Over at spacing, there’s an article about the proposed return of streetcars to Montréal.  Nothing on the grand scheme of Transit City, but a first step.  Let’s hope Toronto manages to build something of their new network rather than spending endless years on studies.

Update:  Bryan Adare sent in a comment pointing out that a lot of the design in the study documents (linked from the first comment to this post) looks much more like ICTS technology than LRT.  Oddly, examples cited of working systems go all the way from full-blown grade-separated automatic ICTS systems down to true LRT lines like the Minneapolis Hiawatha line.  One wonders whether the authors of the study entirely understand what they are talking about.

If you compare the description of the line in La Presse to the one in the study, it is clear that there are two separate schemes here:

• one is for an ICTS Mark-II high capacity line south across the St. Lawrence to address congestion on the Champlain Bridge, and
• the other for a true LRT line linking downtown with Old Montréal.

Unfortunately, Montréal seems to have a common problem with Toronto:  people use the term “LRT” interchangeably for both modes when ICTS is quite bluntly not LRT because it require a completely dedicated right-of-way.