralizing all services to Gare Centrale. That way when the city center tunnel is built you can have a single mega station not just for Exo, but also for Via HFR and Amtrak services.
Yeah that was my impression as well, the routes seem pretty tortured around the center there approaching Lucien L'Allier, didn't know about the tunnel being the issue even as I'm from Vancouver and not as familiar with Montreal's transit.
Also while I understand the theoretical utility of having a transfer pulse I'm not sure how much sense it really makes as it's all built around specifically transfers between the somewhat distant destinations in the region. Any shorter and you're interacting with REM, any longer and you're interacting with inter-city rail and I really have to question whether there's that much demand for people specifically going from Saint-Jerome to Mont-Saint-Hilaire that a centralized station with pulsed service would enable, I'd imagine that the vast majority of people are going to be transferring to one of those other modes after coming off the commuter train.
Given that and after a bit of sleuthing to find out where Gare Central fits in the Rem/Metro network my thinking was to give the regional rail two termination points for the regional service, one near the Gare Centrale area and another further west on the REM allowing at least the Blainville-Saint-Jerome and Mascouche to stay away from the difficult crossing of Montreal Island with tunnels and such. I think so long as you pick a single line for regional rail and inter-city rail to do all their transfers through ( instead of say transferring to REM, then a Metro line, then perhaps another one ) a transfer in the middle isn't so bad for regional rail.
Don't forget, once the north branches of REM open, the Mascouche EXO will end at Côte-de-Liesse REM station. No more need to go aroung Mont Royal.
Well, the trains still need a terminal station, where they will likely stay stoped for a certain amount of time because of the schedules, to handle the conductor changing from one end of the train to the other and all that. And while it can be managed in simpler/smaller stations when the frequency and amount of trains using the line is small, with increased frequency using a bigger station as terminal could be useful to handle that
Thanks for the comment - the ARTM needs to think bigger with EXO, speeding up travel around the mountain should happen anyways - regional rail should be able to travel much faster than the metro (that being said reducing the need to use the metro for the "middle" of a regional trip is also a really important consideration).
I don't find the approach to Gare Centrale to be fast at all, so not sure a well designed routing of MSH line into Lucien L'Allier needs to be much slower. The issue with centralizing around Gare Central is capacity, you have to handle what will be increasingly frequent VIA services, plus possible REM expansion, plus the throat has only 2 mainline tracks whereas Lucien could be easily expanded to 4.
I watched this on my morning commute to work on Exo 1. It's my best option to commute but I have to plan my day around it. My local station (Lachine) isn't served by any bus routes, I can't miss the 6.30pm train or I'm waiting till 9.15pm or taking a massive detour to go get my bike back. I can't in good continence tell any friends to use it to come visit me because it's to infrequent. I hope with REM de l'est probably not happening the ARTM can focus improving this service.
Fellow Lachine resident here--it's a pretty 'dead' station unfortunately. The buses do run to the streets below (195, 496, etc.) but nothing to the actual train station, which seems odd, especially compared to Dorval and many of the stations after which have direct bus stops (i.e. the 211). As for times, if it's not peak hours, it's not very useful. I went to high school in Montreal-West and if we had an exam finish after 12:30pm, it was a waiting game until the 3:21pm train. Bit crazy that that hasn't changed in a decade--though I do understand the CN/Exo conflict, I feel like something could be done.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on the West Coast Express and what expansions could be done. It seems like such a neglected part of TransLink’s service when they have so much other really good things going on. Regional rail down to Tswassen, far Surrey, up the valley to Abbotsford and Chilliwack, and up the Sea to Sky to Squamish and Whistler seem like such no-brainers and the tracks already all exist (albeit single-tracked and owned by freight companies), but instead all we get are 6 trains a day from Mission into the city in the morning and back out in the afternoon.
The problem I see is that pretty much all these right of ways are not great places to send regional trains-either they don't serve anywhere particularly useful like the main Grandview Cut missing like all the population centers of Vancouver and Burnaby, taking a circuitous route to New West Burnaby or Surrey or the current WCE line passing on the south shore of the inlet where barely anyone lives, or like the Squamish-Whistler line would require enormous upgrades to not be a miserable experience. But yeah, I would hope something like this is on Translink or the province's radar, since we can't keep extending the Skytrain forever.
What bothers me the most about exo is that its two northern lines (saint-jerome and mascouche) don’t always run into downtown and force the metro to supplement its downtown bound passengers. For the mascouche line this isn’t a huge deal because the trip via the taschereau yard takes 50 minutes but it’s really inconvenient on the saint-jerome line. Forcing people on the metro as a valid excuse not to run trains all the way downtown? Over my goddamned dead body. The metro should be used as another transit option, not a flat-out substitute, and same goes for the REM with the mascouche line.
It is all about the mighty $$....imho. Besides the train, they force you to use the metro... Then there is the probelm of finding parking around train stations; enough said
Thanks for being so positive. I really hope the exo team gets this video and sees the support in the comments lol. I once emailed them about weekend service into Pointe aux Trembles because I have family living there, or later service into St-Jerome (the last train leaves at about 7pm) becasue I have friends living there and the response has been:
"Yeah that sounds good, but why would we do that when we don't have demand..?"
Which is stupid. How do they even gauge demand if they're just reducing service? Of course there's no demand for what doesn't exist. People don't just queue up at platforms for trains that aren't even in Google Maps. So exo has been focusing on their buses instead, which, funny enough, run along their rail lines!!! Unbelievably silly.
So for all this to happen, exo needs to go into demand inducing mode, just making changes and seeing what happens. I'm super close to starting a petition where people could put their desired service and have exo try out like daily hourly service in addition to their current schedule 6am-midnight, nothing too outlandish. Just so they can see what the demand _really_ is.
Another little sidenote/fun fact: all their current locomotives are dual powered because Montreal mandated that all trains running through tunnel Mont-Royal be electric because of the fumes. So they and CN electrified the bare minimum of the tunnel - not an inch longer. So they have a clear pattern of doing the bare minimum to stay functioning...
Sorry for a long comment, I feel strongly about seeing disfunctional exo stations I could be passing in a train instead of a car lol
Thanks for watching! I’m pretty sure they still have some diesel only locomotives
@@RMTransit maybe, but I look at every locomotive since I noticed it and hasn't seen an exclusively diesel one yet...
@@SkaN2412 That's not really true. The Deux-Montagnes line was fully electrified in the 90s, and ran EMUs on it. The only other line requiring electric operation was the Mascouche line, which joined the Deux-Montagnes line shortly before Mont-Royal to go through the Mont Royal tunnel, so it used dual-mode locomotives. The other 4 Exo lines never went through the tunnel and never required dual-mode operation. Half of Exo's locomotives are diesel-only.
Also to your point about demand, there are fairly well-established ways to predict how a service change will impact ridership. And the unfortunate truth is that most of Montreal outside the middle of the island has pretty terrible land use that doesn't make a great place to run transit. It wouldn't be at all surprising to me if their models showed even 30-minute all-day service would only see a modest ridership bump given the investment which would be required.
@@ashcla If the Deux-Montagnes line was electrified, they've removed it from most of the line in later years. As for the other lines, they definitely reuse these locomotives as I've seen them on the Mont-Saint-Hilaire and Mascouche lines. And if you insist on details, they never had EMUs, only electric locomotives.
As to the increase in demand, I'll insist on a more positive view. It's true that there are stations with terrible land use. My "favorite" is Longueil with car rentals outside the station. BUT, I'll say the majority of their stations are historically located within residential and commercial areas of towns. Yes, you'll find a good 10-15% of stations with parking lots next to a highway, but that's not most. I can make a list of stations with good land use vs bad. And even stations like Lachine can have potential - it's in the industrial zone where people could use it to go to work. Or they could use buses to get to and from the stations. Or bring their bikes on board because it's free.
Models are one thing, but actual human behaviour is sometimes hard to model. The vast majority of people I talk to about transit say they wish there was something next to their place and they'd drive much less, if that was the case. But as long as companies like exo tell them that it's not feasible and convince them that it won't work, guess what... It won't work. It's the narrative and the attitude that needs to change. The good land use will come with it.
Reece your ideas are great. I just hope someone from the ARTM will be watching. As someone who has been living in the Montreal area for 25+years I have wanted a similar experience to Toronto. Keep up the good work .
Thanks for watching! Montreal should have nice things too, not just the REM!
Interesting stuff but I really don't think making trains terminate at Lucien L'Allier is a good idea. The station is isolated, has poor onward connections to other lines and transit modes, and would require excessive infrastructure to route other lines into. The more logical approach if you ask me would be to route all the Exo lines into Gare Centrale, where better connections would exist to more Metro service, the REM, buses, and Intercity rail for all passengers, rather than requiring needless short one station transfers (which are horrible). The only way I could see using Lucien L'Allier would be a good idea, would be if a cross downtown tunnel was built, but you'd need to decide on that super early in the plans for such a solution to even be relevant long term.
Yeah, agreed. It feels like the better solution is to tunnel under the Bell Centre to reach the Gare centrale, so that all services terminate in the same spot. It would potentially even allow through-running. The Gare centrale feels like it has room to grow, and LL is an outdoor station right outside the hockey arena that already feels crowded. A tunnel would be expensive, but worth it if the goal is to improve service quality and frequency.
Gare Centrale is much more challenging for trains to access than Lucien L'Allier, and if onward journeys are a concern there are already connections points to the metro in a few places. Lucien l'Allier is still central enough that if you are going to downtown you should generally still be within walking distance.
I think I'm with Reece on this one, you can build better connections and upgrade the station, which will benefit everyone in the long run. Although if they can tunnel under the bell centre, that would be fantastic and the best case scenario.
@@RMTransit I'm curious : what makes Gare Centrale more challenging for trains to access than Lucien L'Allier?
Well, currently, one strike against Lucien L’Allier, from an operating perspective, is the station has no storage or lay over space. Nowhere to park a disabled or no longer needed train without a long, time and fuel consuming deadhead move.
Imagine for a second that the nearest place to Union Station that GO could park a train with a mechanical issue was the Willowbrook maintenance complex.
Does that seem logistically sensible?
Also, for the record Lucien L’Allier’s platforms don’t even have canopies. People getting on and off have to walk in whatever weather.
I occasionally take EXO3 downtown from Longueuil-St-Hubert. It is a great way to get into town, but needs much more frequent service. Right now it only runs weekdays and only morning and evening rush. I would love to see it run all day, 7 days a week. Problem is it is shared route with freight trains. Keep up the great videos, love the channel!
@RM you should do a trip to Charlevoix this summer to try out the hydrogen train that is running on the tourist train between Quebec and Baie St-Paul
The biggest issue with the EXO lines is CN/CP's inflexibility in terms of scheduling. Passenger rail schedules are slim at best to have open slots for merchandise rail. Slots that mainly go unused. The federal government does nothing to improve this.
Lucien L'Allier is already planning to be rebuilt. I think by 2025, trains will temporarily be terminating at Vendôme for a few years.
The rebuild looks good!
Two points from this European, Roger Sexton. Firstly, the current situation you describe in Montreal reminds me of Birmingham (England) until about 50 years ago. Happily the regional transport authority got to grips with the situation and Birmingham now has a passable network of regional suburban trains. (But not as good as Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow.) Secondly, the arrangement you advocate at Lucien-L'Allier is what German-speaking transport planners would call a 'Voll Knoten' which I translate as 'full knot.' It should be stressed that at many Voll-Knoten (eg Zurich and Bern) trains DO NOT TURN ROUND but work cross-city.
Living along Exo 1, the fact that there are stations within 15-minute walking distance to most residents along the route (in the West Island, not off island) is just about the only thing going right with this line. Removing stops would necessitate driving to trains or massively improved bus schedules and undermining the advantage of Exo being suburbs to downtown with no transfers.
Love the shoutout to "your bikepacking trip outside the city". With frequent all-day EXO, towns like Saint-Jerome could really lean into being a car-lite outdoorsy destination, rather than being a costco stop for those driving further north.
That metro tunnel would really transform the regional rail. A cut and cover tunnel up Parc to Parc station could hold both EXO and REM depending on which lines are converted, and a diamond could be made between the Mascouche and St Jerome lines to allow both to continue into it. If the St Jerome line becomes a REM, it could get some branches along Laval stroads and lead to some TOD. (Similar to the REM C from your substack but reusing St Jerome and possibly Mascouche lines - might require a 4 track tunnel)
The rail mega-project Montreal needs is a new tunnel from the Lucien-L'Allier CP tracks under Gare Central to Gare Parc, which could be used for both northbound exo (to Laval and St-Jerome) and intercity trains (to Trois-Rivières and Quebec City as part of the new "High Frequency" route.
There's a lot going on underground in the area between the two downtown train stations though, so am not sure how feasible it would be without going "very" deep.
@@sclamen also Lucien could be used to replace Gare Centrale for the Amtrak Adirondack, as well.
One thing to note about the lack of tunnel through the mountain rn is that it extends the duration of the trip a ridiculous amount. Cote Saint-Luc is a railyard and speeds are limited at what feels like a snails pace while riding it.
I ride the Exo3 line and, as you mentioned, the train only passes by during rush hour on weekdays. There are a total of 14 departures on weekdays (7 departures towards downtown mostly in the morning and 7 from downtown mostly in the late afternoon) and zero departures on weekends. The train is often packed, so I think having more frequent departures would be welcomed by commuters. But additionally, there is not an option for people to head to the city for leisure in the evenings and weekends. And given that there are a lot of opportunities for hiking, biking and spending time in nature close to many of the towns served by Exo, I am sure a lot of people who live in the city would enjoy coming to the suburbs for recreation as well without the need for a car. It boggles my mind how a lot of suburbs are developing "net zero" climate plans, but there is not a lot of transparency about how they are planning to improve public transport options. Obviously the majority of these suburbs were built for cars and not people as we already know, but I think many suburbanites acknowledge that car dependency is not sustainable and are looking for a change.
If the Mont-Saimt-Hilaire line offers service seven days a week, we could have the Saint-Hyacinthe buses debark passengers at Gare Mont-Saint-Hilaire to icrease ridership of this train line.
Lots of possibilities!
The biggest problem is some of the rail they used (if not all) are owned by compagnies where their goals is to move products. Thus, Exo cannot give frequent service and be reliable without dedicated lanes or be prioritized.
I mentioned this in the video, GO transit faces the same problems and has overcome them.
@@RMTransit GO has the money that EXO does not.
Thank you! I live near the commuter rail and it is great ... WHEN it ever runs. It is sooooo uselessly infrequent for anyone who does anything but downtown M-F 9-5 work.
By contrast when I was younger living in Salem, MA, fairly far from downtown Boston, I still could count on trains as a way to go home from Boston in weekends and evenings.
Interesting CN is so friendly to GO Transit. Here in Chicago, Metra gets absolutely screwed over for the routes on CN tracks, like the Heritage Corridor or North Central Service
I thought it was Canadian Pacific tracks by Metra jurisdictions, which are more hard to work with
Other than the choice of station this is a great video! As many people said, Lucien L'Allier is not a great choice of location. The area is cramped and there isn't a lot of space to build around. On top of what people said, there are very often events at the Bell Centre which causes hour long queues at the different mode of transportation and while it would be nice to jump directly in a train home after a game or a concert I think to spread the traffic in this case would be beneficial.
I wish they had kept Windsor as the terminus and built the hockey arena above the tracks (à la Boston)
Reese, one quick correction in what you said in the video - most of Exo's trains operate on CP lines, not CN, and CP has been fairly hostile to Exo expanding its operations lately (though they happily take Exo's money for track and infrastructure upgrades.)
One major obstacle that Exo is facing is the fact that ARTM (Exo's parent, analagous to Metrolinx) is required to pay a subsidy of $0.72 per passenger-km to CDPQ for the operation of the REM. This is a subsidy that far exceeds the subsidy being received by any other transportation mode in the city and will severely kneecap Exo's ability to raise funds. Since they lost their biggest revenue producer to the REM in the Deux-Montagnes line, the pain is twice as harsh and if they don't get a serious infusion of cash from the province - which is unlikely under the Legault administration - I predict we'll be seeing service cuts on the commuter trains and regional bus lines in the coming years. We've already seen fare increases.
One of my main issues with the REM (that I think I've already argued with you about) is that it shouldn't have been built in its current form but rather as a sort of Crossrail/RER type of system that could have been more readily integrated with the existing Exo network and wouldn't have required the need for a second tunnel under Mt. Royal. This is what happens when your regional transportation agency's planning department is completely ineffective and to compensate, a for-profit entity is given free reign to operate as they see fit.
3:59 As someone who takes the EXO 1 regularly, you would NOT want a reduction in stations here. Although the REM does run in the west island, it's above the highway 40 (trans Canada), making it less accessible to people living south closer to the EXO train line
Just to add that the EXO1 runs though the most densely populated parts of the West Island (which began as railroad suburbs) -- but the REM will not be accessible for anyone living along the EXO1 line - I live near an EXO1 station but it would take me as long to take the bus to the closest REM station as it would take me to drive downtown.
@@otsoko66 Thanks for the insight!
The service really is disappointing, they just don't seem to understand how people might want to travel by train outside of peak hours or on weekends. I live near the end of EXO1, Vaudreuil station and it takes over an hour to get downtown even on the weekend, trains are slow, it's faster and cheaper to drive if you're two people. It was such a shame that the REM didn't extend off the island to help reduce bridge traffic on Highway 40. The Ile aux Tourtes bridge is scheduled for replacement with no REM, no BRT and no dedicated transit at all, traffic will be a nightmare until the bridge is replaced (currently 2 lanes each direction vs 3). It's such a missed opportunity to improve transit in a rapidly growing region (Vaudreuil-Soulanges area) Do Better Montreal, Quebec, ARTM and EXO, please!
I agree, I live near vaudreuil and am in disbelief that the rem wasn’t extended. Think of all the opportunities, a massive new hospital providing new jobs and a destination, in an area that is growing extremely quickly. Everything points to expanding the rem but nooo Quebec and Montreal just can’t 😤
I live in Philadelphia and this sounds a lot like SEPTA service. We have similar services: bus, trolley, heavy rail subway and elevated train service as well as an extensive commuter rail network. Like Montreal while it is a good network service levels on the commuter rail as well as suburban busses could be a lot better. We do have one thing you mentioned in the video about the commuter rail service. The city decided to unify the old Pennsylvania Railroad and Reading Railroad commuter trains by building a center city rail tunnel. So now you could ride through center city to other outlying suburbs. If the train you were on did not go through to the other suburban destination you could transfer to the other trains in any of the center city stations. Of course it would be better with more service since our off peak and weekend trains tend to run only once an hour. The good news is that SEPTA is in the process of upgrading and redoing all the modes in the service area with trying to make it a more easy to use no matter which service you are using. So I hope Montreal also tries to coordinate and improve their overall network. A good overall transit system gets good ridership and helps reduce traffic for the metro area.
SEPTA Regional Rail has far, far better schedules than exo
Slight correction - GO announced it would be cancelling all trains to London after the pilot project finishes soon.
Via announced new London Toronto lines right after the Go announcement
I'm fairly certain that's a temporary change. The reason for this is because VIA is planning to completely refurbish London Station, meaning that GO isn't able to park their trains there overnight, and whilst I believe CN did offer them to store the train at the CN yard, Metrolinx' high security requirements made them rescind it. I assume the moment the reconstruction finishes, GO will be returning to London.
I think service to London will be back in the long term
Montreal to Mont Tremblant Exo would be dream come true.
Mont Tremblant is a parking hell every time i have visited.
Hard to believe that, for all of its shortcomings, GO really is in a league of its own
Removing stations from the Vaudreuil line is a non-starter. You can't replace a station there with one on the REM - the catchments just aren't the same and it defeats the point of a whole integrated network. Speeding up service to the furthest reaches requires additional services that skips stops. The ARTM already run these although confusingly only in the counter-peak direction. That corridor is chock full of rail and is at least four-tracked the whole way out of Montréal so capacity is only an issue insofar as any whinging freight carrier makes it so. An hourly service making all stops could easily be combined with an additional hourly service making the following stops:
Vendome
Montréal-Ouest (optional, but if the corridor is still shared with 3+ lines it makes sense)
Dorval - which as we know should be a REM interchange but won't be
Beaconsfield
and whereever you fancy afterwards; that would bring journey times to Vaudreuil under an hour easily, improve the journey time out to Hudson if the ARTM were so inclined, and provide additional & express services to the busiest stations. Double that in the peak and you have a 4tph service which honestly still seems like too little. But the clockface timetable really is the greatest improvement that could come to exo1 and should be the test bed for such - in as much as it should happen today and no later.
The best way to time these, of course, is not that they *depart* at 15 minute intervals, but rather they *arrive* at 15 minute intervals - ensuring that service to each destination is as regular as possible and ensuring that express services are not held up. And you're right too - modern multiple units (and electrification) would better journey times too, enabling you to make even more stops.
Interestingly when I visited Montreal in 2016, I was actually able to use AMT (as it was known then) Candic Line to visit Exporail mueseum in st constant. We were lucky it was a weekday. We took the first train out from the city at 11ish, and then had only about 1.5 hours to spend at the mueseum before we had to take the train back because it was the last train back into the city.
Had we tried to do the same trip today we wouldn’t have had any time to go to the mueseum because the first train out of Lucien Allier goes out to Candiac before immediately going back to Montreal.
That being said, it is still possible to take the bus one way, even if it is slower.
Loved the video, I loved the anti Toronto call to action at the end
Note that with the construction of the REM, the EXO 5 line is going to stop going downtown and instead end at the REM Côte-de-Liesse Station. (since the mont-Royal tunnel will be inaccessible to trains other then the REM going forward)
pinned comment!
Agree with the other comments saying gare centrale is a better location to consolidate services than Lucien l'Allier
You should do the Maryland commuter rail (MARC)
Exo 5 used to use the mont Royal tunnel to get to central station. Now its been re-routed due to the REM renovations in the tunnel. It takes forever to go east from downtown because it travels westbound before going north and eventually east. It’s a half hour detour with no stops along the way!
This. I’m planning a trip to montreal later this summer and I was thinking about taking the candiac line to the canadian railway museum. You can walk from the saint-constant station. Looks like the schedules are weekday peak-direction only so nope.
6:45 yeah, thats exactly how that station felt to take an exo train from, the station is almost more for the bell center than for EXO
Thank you for making this video, I‘ve been interested in hearing your take for a while! I think one of the key things Exo needs to do, apart from running more trains, is to provide good connections to the REM and Metro to reach downtown from the east and north. The loss of the Mount Royal tunnel is really a big problem I think, because it means that travel times for lines approaching from those directions are way longer into downtown. Ideally, the REM would‘ve gotten its own parallel Mount Royal tunnel. As it stands though, providing good connections to the REM, so that people can get off Exo early, and then speed into the city on REM, seems very important
Great video ! For Exo 2 proposed extansion to St-Jerome, it would be complicated because northern rail tracks to the North have been replace by the city center of St-Jerome and then by a trail :/
Looks like theres still room in the right of way
@@RMTransit i think it technicly possible to do it, but it's (very) unlikely to happen.
Hourly service is nothing to be proud of. Hourly trains might as well not exist for the most part. The bare minimum standard for even quiet routes should be half-hourly if you want to attract riders. Nobody is going to want to sit at a station for an hour because they just missed a train. For a suburban commuter line I find a frequency of 2-4 trains per hour is pretty good, and then when multiple routes converge into a main corridor you get very frequent service as you approach a terminus.
there’s no service for most of the day in Montreal right now, hourly is a big step up
@@RMTransit Still not enough. Less than half hourly might as well not exist.
Great video! I love the idea of a crosstown tunnel and a loop around the mountain, but I just don't see how that would be feasible at Lucien-L'Allier - which is already pretty elevated - and has the metro running deep below it. Such a great plan might require a brand new central station (à la Berlin Hauptbahnhof) which could link the North-South/East-West lines.
I'd also push to strengthen the spine of the network going from Victoria Bridge (or perhaps build a new bridge as it is used by many freight trains) all the way up to St-Jerome. Most urban sprawl is along Highway 15 so we need a rapid, convenient solution to get people out of their cars, and density along the rail lines while we're at it.
0:46 as orange man would say, fake london!
"Build that wall, Build that wall"
Before anyone says anything, I know the OP is talking about NJB.
NJB sucks. He's too angry and hateful. Orange man bad!!!!
Great video!!!
We can all dream but I think the metropolitan transit plan should focus on connecting trip generating locations in a fast and reliable way. the REM is great at this (10-30; IdS TOD; Griffintown TOD; downtown; UdeM; Airport). EXO lines just don't serve hospitals (except MUHC), universities (concordia and mcgill are kinda close to LL), CEGEPs, stadiums (except Bell Centre), TOD (except in Laval) or other significant destinations. Burbs should prove that they deserve higher frequencies by creating destinations close to stations.
Exo lines already connect to a couple of TODs in St-Jerôme, Vaudreuil, Ste-Thérèse and Saint-Hilaire, 9 CEGEP, 5 University Campuses and 3 hospitals. It's hard to justify developments around stations without descent service.
Hey Reece, a do enjoy your videos and especially this one however i do have a few things you might want to know... exo5 (Mascouche Line) will be Terminating at the Cote-de-Liesse REM Station when its opens. so having it connect to exo2 (Saint-Jerome Line) towards Downtown would be kind of redundant. 2nd. There would be not enough Tracks for Lucien L'allier to be functional. However in about a year the Lucien L'allier Train station will close for renovations (the Metro station will stay open during the renovations) altough I highly doubt they will do something similar to what you suggest they do, I do hope it becomes more of a Toronto Union type of station cause that would be so much more useful for our needs. Lastly, the frequency on ALL lines are crap. exo1 only has 2 trains in each direction off-peak, exo2 only does Parc - Saint-Jerome during Off-Peak, exo3 & exo4 is basicially an Inbound AM & Outbound PM service for both lines & exo5 only does 3 Train to Downtown in the morning and 3 in the evening back to Mascouche while the rest starts/ends at Ahunstic. Also Weekend services BEARLY exists on exo1 & exo2 while the rest have none. (exo2 does not even go to Montreal during the weekends lol.) Plus we have the fact of so much untapped potential which is just sad. So yes were in need of a refresh and one bigger than you think.
I know about Cote de Liesse, but I do not like suburban routes not continuing to a central location!
@@RMTransit 👍👍👍
Connecting Lucien L'Allier with Gare Centrale and then constructing a new set of tunnels around Mount Royal should get more attention, for both EXO and the Via Rail High Frequency Rail Project.
will you do something about Athens?
As someone who uses the saint Jérôme line a lot to get back home on the weekends to tremblant, it really annoys me that the train lines that built that entire region got ripped out when the highways started getting upgraded. Like there is so much traffic now going in and out of the Laurentiens especially during ski season. And the thing is that they still have the old train corridors! Yes it’s a bicycle path but build parallel to it like they did around saint Jerome!
Wow Reece (and team), part montrealer here, and I really feel like you covered a lot of ground and made some very sound propositions, from the train terminal upgrades, to the frequency, ownership and rolling stock. A really complete video that packed quite a punch.
Just one comment on the length of the system: I think maybe the key would not be to extend regional service of commuter rail, which might encourage sprawl (as was noted when the PQ proposed it in 2018 I think), but maybe have the province propose some alternatives? Like what you see in regional service in Germany for example, which would have the advantage of providing some service, but without inducing super commutes. although in Canada this raises questions as trains are supposed to be federal constitutionally. Anyway, food for thoughts.
I think rail based sprawl, as long as the design is carefully thought out is frankly ok in Canada. Our cities are growing fast and to some extent they will sprawl, making that sprawl transit centric is a big step up
Also, we didnt expend the subway on the island in the last 35 years and the railway system for mid to long distance (Quebec, Toronto, New York) is completely outdated. We are decade behind in public transpot and still doing almost nothing.
I got to visit Montreal recently, but only for like 15 minutes sadly. In those 15 minutes, I can gladly say that Montreal is one of the most beautiful cities I’ve been to on this continent.
Go to Quebec City too next time :)
Maybe someday the GO train will run to Montreal ❤
@@DavidHaTzadikfunnily enough, that was the reason I was in Montreal for very little time. I was going to Quebec City for the rest of my time in Canada (about a week) and I thought it was great as well!The historic city center took me by surprise and was just so stunning! They could use more transit though
As someone who uses the Exo daily, updating and upgrading it is something I think about daily too. I hope that this video reaches the right people to make a difference
Exo’s problem is also literally Metra’s problem. Pretty much all the issues you mentioned about Exo literally are the exact same. The one major difference between Metra and Exo is that Exo has more up to date trains than Metra does. Metra still operates trains from as early as 1953 and the average age of their locomotives is 47 years old. Like Exo, if Metra really wants to improve, they need to make a lot of changes, which unfortunately Metra isn’t willing to do
Great video! You should make one talking about SEPTA’s regional rail in Philly, it leaves a lot to be desired but is also quite good in some ways, I feel like it draws an interesting comparison to the Exo network and Chicago’s Metra.
I visited Montreal recently and was enamored with the transit and bicycle Infrastructure! Unfortunately, the Adirondack line currently does not allow bicycles, as far as I'm aware there's no way to take the train from NYC to Montreal with a bike.
The Amtrak service between Montreal and Albany has been suspended due to rail neglect. And the extra hour lost at the border because the Gare Centrale customs still isn’t ready after so many years in the making.
Another alternative to consider is to realign exo5 starting at Pointe-aux-Trembles so that it goes down the east side of the island. It would require rebuilding the the existing ROW to Av. Marien but at least the ROW still exists. It would then reach Lucien-L' Allier via the new connection you proposed. I would then make the existing exo5 alignment a new rapid transit like O-Line 2 from Pointe-aux-Trembles to Lucien-L' Allier . Those living in Montreal-Nord and Riviere-des-Prairies would gain a new transit option and would be able to reach downtown via connection at at Sauvé on the Orange line and the airport via Montpelier once the REM is complete. And it would still connect to the other exo lines since it's still terminating at LLA.
Update: I would actually have the rapid transit line be Mascouche (your version) to LLA
Sounds suspiciously like a sanely implemented REM de l'Est...
Honestly I think exo 5 would be the least concern among the 4 lines which would need re-alignment from Lucien-L'Allier, since it's getting a purpose-built terminus integrated right into the REM. With the REM's frequency, any transfer going downtown is guaranteed to only be a few minutes, and then you have your choice of 3 stations downtown instead of just getting dumped at Gare Centrale.
@@ashcla Honestly I completely forgot about REM de l'Est when I wrote that 😅 but after re-familiarizing myself with the proposal I see what you mean.
I forgot about the purpose-built terminus at for the REM. If exo5 keeps the current alignment then my initial opinion is that it would be a good idea. My only concern then is the lack of transit access from Hampstead and more so Cotê Saint-Luc. Combined frequency of exo1, 2, and 4 during rush hours would somewhat meet the demand but then the whole area would only have Montreal West for access (very north of Hampstead can use Namur on the the Orange line).
So I guess in the end, if exo5 stays the way it is with termimus at the REM I would still at least want some rapid service from LLA to at least that terminus, and I think it would still be a good idea to have that service onto of exo5 up to Mascouche.
Update: I realized now I would need to build a new curve at the rail yard so that the rapid service can join the tracks in between Cotê Saint-Luc and Hampstead. Easy fix through right?? 😅
A rail tunnel under St-Laurent would be great but it would also be too expensive and disruptive to the entire Le Plateau Mont-Royal area. Considering the price of the blue line extension and the pink line proposal, I wouldn't look forward to it.
Instead, it might be good to build a terminal station at Gare Canora, which provides interchange with the REM system. It could be built pretty cheaply, and could help building a new city centre around Côte-des-Neiges and Outremont.
Please can you do a video on the Irish & British Train Networks?
I am planning some stuff! Stay tuned
hourly service really sucks when you miss your train by a couple minutes
Better than no train!
As someone who relies on NJTransit Rail a decent amount, Montreal has a lot to learn.
I spent a year studying in Montreal in the late ‘90s having previously lived in the UK. I was frankly flabbergasted when I heard what the service frequency on those lines was, what is even the point of a local train service that only runs a couple of times a day and then only in one direction at a time? I lived on the Loyola campus of Concordia uni which is fairly close to the picturesque Montreal-Ouest station but not once did I, or anyone I knew, use that train service.
Bicycles make life and cities better. They are part of a good transportation system.
Proper bike lanes and places to park and lock bicycles are needed to work together with mass transit options.
You know the system must be bad when you talk to people in the city who have lived here for years and have never used it and some havent even heard of it
Please do a video on Johannesburg and Pretorias Metrorail and the Gautrain in South Africa!!!!!!!!!!
Having grown up 10 minutes from it, I suspect that the level-crossings on either side of the Montréal-Ouest station would create a serious bottleneck if exo frequencies increased to what we would all like to see. I've always thought the tracks there need to be lowered (and bridges introduced on Westminster and Elmhurst), though note that the proximity of the Montreal West CBD will make any improvements challenging.
Maybe the entire CP track route between Montréal-Ouest and Lucien-L'Allier should be closed and M-O and Vendôme improved simultaneous to LL's upgrade. Money's no object, right?
And while I'm dreaming, new infill stations at Cavendish, Cote-St-Luc, Decarie Square, Namur (with a second southern entrance to the metro close to the tracks), Wilderton/Canora (REM connection), before reaching Parc.
I have always thought about the track-lowering at MW (but the expen$e!) and trying to keep a track or two open while construction was in progress (maybe a couple of years?). My thought is that within 15-20 years, the line(s) will become REM-style and be elevated through MW station - eliminating the level crossings (at a cheaper price). The fancy new pedestrian tunnel that they are building appears to me as a waste of money. It's located at the centre of the platforms, while most people (like me) arrive from either end.
Immediately after viewing this video I watched a video posted on TH-cam by Svensk Järnväg entitled Tåg på Strängnäs station. I have visited Strängnäs twice, the first time was in about 1997, just after the station had 're-opened.' It had a single track, primitive waiting facilities and a small bus station. I visited again about six years ago. I was astounded. There was this magnificent Resecentrum with fantastic waiting facilities and a much larger bus station. There was a second track Strängnäs (15,000 people) is an example to the rest of the world including Montreal and Quebec province. Put a station in a small town, give it a good service to a nearby big city (in this case hourly to Stockholm, 83 kms in 46 minutes) and many people will use it!
The problem is that they decided to invest so much in the rem instead wich is a kind of suburban rail but the rem is clearly more expensive. A suburban line that was going downtown now stop in the middle of nowhere because the rem use the tunnel under the mount royal.
Hey if possible Reece could you make an explainer about Austin Texas and their transit expansion plans?
I can provide you some footage of the current light rail line if needed since I am a a local
Screw Paxton and his politically motivated attempt to sabotage light rail! Meanwhile, he hasn't said anything negative about highways...
This is top notch posting; like whether or not anything in there is realistic, I wonder if you might catch some reactions from the powers that be about whether they're willing for exo be more than a (to be fair top notch) branding exercise that can build buildings occasionally, but when it comes to trains, pays a contractor to run on pre-existing CN and CP lines that have existed for many decades and that's about it.
Lucien L'Allier to Gare Central path also really needs some help
yes kitchener line js good if you want to travel to somewhere around brampton. but not if you actually wanna reach kutchener. it needs to have faster all day service on that line ASAP.
I think it's all awesome ideas, the only problem is the share with CN and CP. As a former user of those trains I can tell you that merchandise pass before human so it's affecting the service a lot. You need to build new tracks, new Bridges (dedicated tracks). The REM is the reference for the future. Since it need all those investment for those trains they will plan more like combined solutions like new REM, tramway and special bus line. They also have proposed pkan of creating rail system in the middle of highways which have space available, no need for expropriation so will be lot more cost efficient. We will see what the future holding off I guess.
Yea, these are thing GO transit has done, Montreal can do them too!
I get the idea of uniformity of connecting lines through Lucien L'Allier but could it be cheaper in the short term to have a smaller station outside downtown (around the turcotte) linked to the southshore REM line to give that downtown access? Maybe that would ward off too many users but it would eliminate some of the expense and that savings could go back into the rest of the service upgrades you suggest. The link to Lucien L'Allier could be a longterm instead of short term goal.
Maybe I didn't follow the Pointe St.Charles connection...
If you don't do the connection keep running into Gare Centrale in the meantime.
So much of what you said in this video could also be applied to the MBTA commuter rail, which has also seen many empty promises for electrification and regional rail…
Boston still amazes me that they can't build a 2.4 km tunnel between North and South stations.
@@1978dkelly hell, they can’t even connect the red and blue line with a quarter mile tunnel
Hello, I’m a big fan of your channel. Could you also please make a video of Metro Manila Metro train in the Philippines? Thanks! 😁
honestly... those plans sound expensive, and the result will be trains that are heavy diesel rail still manned, and threatened by interlining with freight, which is the main problem in the west at least. I think for similar amounts of cash, you replace the whole thing with more REM service, and it's fully grade separated, automated, electrified, and using lighter equipment for lower initial construction and operating costs. It feels more promising to replace AMT with REM, than to try to revitalize it.
Two interesting ideas: perhaps Mascouche could be converted to REM, and Mont-Saint-Hilaire either transferred to REM, VIA, or Montreal's Yellow Line as part of a broader Longueil extension to Metropolitain Airport
You’ve hit the nail on the head about EXO Reece! Well done!
New RM transit vid 🎉🎉🎉
I'm surprised line to Granby was listed, that seems a lot more viable to it or at least some of the exoburbs on the way to it then just expanding the existing lines. That idea has been toyed with but the main issue is that places those lines could expand to like St-Jean-sur-Richelieu or Saint-Hyacinthe already have bus lines that are faster due to the Autoroute shoulder BRT system, the only direct expansion that could work would be to Hudson which used to have a station until their local government deemed it not worth the expense due to low use.
While there is plenty of room for improvement, I think the main reason EXO's in a holding pattern is the fact that there's sort of an understanding that their days are numbered. It's not just that they lost the Deux Montangue line to the REM and St-Jerome seems next on the chopping block for REMification, but there's the simple fact that due to Quebec's lack of urban sprawl that you see across the continent the type of distances where improved heavy rail would be a good investment usually get to distances that are under VIA.
I literally constantly check your vid page for a new vid 😂
Subscribe and hit the bell!
The 6 trains on the EXO 2 St.Jerome-Lucien L'allier Line only covers the northern stations on the weekends. They don't cover any of the Montreal stations on the weekends nor on stat holidays :( That line is my prefered way to go to downtown Montreal as it is more efficient and direct a route.
I see an opportunity for 2 additional new routes as well. 1 that can take same route as Exo-12 (formerly 2) and then go east from Laval to Terrebonne. This avoids the weird routing (via an explosives proving ground I believe as well) that Exo-15 currently does.
In total Exo-16 is 33km (from Côte-de-Liesse). with stops in:
- ?Lucien L’allier
- Côte-de-Liesse*
- Bois de Boulange*
- de la Concorde*
- Rene-Laennec
- Pie-IX
- Terrebonne (old station near St Charles)
- Mascouche
* shared with Exo-12
The 2 seat ride downtown however is *not* optimal. And I think a widening of the tunnel through the mountain to accommodate the trains from North would be optimal, but not sure if possible. Otherwise running the trains around the mountain, while it is slower, is a better option, IMHO.
The second route - Exo-17 I suppose - would immediately be a busy route I think. It would go across the busy Victoria Bridge (which may one day need an upgrade, but I digress) to serve St Lambert (alongside Exo-13 (formerly Exo-3). It splits right after St. Lambert however and goes north-east mostly along the abandoned right of way (tho I see it using Highway 132 (A. Rene-Levesque), which is abandoned in favour of just a boulevard, which is already there.
In total Exo-17 is 30km with stops in:
- Gare Central*
- St Lambert*
- Old Longueuil / US@L
- Roland-Therrien
- Boucherville
- Varennes
* shared with Exo-13
The regional rail is 30-40km?? That seems quite short to me, I don't see why you need to run a regional rail style service instead of a suburban train. Is the density that low as soon as you leave the core? Looking at the map, it seems like it is for 3 of the lines, but the other 2 seem to run majority through built up areas.
Edit: that seems to be the idea with the suggestion to use European emu's, but imo for such uses, you'd need much better frequency. And Reece has suggested 5 min. Is that still regional rail? Straight up sounds like a metro to me.
It strikes me that Ottawa actually isn’t that far away, I wonder how attractive an hourly service between Montreal and Ottawa would be
I live in Pointe-Claire, adjacent to the EXO-1 station located there and have been using this train line regularly over many years. Currently I work from home and so I have more visibility to see/hear the freight trains that run those same tracks throughout the day. Yes, there is definitely some capacity to increase the number of trains per day but not to the extent you describe. Through most of the length of the train line on the island of Montreal there seems to be room to add an entire new rail line, I only think at the Lachine station is it presently too crowded for this. With an extra railway it would make the passing of passenger and freight much less of an obstacle. I definitely like your idea of canopying and expanding the LL station and also agree to go there instead of Gare Centrale considering VIa's HFR plans. Heh; speaking of Via's HFR, they also will need to share CNs tracks through that same rail path as EXO heading west until they can reach the new tracks Via will own off-island - this will surely act as a bottleneck.
Will you ever make a Video on Chicago's Metra?
I think the best solution is the city tunnel like the "passante ferroviario" in Milano you cited. For commuters traffic it is very good and with its combined frequency among the different lines is useful like a sort of heavy metro. Stopping in LL is a bit useless, imagine if it will go via the city tunnel to other suburbs...