Construction continues on future West Island REM stations without parking plan
Discussions surrounding parking at two future REM stations on the West Island remain stalled with no confirmed plan in place.
REM spokesperson Jean-Vincent Lacroix says at this stage in the construction no parking spaces have been allotted to the future Kirkland and Pointe-Claire electric light-rail stations.
“We never said there was not going to be parking, what we said is it has to be confirmed,” Lacroix said.
Some 500 parking spots were included in the initial planning of the Kirkland site situated on the grounds of RioCan Centre.
Another 1,500 were promised at the station next to the Fairview shopping centre in 2016.
Currently, the REM says it is still in talks about the parking situation at both locations with land developers to find a solution.
Discussions have been ongoing for the last three years.
“It takes time to have this type of agreement but we are working on that,” Lacroix said.
The current state of limbo is raising concern with Pointe-Claire Mayor John Belvedere.
He says having available parking is essential for West Island commuters who use their vehicles to get to the station.
“We live on the West Island. It’s not easy to get around,” Belvedere said.
“We don’t have bus stops on the corner of every street so we need parking for people to move around and cross the highway.”
Belvedere says the success of the REM station depends on people having access.
“They want the REM to work and the way to do that is to get the people there. They’re going to have to put the infrastructure in place or there will be no ridership.”
The current state of the project has West Island commuters on edge as well.
A petition calling on parking to be put in place at the Kirkland station has been circulating online.
Resident Karen Cliffe, who launched the call, says she can’t understand how parking wasn’t one of the first things established in the planning of this project.
“When I look at a project of this magnitude and how they can possibly build something like this without a plan?” Cliffe said.
She worries about the future development plans set to begin at the RioCan centre and how they will affect the possible parking set at the future REM station.
RioCan announced plans to revitalize the area. It’s partnered with the Broccolini Real Estate Group for a massive redevelopment amid the arrival of the future REM station.
The new project will transform the 1.5-million-square-foot property.
It will be a mix of residential housing, approximately 240,000 square feet of office space and 135,000 square feet for commercial use.
“Why don’t we know if there is parking yet when there’s that type of development coming?” Cliffe said.
It’s a similar situation for the Pointe-Claire station.
Cadillac Fairview announced its plans to develop almost 50 hectares of land just west of the mall in Pointe-Claire.
It’s slated to be transformed into high-rise housing, office spaces a hotel and more.
It’s being called the West Island’s own downtown.
Lacroix says the silver lining in these ongoing discussions is the future REM stations are still under construction and there is still time before the scheduled date of completion, which is set for the year 2024.
In the meantime, other alternatives such as increasing STM busing to the stations, are being considered to help commuters access the REM.
I simply do not understand how these people are so out of touch with reality…
Le West Island est un microcosme en soi, ça ne me surprend pas vraiment.
On observe des réactions similaires sur la rive sud. La Caisse n’a pas a amputé ces précieux terrains pour ça. Les bus plus fréquents, sur davantage de coins de rues, ça s’en vient. Il manque de trottoirs, mais ça c’est la responsabilité des villes liées et arrondissements concernés.
Bien que totalement en désaccord, je comprends leur réaction. C’est vraiment une géante vague d’urbanité qui est en train de frapper le west island.
Sorry, there simply won’t suddenly be bus stops on every corner, or sidewalks, or protected bike lanes, or active-transport overpasses above the 40. Even with “extra” buses available after the makeover, it won’t happen. You can’t turn Pierrefonds into the Plateau just by dropping a metro line three kilometres away. Some streets here don’t even have curbs and storm drains, but residents are expected to walk to the bus 600m away in January? The only hope right now is change at 275 Notre-Dame Est this fall, and a reversal of the “Emprise A440” joke, which would allow more of a grid pattern for local buses, and reduce the amount of car traffic in which those rush hour buses would otherwise undoubtedly be ensnared.
I’m not even talking about protected bike lanes and whatnot, or overpasses; just more frequent and accessible buses and very basic sidewalks. I’m thinking less Plateau, and more Montreal-Nord, Anjou, RDP, Pointe-au-Trembles, Mercier. Most residential streets in the east-end have sidewalks and, are fairly close and accessible to 10 max and 10-30 min lines, with some overlap. There’s not much that can be done about the grid, but those 2 very basic things go a long way and and aren’t that big of a stretch.
Yeah, it simply won’t happen. That’s what I mean. They won’t put sidewalks, they won’t remove the snow banks, and there won’t be more efficient buses. There are very few West Island streets that can accommodate everything they’d like to do to Plateauize it. People here drive, and most families living in SFDUs have more than one car. So our narrow streets have no sidewalks but they do have parked cars. Unlike the centre or the east (or really, unlike anywhere in the denser core from Ahuntsic to Rosemont), outer suburbs that were developed in the mid-20th century around mostly SFDUs were built with meandering, narrow streets and culs-de-sac, at a time when most families in them had a single car and most moms didn’t leave for work and kids happily and safely walked to school. Today, these narrow, illogically planned streets can barely accommodate 21st century car traffic, let alone 12 metre buses, and because of the limits of the 1950s design in the modern world, residents here can’t just walk 100m (on a non-existent sidewalk) to the next secondary street to catch a bus, and I’ll repeat: that won’t change now or in any foreseeable future just because a metro line is being built a few km away. There really are few viable remedies to that, and it would take unheard-of collaboration at all levels of government to at least begin to address it, and the current administration in Vieux-Montréal has no desire to actually listen to anybody out here. 
What’s the solution? Massive parking at REM stations instead of residential development?
Not to be snarky here, I’m actually asking a question 
Why the fixation on the Plateau? Why would the West Island need to be “Plateauize” to make it easier to get to a station without a car?
Storm drains? Lets build them. Regardless of the planning choices of the 1950s, they’re essential. No sidewalks? Where possible, build sidewalks. Street too narrow for two full size sidewalks? Add a sidewalk on one side and a curb on the other. Consider easement for the most important streets. Cul-de-sac hinders mobility? Build paved passages from one cul-de-sac to another where space is available so people can walk in 100m what would normally be a 1km walk. Busses to big for some street? Lets use smaller busses, improve rush hour shuttle service.
Those aren’t farfetched, or “Plateuistic” interventions, or inherently incompatible with the West Island; some of those are already planned around the stations.
I’ve posted this video before — what streets in my area look like through most of the winter, every winter.
I’m about 700m along these icy, narrow, poorly plowed and unlit streets to the nearest bus stop along traffic-clogged Antoine-Faucon, which is planned to be a bus parking lot when the proposed A440-bus-lane-and-bike-path is built in time for the Kirkland station’s debut. Or if I want to go the wrong direction, I’m about 400m along these same streets to the nearest bus stop on boulevard de Pierrefonds. The current hope is that with this A440 proposal, a relatively direct bus route will go up des Cageux to Meloche, then Château-Pierrefonds to Antoine-Faucon. This could serve a relatively good area in the station’s catchment. But a better idea would be to extend the A440 bus/bike road all the way to boulevard Gouin, and build lit paths between properties parallel to the A440 road to get more people to walk or scoot to the bus stops.
Edit: the dog-legged blue line at the end of Antoine-Faucon should be purple, a new section of road to accommodate the buses to the A440.
That’s all very idealistic. Now take any overpass in the West Island, none have been repaired or replaced in 40 years. Do you honestly think the borough can beg the city to redevelop a busy secondary or tertiary road in the middle of the subdivision to modern standards when they can’t even get the primary roads rebuilt?
Maybe. Or maybe you’re (justifiably) being too pessimistic. Even exo5, maybe the worst exo line, lead to those improvements in the east end. I know we will see similar improvements in the West Island.
EDIT: Yes, the street pattern does make these interventions and even snow removal harder. I don’t think we should minimize that, but I don’t think we should underestimate what can be done either.
Not the same budgets or responsabilities (overpass vs secondary road)
These boroughs or cities have been neglecting their street infrastructure for too long because they were content in having car-centric neighborhoods. Now they have no choice but to improve, except they would rather have it stay the same because it’s more convenient and less costly.
Wow! That’s a terrible clearing job! In Top 3 worst I’ve seen easy. Though I am really impressed that people are parking in their driveway.
Wait. So the centre city decides what a borough can and can’t do, but it’s the borough’s fault for not doing it?
I’m not sure I understand… so it’s impossible to improve the roads in West Island’s de-merged cities because of la Ville-Centre?
Look… there’s an entire spectrum between bad suburbia and “plateauized” neighbourhoods. There are things West Island municipalities can do to improve their streets, their snow plowing operations and to favour mass transportation. They just refuse to do it because it would anger their constituents.
Since when is taking a bus to a subway station a tragic threat to suburbia and an attempt to “Plateauize” an entire city?
Well, Pierrefonds (the only borough in the West Island) has their own budget to manage certain things under thier authority (local roads, parks, etc). That is the very purpose of a borough. Do you think the centre city approves and pays entirely for sidewalk refections in Ahuntsic?
That’s even more true for demerged municipalities who handle their own budgets and decide most of what goes on on their territory. That includes snow removal and sidewalks but not entire overpasses (which I believe even involves the MTQ).
I think you missed the entire point of my post.
Par rapport à aujourd’hui, est-ce que les gens du West Island vont perdre quelque chose? Non. Les gens qui allaient en auto prendre le train Vaudreuil vont pouvoir continuer de le faire. Il y en a même qui vont trouver le moyen de stationner près des nouvelles stations du REM.
En parallèle, le réseau de bus sera revu en profondeur et donc amélioré. Petit à petit, la clientèle va se former sur les nouvelles stations, le développement immobilier va faire son oeuvre et les usagers seront au rendez-vous.