Quote:
Originally Posted by DDP
How can they construct the LRT in Montreal without federal funding, when the project needs federal funding to actually be completed?
Glad to see the push though, I grew up west island (kirkland), and hav't lived in Montréal in 10 years but nice to see them actually thinking outside the box to get transit done. Unlike here in Toronto where people just like talking about there perfect version of transit on a map.
|
The project is financed entirely by the CDPQ with an equity stake by the city of Montréal, the Quebec government and the feds. The governments don't need to pay until 2019.
The CDPQ will own the REM and not the government. They are charging the new supra transit agency ARTM, the same amount per passenger per km as the other transit agencies.
So for the same cost per km for running commuter rail (and not build it), they can build a new light metro system, and still make money. So they are ripping out one commuter rail and rebuilding it as a light metro rail and building two other light metro lines. For each user that access the CDPQ network (and that will be true for all transit agencies in the Montreal area), the CDPQ will charge back the ARTM. The ARTM is the one selling the tickets.
Cities are not too happy about it because they're losing the control they had on transit agencies finances. This is what is great about this, it basically removes politics for transit planning and transit funding.
Transit projects were funded by the province (the feds never funded rail transit here), so they were relunctant on spending big bucks on infrastructure. Cities on the other hand were stuck by heavy operating fees. The magic of the new system is that the infrastructure costs are bundled with the operating costs, so less efficient projects will not be funded.
For example, in Ottawa, with this way of thinking, the O-Train would have never been LRT but light metro. In Toronto, the GO Trains, which are costly to run, might have been transformed into automatic subways in the same ROW. It's a revolution for transit planning in Canada, but it's akin to the MTR in Hong Kong.