OT: WHO MADE THIS CITY!!!! Montreal Traffic Rant

[ThaDevilGirl]

the east train

I hope people will take it cause I wont.

I thought the train would be faster than that. I wont save any time taking the train. (problably will take more time)

http://www.amt.qc.ca/uploadedFiles/AMT/Site_Corpo/Projets/Détail/2_trace_projete.pdf

Nice, Montreal-Nord is in Zone 2. It would be more expensive for a Montrealer to take the train than to take the metro to go downtown... Then again I know the train isn't for people living on the island. Still laughable.

 

[Teufelsdreck]

I despise pedestrians who gaze fixedly at their cellphones, oblivious to everything vehicular or human in their vicinity. The gendarmes should seize them by the scruff of the neck or poke them in the ribs with their batons, I wouldn't go so far as to advocate capital punishment but they are more likely to be fatally struck by autos or camions.

 

[Andy]

I despise pedestrians who gaze fixedly at their cellphones, oblivious to everything vehicular or human in their vicinity. The gendarmes should seize them by the scruff of the neck or poke them in the ribs with their batons, I wouldn't go so far as to advocate capital punishment but they are more likely to be fatally struck by autos or camions.

Everyone should walk to their destinations. Streets should be one big side-walk.

Nature made us with two-legs, we weren't born with wheels. Driving cars pollute. Mass-manufacturing and shipping of bikes pollute. Legs keep the air clean. If cave-men could have done it, why not people living in cities.

 

[RealityBytes]

Reading this thread is very hard on me.

Bikers aren't part of the problem of traffic congestion, they're a part of the solution. So is public transit. The more public transit and bikes you have, the less cars there is in the streets.

And if you want more bikes and public transit you gotta invest in it, even if not everybody uses it. If you want to convince people to leave their car at home, you gotta provide them with a safe, cheap, comfortable and efficient alternative. And you can remove the snow from bike lanes, like we do in the streets.

Plus bike paths are the cheapest thing to do. Most of them arejust paint on the pavement! Meanwhile, the governments are investing 5 billion on a bridge (most expensive in the world, by the way) and more than 3,5 billion on a ******* interchange and nobody gives a damn, but talk about investing 10 millions in bikepaths or 1 billion on a tramway and it's a ****ing tragedy!

And by the way, it's not breaking the law to ride your bike out of a bike lane. They have the right to be in any street. Believe it or not, streets aren't just for cars, except highways.

Right now it is not breaking the law to ride your bike outside of a bike lane, but in my described scenario of one way streets and no parking it should be since bikes slow down car and truck traffic. Bikers are too uncontrolled right now.

You will never get rid of cars and trucks in a downtown area, never. They will always be there because they can do what bikes can't. Bikes are limited to one passenger physically capable of riding it. What of disabled or older people, people with kids, people with packages and parcels, delivery trucks, people coming from a long distance away where there is no feasible public transport, visitors to the city, people needing taxis, and so on. Trying to just remove cars and trucks is not a viable solution, because as long as they are needed and some are allowed, people will use it and there will always be too many. There will always be cars and trucks in the downtown area, it's congestion that is the problem that needs to be solved.

The answer to congestion is not just to remove the amount of cars and trucks, it is to make the cars and trucks flow better through the areas by removing the congestion that traps them and slows them down.

To say that bikes are not part of the problem the way they are now is ridiculous. Bikes slow traffic down and add to the congestion problem as well as being a danger to pedestrians if they are not in designated bike paths. Especially obvious is the scofflaw bikers who think they own the road. If bikes are to be part of the solution, they need to be restricted to where they do not slow car and truck traffic down such as bike lanes and they can't be allowed to run free and rampant and do anything they want. They need to be restricted on what they do and be forced to obey traffic laws just as cars and trucks have to, else they are part of the problem by slowing down traffic and adding to congestion.

Bike lanes on all streets is not a solution either since it will just slow traffic down on all streets and cause more congestion. However, bike lanes are necessary but not on all streets and only on alternate streets at best. Then make the bikers use them and obey traffic laws with stiff, stiff penalties for riding on sidewalks and causing pedestrian accidents. If a biker wants to use the sidewalk, push the bike, don't ride it. Walking at the end of a bike ride is no worse than a car driver who has to walk from his parking spot to their final destination.

 

[xposbrad]

I love the whole idea of making the entire city bus lanes only. I love the 'traffic reducing effect' it's had on St-John in the west island. Now, instead of being really bad traffic, it went to fkn horribly bad with the bus lane during rush hours. Genius idea.

Drives are the ones who pay most of the costs for road maintenance through gas taxes, license/registration, tickets..Public transportation in quebec loses money, that means tax payers pay to subsidize people on the bus. Enough with these stupid bus lanes already.

 

[Uber Coca]

Drivers taxes kept on rising without any positive changes on congestion whatsoever. Driver's license cost doubled over time, registration is 60$ or 70$ more expensive if you live in Montreal, fuel is more and more expensive mostly because of the taxes...

We really pay our right to drive in this city.

 

[Guilliam]

Right now it is not breaking the law to ride your bike outside of a bike lane, but in my described scenario of one way streets and no parking it should be since bikes slow down car and truck traffic. Bikers are too uncontrolled right now.

You will never get rid of cars and trucks in a downtown area, never. They will always be there because they can do what bikes can't. Bikes are limited to one passenger physically capable of riding it. What of disabled or older people, people with kids, people with packages and parcels, delivery trucks, people coming from a long distance away where there is no feasible public transport, visitors to the city, people needing taxis, and so on. Trying to just remove cars and trucks is not a viable solution, because as long as they are needed and some are allowed, people will use it and there will always be too many. There will always be cars and trucks in the downtown area, it's congestion that is the problem that needs to be solved.

The answer to congestion is not just to remove the amount of cars and trucks, it is to make the cars and trucks flow better through the areas by removing the congestion that traps them and slows them down.

To say that bikes are not part of the problem the way they are now is ridiculous. Bikes slow traffic down and add to the congestion problem as well as being a danger to pedestrians if they are not in designated bike paths. Especially obvious is the scofflaw bikers who think they own the road. If bikes are to be part of the solution, they need to be restricted to where they do not slow car and truck traffic down such as bike lanes and they can't be allowed to run free and rampant and do anything they want. They need to be restricted on what they do and be forced to obey traffic laws just as cars and trucks have to, else they are part of the problem by slowing down traffic and adding to congestion.

Bike lanes on all streets is not a solution either since it will just slow traffic down on all streets and cause more congestion. However, bike lanes are necessary but not on all streets and only on alternate streets at best. Then make the bikers use them and obey traffic laws with stiff, stiff penalties for riding on sidewalks and causing pedestrian accidents. If a biker wants to use the sidewalk, push the bike, don't ride it. Walking at the end of a bike ride is no worse than a car driver who has to walk from his parking spot to their final destination.

Making cars and trucks flow better as you say, is a temporary fix. Even the engineer from the MTQ admitted that if they were to make a highway out of Notre-Dame, in 5 years the congestion would be just as bad as it is now. The same thing applies to adding lanes to streets etc. When a road runs smoothly then all car drivers want to use it and it soon becomes stuck like everywhere else. Plus you gotta think that as the population grows, so does the number of cars in the streets. Yet, the space we have to put them stays the same. Do you see the problem?

As for getting rid of cars downtown, I'm not even advocating that, but we have to work to reduce their numbers and, yes, keep some areas where they can't go.As an example, traffic has diminished by 27% in 10 years in downtown Paris. And you can see here that many many cities in the world have a car-free part of the city : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_car-free_places. Believe it or not, cars weren't originally made for the city, they were made for people who lived in the country to get to the city.

Before leaving this thread for good, here's a little something you can ponder on.

 

[Andy]

Making cars and trucks flow better as you say, is a temporary fix. Even the engineer from the MTQ admitted that if they were to make a highway out of Notre-Dame, in 5 years the congestion would be just as bad as it is now. The same thing applies to adding lanes to streets etc. When a road runs smoothly then all car drivers want to use it and it soon becomes stuck like everywhere else. Plus you gotta think that as the population grows, so does the number of cars in the streets. Yet, the space we have to put them stays the same. Do you see the problem?

As for getting rid of cars downtown, I'm not even advocating that, but we have to work to reduce their numbers and, yes, keep some areas where they can't go.As an example, traffic has diminished by 27% in 10 years in downtown Paris. And you can see here that many many cities in the world have a car-free part of the city : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_car-free_places. Believe it or not, cars weren't originally made for the city, they were made for people who lived in the country to get to the city.

Before leaving this thread for good, here's a little something you can ponder on.

The bolded part interests me because it equally applies to people living in the burbs. With more and more people moving out of the city core, into the burbs and off the Island, I don't think closing streets is the solution here, but improving the bus system outside of the city core which is atrocious.

Also, lost in this whole traffic debate is that people keep talking about traffic going towards downtown. It's more than just that, there is traffic going to the metro stations to get downtown! Taking the bus isn't reliable enough to not take a car. People don't want to be late 2-3 time a week regularly because their buses don't show up.

Moreover, the debate assumes that traffic is caused simply by the volume of cars and individuals on the road...it ignores the fact that a lot of the traffic is caused by poorly planned highways and multiple closings because of simultaneous construction.

Lastly, it assumes that everyone has simple lives that consist of getting up in the morning, going to work and going back home with no other priorities and responsibilities in between.

Also, the problem will only increase. Cities grow over time, they will put more stress on the public transport system, more cars on the road even if the public transport system improves. Increasing public transport does not fix the traffic problems caused by poorly designed highways and construction.

I also don't think no car zones are a solution either. The way the city manages its parking is ridiculous, I can't imagine if it prevents cars from driving to and parking near their destinations. I already can't park near metros, no parking and no cars downtown would be a **** show.

 

[Stjonnypopo]

I love the whole idea of making the entire city bus lanes only. I love the 'traffic reducing effect' it's had on St-John in the west island. Now, instead of being really bad traffic, it went to fkn horribly bad with the bus lane during rush hours. Genius idea.

Drives are the ones who pay most of the costs for road maintenance through gas taxes, license/registration, tickets..Public transportation in quebec loses money, that means tax payers pay to subsidize people on the bus. Enough with these stupid bus lanes already.

Thought I agree that the reserved bus lanes are awful for people in cars (I used to drive on St-Jean every morning until I moved to NDG, now I'm stuck on Sherbrooke instead...) I get the point. But if they don't make the buses more present and make them go further then it doesn't really work. Long-term it should make a difference but for now it just really sucks.

 

[Brainiac]

Everyone should walk to their destinations. Streets should be one big side-walk.

Nature made us with two-legs, we weren't born with wheels. Driving cars pollute. Mass-manufacturing and shipping of bikes pollute. Legs keep the air clean. If cave-men could have done it, why not people living in cities.

Dude... 10 000 BC called, they want their "streets" back...

 

[LyricalLyricist]

Everyone should walk to their destinations. Streets should be one big side-walk.

Nature made us with two-legs, we weren't born with wheels. Driving cars pollute. Mass-manufacturing and shipping of bikes pollute. Legs keep the air clean. If cave-men could have done it, why not people living in cities.

I hope not serious.

Would be terrible.

Best course of action could be car free spaces like quartier des spectacles on occasion. I mean, that's fine but completely removing these things? Meh.

Assuming you're serious, mass manufacturing, shipping and other things create jobs. Sure, we'd like a greener planet and all that but I assure you if you remove these things the result will be less traffic for sure, because people won't have a job to drive to in the morning.

The correct course of action is innovation with long term planning. For example, car charging stations to promote electric vehicles. Can you imagine if the government says we have a FREE car charging station parking lot downtown, you must have an electric vehicle to park here and free of charge. People will buy these cars and use them.

At one point I believe they had if you buy a bus pass, you get bixi pass as well. This promotes the use of those bikes.

Properly zoned green spaces, bus lanes, bike lanes, etc...

We spoke about it before but if you want people to use the metro, you have to make parking at the metro accessible. May seem stupid to some but this will help dramatically reduce the traffic towards the center of downtown.

There's many things they can do and it doesn't have to be as radical as forcing people to walk.

 

[RealityBytes]

Making cars and trucks flow better as you say, is a temporary fix. Even the engineer from the MTQ admitted that if they were to make a highway out of Notre-Dame, in 5 years the congestion would be just as bad as it is now. The same thing applies to adding lanes to streets etc. When a road runs smoothly then all car drivers want to use it and it soon becomes stuck like everywhere else. Plus you gotta think that as the population grows, so does the number of cars in the streets. Yet, the space we have to put them stays the same. Do you see the problem?

As for getting rid of cars downtown, I'm not even advocating that, but we have to work to reduce their numbers and, yes, keep some areas where they can't go.As an example, traffic has diminished by 27% in 10 years in downtown Paris. And you can see here that many many cities in the world have a car-free part of the city : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_car-free_places. Believe it or not, cars weren't originally made for the city, they were made for people who lived in the country to get to the city.

Before leaving this thread for good, here's a little something you can ponder on.

There will be more cars, I have also stated that, that's a definite, but to not make any improvements in the traffic flow now will just make a much worse problem in the future. As well, to make a handful of car free zones does not make the traffic flow to the city core go away, it just moves the same amount of cars and trucks to the adjoining streets. Go ahead, make a few car free zones, only the merchants will mind, but all they will be is just a handful of car free zones and it does not attack the congestion issue on the other 99% of the streets.

The idea for MTQ should be to make all roads run smoothly, not just one street such as just Notre Dame. If that is MTQ thinking it is very short sighted. When all roads run smoothly, cars don't have to run to the one and only one street that does.

Bikes are also not the reasonable answer for many people and it would be short sighted to think it is. It also doesn't matter what cars may have been designed for 100 years ago, in 2014 people do use cars to get them from the country suburbs to the city and to travel longer distances as a part of their daily routine. That is what cars are used for now and that is what we have to deal with now. What was relevant 100 years ago with the horse and buggy era is not relevant to today. There will always be cars and trucks, there will be more in the future than there are now, and there will always be cars in the city center. The approach has to include handling the cars more efficiently rather than just keeping old street model norms and uncontrolled biking as a way of doing things.

Bikes and pedestrians also don't mix well, just as cars and bikes don't. If cars are to be restricted and put under control, bikes also need to be put under control and be restricted to certain areas such as bike lanes and not just be the delinquents of the road and a danger to pedestrians as they are now.

Keep in mind that if cars and trucks are restricted from the city center, such as in a larger ten square mile area, what do you think will happen? Yes the cars won't come but neither will the people that the cars carry. It will not only reduce the cars, it will reduce the number of workers and shoppers. Businesses and merchants will end up moving to the suburbs where the people will go. That is an issue for many cities where the center withers already because it is out of date, and restricting people just compounds that. In turn, don't expect people in the suburbs to pay taxes and support a city center they can't get to with reasonable effort, they will fight to break away from supporting something that is useless to them. Give them their streets back or they won't come. For many it's a time shortage problem and if it takes an extra hour to get somewhere by public transit rather than use their cars, people will instead use their cars. People like moms going to the daycare from work just don't have that time and others just don't want to spend an extra hour each way on a bus or broken down metro.

Public transit has to be all reaching, very convenient, very available, and it has to be fast, else it will only get people that don't have cars and have to use it ... and Montreal's public transit is far from being what it needs to be to get the people out of their cars.

 

[Andy]

Dude... 10 000 BC called, they want their "streets" back...

I hope not serious.

Would be terrible.

Best course of action could be car free spaces like quartier des spectacles on occasion. I mean, that's fine but completely removing these things? Meh.

Assuming you're serious, mass manufacturing, shipping and other things create jobs. Sure, we'd like a greener planet and all that but I assure you if you remove these things the result will be less traffic for sure, because people won't have a job to drive to in the morning.

The correct course of action is innovation with long term planning. For example, car charging stations to promote electric vehicles. Can you imagine if the government says we have a FREE car charging station parking lot downtown, you must have an electric vehicle to park here and free of charge. People will buy these cars and use them.

At one point I believe they had if you buy a bus pass, you get bixi pass as well. This promotes the use of those bikes.

Properly zoned green spaces, bus lanes, bike lanes, etc...

We spoke about it before but if you want people to use the metro, you have to make parking at the metro accessible. May seem stupid to some but this will help dramatically reduce the traffic towards the center of downtown.

There's many things they can do and it doesn't have to be as radical as forcing people to walk.

Guys...I'm like 100% joking ahahaha. I thought it was obvious lol.

 

[LyricalLyricist]

Guys...I'm like 100% joking ahahaha. I thought it was obvious lol.

I figured as much but just in case I'm reinforcing my opinion.

You did throw me off though.

 

[Masao]

Another thing that I was thinking about today...

Say, I have an appointment with my doctor. Then I need a little tricket at Dollarama, I have to go to Jean Coutu to get my prescription, and I need a bunch of groceries at Costco. With a car I can do all of it and do the stops on my way home and it takes a few minutes to go from place to place This is impossible with public transport and bicycles.

 

[Nicko999]

My guess is you've never driven in Toronto ? They have the prettiest roads I've seen...

You clearly have never been to the States.

 

[LyricalLyricist]

You clearly have never been to the States.

It's heaven.

When a road gets paved in montreal it's got the beautiful dark black look to it. You drive on it and hear absolutely nothing.

Remember driving in florida and area I was in the majority was like that. At first it almost feels something is wrong when you don't hear and feel every bump and the worn out roads.

 

[snakeye]

The real reason for a lot of the traffic on our highways is simply bad driving. 90% of drivers are ignorant and just drive to fill every gap in front of their car thinking it'll get them home quicker, 9% cheat, and last 1% drive in an altruistic manner in order to alleviate traffic.

Even with a perfect highway infrastructure, the driving culture itself would remain the cancer and underlying cause of useless and totally preventable traffic jams all around Montreal.

 

[Alexdaman]

The real reason for a lot of the traffic on our highways is simply bad driving. 90% of drivers are ignorant and just drive to fill every gap in front of their car thinking it'll get them home quicker, 9% cheat, and last 1% drive in an altruistic manner in order to alleviate traffic.

Even with a perfect highway infrastructure, the driving culture itself would remain the cancer and underlying cause of useless and totally preventable traffic jams all around Montreal.

In the 60s the city was planning to have 14 million inhabitants by 2000. Therefore they built infrastructure with the idea that 20 years from now the city would add as much as they did back then. What happened is that there never was much done since the 60s, most of what there is now is just 50 years old structures that are simply repaired. The boom of population never occurred so the city never had the money to improve the city. Only today with the economic diversification strength of the city is much needed changes now being applied.


And to all the people saying that the only answer is public transport and bicycles for the environment and go complaining about the F1 grand prix, know that the rush hour in montreal is the second worst in terms of time spent in all of North America. This means hundreds of thousands of cars are idling and releasing pollution in the air, building more roads and highways will actually cause less pollution.

 

[KrejciMVP]

You clearly have never been to the States.

When I lived in Boston for a year, I actually wasn`t too impressed with many of their roads. Driving from Waltham to Belmont was like driving in Mexico. NH in my opinion has very nice roads. Vermont is broke and their roads are showing age as well.

 

[Masao]

Champlain bridge blocked this weekend. Traffic's going to be miserable.

When's all the construction going to stop?

 

[xposbrad]

Champlain bridge blocked this weekend. Traffic's going to be miserable.

When's all the construction going to stop?

lol Obviously that's a trick question. Montreal is famous for it's never ending construction. If you notice, things get repaired over and over again. I see pot holes get filled, then 2 months later, they are just as bad as they were before.

That's the way it's done here, half ass job, then they know they can get paid another time to fix it again. For all the construction going on, it's amazing how crappy our roads and some other infrastructure is, isn't it?

 

[WhiskeySeven*]

lol Obviously that's a trick question. Montreal is famous for it's never ending construction. If you notice, things get repaired over and over again. I see pot holes get filled, then 2 months later, they are just as bad as they were before.

That's the way it's done here, half ass job, then they know they can get paid another time to fix it again. For all the construction going on, it's amazing how crappy our roads and some other infrastructure is, isn't it?

Thank our mafia friends for that.

Can't believe people were supporting or ignoring the obvious drain corruption has on society ("the mafia keeps the gangs in check!") - over a decade of money poured into an endless well... and lining mafiosos and their employees' pockets.

There would be a lot less construction, a lot less waste, a lot less traffic if these dickheads did the job the right way once. Fire them all, bring in outside contractors from Europe if you have to, break their union or whatever agreement they have. Enough of them.

Municipal governments lack oversight and process engineering, it's just so bureaucratic and wasteful and given the smaller, more familiar scope of things, it makes things so much more prone to the corrosive effects of corruption. There HAS to be a third-party oversight, public audits, etc. We can't keep going with the pat-my-back-ill-pat-yours nonsense.

 

[ECWHSWI]

Thank our mafia friends for that.

Can't believe people were supporting or ignoring the obvious drain corruption has on society ("the mafia keeps the gangs in check!") - over a decade of money poured into an endless well... and lining mafiosos and their employees' pockets.

There would be a lot less construction, a lot less waste, a lot less traffic if these dickheads did the job the right way once. Fire them all, bring in outside contractors from Europe if you have to, break their union or whatever agreement they have. Enough of them.

Municipal governments lack oversight and process engineering, it's just so bureaucratic and wasteful and given the smaller, more familiar scope of things, it makes things so much more prone to the corrosive effects of corruption. There HAS to be a third-party oversight, public audits, etc. We can't keep going with the pat-my-back-ill-pat-yours nonsense.

supporting, sure... lots even voted them in.

 

[ECWHSWI]

There will be more cars, I have also stated that, that's a definite, but to not make any improvements in the traffic flow now will just make a much worse problem in the future. As well, to make a handful of car free zones does not make the traffic flow to the city core go away, it just moves the same amount of cars and trucks to the adjoining streets. Go ahead, make a few car free zones, only the merchants will mind, but all they will be is just a handful of car free zones and it does not attack the congestion issue on the other 99% of the streets.

The idea for MTQ should be to make all roads run smoothly, not just one street such as just Notre Dame. If that is MTQ thinking it is very short sighted. When all roads run smoothly, cars don't have to run to the one and only one street that does.

Bikes are also not the reasonable answer for many people and it would be short sighted to think it is. It also doesn't matter what cars may have been designed for 100 years ago, in 2014 people do use cars to get them from the country suburbs to the city and to travel longer distances as a part of their daily routine. That is what cars are used for now and that is what we have to deal with now. What was relevant 100 years ago with the horse and buggy era is not relevant to today. There will always be cars and trucks, there will be more in the future than there are now, and there will always be cars in the city center. The approach has to include handling the cars more efficiently rather than just keeping old street model norms and uncontrolled biking as a way of doing things.

Bikes and pedestrians also don't mix well, just as cars and bikes don't. If cars are to be restricted and put under control, bikes also need to be put under control and be restricted to certain areas such as bike lanes and not just be the delinquents of the road and a danger to pedestrians as they are now.

Keep in mind that if cars and trucks are restricted from the city center, such as in a larger ten square mile area, what do you think will happen? Yes the cars won't come but neither will the people that the cars carry. It will not only reduce the cars, it will reduce the number of workers and shoppers. Businesses and merchants will end up moving to the suburbs where the people will go. That is an issue for many cities where the center withers already because it is out of date, and restricting people just compounds that. In turn, don't expect people in the suburbs to pay taxes and support a city center they can't get to with reasonable effort, they will fight to break away from supporting something that is useless to them. Give them their streets back or they won't come. For many it's a time shortage problem and if it takes an extra hour to get somewhere by public transit rather than use their cars, people will instead use their cars. People like moms going to the daycare from work just don't have that time and others just don't want to spend an extra hour each way on a bus or broken down metro.

Public transit has to be all reaching, very convenient, very available, and it has to be fast, else it will only get people that don't have cars and have to use it ... and Montreal's public transit is far from being what it needs to be to get the people out of their cars.

maybe it's time for those drivers to re-think the whole thing... most people working downtown dont need their car during the day, it's only used in the morning to go from home to work, and at around 5 to go from work to home...

around 300 monthly for the car, plus gas, insurances, etc, downtown parking and so on...

most would be better off working less or work for a slightly lower salary close to home.