@mtlfan I’m responding here as our discussion was more about the whole branch/REM project then Des Sources station.
That’s true, but I wouldn’t be surprised if CDPQ get a deal or convinced the mall at Fairview to accept paid parking. It’s not unheard of. Their parking is absolutely huge and behind the Réno-Dépot nobody ever uses it. So it wouldn’t be a loss to them.
Although that now that I think about it, there are no amenities to allow people to safely cross the road (which is an intersection between a service road where people go 70 and a street where there’s nothing and people go 60 easily on.
I think the A3 branch really show the limits of the CDPQ approach to public transit. Planning around a financial incentive doesn’t create the best environment for great public transit. Obviously we’ll have to wait for the opening to see how true this is. But to me it really feels like the whole A3 branch is just massive compromise to minimize to the maximum possible risk for them to the point of it being ridiculous. The A1 branch was plan alongside an highway redesign and Brossard and Du Quartier stations where in the middle of nowhere where it’s cheap for CDPQ to build parking and for developper to build housing without risk.
The A4 branch is an old train line where cities were already planned around them and parking was already present (so CDPQ did not had to buy expensive land for it)
The A3 line would have been better in my opinion if it was built under the hydro lines in the West Island. You could have excused the lack of parking and as it’s already a busy transit place for people. But obviously that’s risky building there because of nimbyism and having to deal with Hydro Quebec an other entity.
The much less risky option is expropriating some land along the highway, it’s comparatively cheap and nimby won’t oppose it. But it’s still not free so you minimize it to the bare minimum while hopping cities and landowner will patch the few holes your plan has. Like the lack of access to your stations. Long term it might workout for them. But it’s poor planing when looking at the whole West Island.
(Also the numbers I gave about parking came directly for the REM website)