The city today released its 155-page transportation plan (PDF), which focuses on public transit, cycling and other green initiatives. Heck, even the report itself is green, so you know they mean business.
The report includes some very common-sense ideas: Extending the blue line metro East to Pie-IX and then Anjou, extending the orange line northwest to the Bois-Franc train station, connecting bicycle paths across the island, adding bicycle parking and adding express buses and reserved bus lanes to major arteries.
But just in case you’re hopeful that any of these initiatives will see the light of day, remember that it also includes a promise to finish the Cavendish Extension. Yeah.
As ambitious as the plan is, it’s not as crazy as tramway fetishists Projet Montréal’s plan (PDF), which proposes putting tramways on the highway and all the way out to Ile Bizard. (Well, some people at least think it’s worth the trouble)
Hidden in the sea of Montreal’s plan is another common-sense idea that I think would make a huge impact toward getting people to use public transit, especially in suburbs: Make express buses run all day. It works brilliantly for the 211, why not have something similar for the other suburbs?
Thanks for the link… i think. While i do think Montreal needs a tram system, i don’t think something like Projet Montréal’s proposal would be needed. It is definitely something feasible on the most popular bus lines like those proposed by the city in the recent report.
Hey, i’m not some crazy tram enthusiast!
i enjoy your blog by the way.
Connecting the Orange line to Bois-Franc makes sense, but I do have one small issue. People like me who drive to the Bois-Franc trains station is because there is a large parking lots that’s actually CLOSE to the Train Station. (Don’t get me started on Du Resseau station). If there is a Metro link at that station, the parking lot will more than likely fill up to over capacity. Better to have the AMT buy more of the surround land and increase the size of the parking lot. Here is the catch. People don’t like to walk. Making the lot larger and farther way from either the Train or the Metro entrance would not help the problem. So perhaps, extending the lot to the east, North or South would be a good idea. Anything but West.
Another idea (foolish?) would be to have a parking lot for the Metro, maybe on the large green space you can see on the map below.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=montreal&ie=UTF8&ll=45.522263,-73.708992&spn=0.009126,0.00912&t=h&z=17&om=1
The Metro Station can be where the eastern Trees are and an underground passage for pedestrians connecting the Metro to the Train Station and to both Parking lots can be constructed.
Yes that Cavendish extension should help
if it ever got started.