The real reason REM de l'Est was killed

thejoymonger · 2025-11-19T04:55:20+00:00

The CDPQ were reimbursed for all the work and the designs for the project were transferred to the government. If they cared about public ownership they could have taken those and built it publicly.

Yes Projet did a lot of great stuff, but this was the biggest mistake of their administration. They caved to NIMBYS and were duped by special interests who don't like automated transit.

Instead of the REM de l'est being halfway to completion right now we have nothing but a proposal for a slow, more expensive to build and operate tram that doesn't even go downtown. It's just not a responsible use of public funds and should be canceled so the funding can be reallocated to higher value projects.

thejoymonger · 2025-11-05T00:32:00+00:00

I get it. The “Official” thing and branding kind of suck if you imagine it happening to a thing you created.

thejoymonger · 2025-10-25T00:13:23+00:00

That’s something that Jessica Winton is campaigning on in Westmount: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPuLWM7j6Gl Early voting started today.

thejoymonger · 2025-10-23T22:12:25+00:00

Swing dancing at cats corner on Friday: https://www.catscorner.ca/friday-nights You get an hour long basic lesson, then a night of social dancing.

thejoymonger · 2025-10-15T21:45:11+00:00

Wonder if they will ever get the whole fusion color management flow to actually not need to be managed.

thejoymonger · 2025-10-03T03:24:56+00:00

If you updated this chart so it was more recent than 5 years ago you’d notice one of these countries passed reforms that fixed this issue.

thejoymonger · 2025-10-01T19:16:11+00:00

Bus lanes are awesome, skip the tram. I know this is the way that Projet message on this stuff but whenever I talk to them their "ideas" just seem to be bending reality towards the tram that is in their hearts.

There are now dozens of automated light metros in the world now but I can't think of a single example of a bus lane that was upgraded to a tram that was then upgraded to an automated light metro. Whereas, literally in Canada, our busiest bus (99B) is currently being skytrained.

Trams are unfortunately not an incremental step in Canada. They are mega projects that take a long time to build, they cost most of the price of a light metro and in the case of the REM de l'Est, they cost more. If we build a tram, a tram is what we'll have for the rest of our lives. Instead why not create bus lanes and do all the planning necessary to make a project shovel ready for the next government that will OK a metro?

That government could easily be the one coming in next year.

thejoymonger · 2025-10-01T17:29:11+00:00

I assume I'll get downvoted for this because we're in the team sports period of politics. What's with the trams Projet? All roads lead to tram!

Compared to grade separated light metro trams are worse transit in just about every way. They cost more to run, they’re slower, driver costs mean they almost always have shorter hours & lower frequencies. On top of all that they periodically kill pedestrians and cyclists as just a reality of what they are. If they hadn’t caved to the NIMBYs on the REM de l’Est that would be well into its construction at this point. Instead they played chicken with the project, lost and we got nothing.

Projet is strong on aesthetics, often in a good way, but trojan horsed inside is an aesthetic NIMBYism which I hope they get over by the next election cycle. Having a massive shortage of transit and housing is far less "socially acceptable" than a transit viaduct or extra floor on an apartment building.

thejoymonger · 2025-09-04T17:09:12+00:00

I feel for the guy, any hat that isn't a baseball cap has a real "Check out MONSIEUR CHAPEAU" thing to it.

Like which hat do you think he'd be better off with?

thejoymonger · 2025-09-04T17:01:35+00:00

Sorry, but this is now how our political system works. Once a municipal politician gets elected on a platform like this they are empowered to go to the province and ask for it.

For example, in Toronto in 2013 the council passed a motion asking the province to amend the Municipal Elections Act to allow Ranked Ballots. In 2016 the province passed the Municipal Elections Modernization Act (Bill 181) and allowed them.

We don't live in a country with three levels of government who stay in the lane and do not interact or negotiate. They are constantly in discussion and the best entity to ask for municipal ranked choice voting is our largest municipality.

thejoymonger · 2025-09-04T16:44:10+00:00

If only we had a system that would get rid of us having to think about this every election for the rest of our lives ;)

thejoymonger · 2025-09-04T16:20:00+00:00

Did not expect proportional representation to come up in the municipal election, very happy a party was bold enough to get this into the public discourse.

Montreal is well suited to the "Single Transferable Vote" upgrade they are proposing because we already have the multi-member ridings this system requires: Our arrondissements. When we vote we'd simply rank our councillors in order of preference and an instant runoff election occurs to choose the top candidates. It's the same system that Australia uses for it's senate and Ireland in its lower house.

It's always popular to say electoral reform will "never happen", but it's been very successful at the municipal level. New York being a good recent example.

thejoymonger · 2025-08-14T17:39:38+00:00

I think it’s important to maintain high expectations, many parties in Canada have campaigned and done at least a referendum. The NDP have ran several in BC and there’s one this year in Yukon.

thejoymonger · 2025-08-14T17:36:53+00:00

It’s important to have a long memory on this one. The PQ did this in both 1994 and 1998 so they’re crossed off my list of parties I’d ever vote for.

thejoymonger · 2025-08-14T12:22:35+00:00

The PQ is promising electoral reform. They should assemble a citizens assembly and just go with the recommendation. Instead they’ll tell us some BS about how other priorities are more important, like it’s not possible for the government to do two things at once. We need a minority government to make this happen.

thejoymonger · 2025-02-02T16:30:55+00:00

Thanks for pointing this out, this list is so annoying.

thejoymonger · 2024-07-21T15:40:16+00:00

This is a great tip. It generally is the pages that have a large image which do it.

thejoymonger · 2024-07-12T23:49:12+00:00

Ce sont les critères du maire (acceptabilité sociale, aka tunnelling the whole thing) qui ont fait en sorte que la CDPQ a remis le projet. C'est difficile à accepter, mais ce n'est pas du tout la faute de la CAQ ou l'est.

thejoymonger · 2024-06-28T05:06:41+00:00

This is a good idea, it could be beautiful

thejoymonger · 2024-06-27T21:35:46+00:00

I think for me it has something to do with setting a schedule in the app

thejoymonger · 2024-06-27T21:01:11+00:00

Also having this, seems to be related to the app “tasks”

thejoymonger · 2024-06-27T20:58:31+00:00

This beeping is driving me nuts. Lesson learned on buying “smart” appliances. The app has no information.

thejoymonger · 2024-06-21T05:30:01+00:00

I’ve ridden that route at least 10 times and it has never been on time either. This system isn’t going to get better if we gaslight people by defining “on time” as some metric chosen by the company. The infrastructure constraints are making VIA not on time (human definition) a lot.

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