The Eastern Structuring Project (PSE) proposed by the Autorité régionale de transport métropolitain (ARTM) to serve the eastern part of the island of Montreal should not rely solely on a tramway and should be combined with other modes of transportation, according to a researcher. In a report commissioned by Vivre en ville, Marco Chitti notes several shortcomings in the tramway project, including overly optimistic travel times and a route that is not optimal for serving the eastern part.
The anticipated travel times for the tramway, which will have to cross numerous intersections, particularly on Sherbrooke Street, are not realistic, believes Marco Chitti, a visiting researcher at the Marron Institute for Urban Management at New York University and a lecturer at the University of Montreal.
For example, on the two kilometres of Sherbrooke Street connecting the Honoré-Beaugrand metro station and Georges-V Avenue, the tramway will have to cross 25 intersections, which translates into 67 manoeuvres that could slow its progress, particularly due to the presence of pedestrians or cars stuck in the road. Thus, although the tramway benefits from favourable traffic lights that turn green as it approaches, it is not immune to various obstacles, unlike the metro.
While the ARTM estimates the travel time between Pointe-aux-Trembles station and Honoré-Beaugrand metro station at 16 minutes, the reality observed in light of French models lengthens the journey to 20 minutes 26 seconds, and to 17 minutes 43 seconds for comparable projects in Germany.
To remedy this, it would be possible to make the tram route more secure, with barriers similar to those used for trains, or by carrying out a “major reorganization” of traffic in the areas crossed in order to minimize conflicts and ensure acceptable speeds of 50 km/h without obstacles and 30 to 40 km/h at intersections, argues Marco Chitti.
Rethinking bus networks
The researcher also criticizes the ARTM project for ignoring the reorganization of the bus service, which will have to fall back on the new tramway. According to him, a good planning exercise must, from the first phases of its design, take into consideration its impacts on travel chains.
He also questions the choice of Sherbrooke Street as the main axis for the southern section of the PSE. While this route offers a direct and fast route, it is not optimal for serving the residential areas of Montreal East and Pointe-aux-Trembles, he emphasizes.
According to Marco Chitti, the tramway should not be considered the answer to all transportation issues in the east. In this regard, he mentions the possibility of extending the blue and green metro lines to the east. “I am not proposing an extension of the metro. I propose to have a discussion and that we do the exercise of testing, with all the methodologies that we have in planning, to evaluate these perspectives,” he qualifies.
The challenge of high costs
The researcher acknowledges, however, that the cost issue is major. In 2023, in a first version of the PSE, the ARTM had presented a project for a completely underground train worth $36 billion, which the government had rejected because it was too costly.
Last May, the organization submitted a new 38 km tramway project with 31 stations at a cost of 18.6 billion.
And overall, the construction costs of transportation networks are much higher in Canada than elsewhere in the world. This is a known fact, but this issue will have to be resolved, says Marco Chitti. “Here, we are talking about an $18 billion tramway for the PSE. It comes to $150 to $300 million per kilometre for a tramway, whereas it is something that is built at $50 to 70 million per kilometre in France, Italy and Europe,” he explains. “If we do not resolve the issue of very high costs in Canada, we will no longer be able to build anything.”
The ARTM, which submitted its PSE proposal to the Quebec government last spring, acknowledges that steps still need to be taken to refine the project. “It is quite normal that questions and topics remain to be explored in more depth,” says Simon Charbonneau, director of communications at the ARTM, in an email.
“Network integration is the basis of the approach. The next step is precisely to deepen the analyses, in collaboration with municipal stakeholders in the area, in particular to ensure that commercial speed is optimized, to detail network integration and more detailed urban integration,” he says.