Can Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa's LRTs withstand Canadian winters?

When David St-Pierre saw the snow outside his window in Brossard, Que., south of Montreal, he decided to chance the metropolitan region's shiny light-rail transit system once more. 

St-Pierre was among the thousands of commuters relying on new light-rail transit systems in Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa who were disappointed Thursday, when all three cities saw their new train lines face either complete or partial shutdowns after a heavy overnight snowfall. 

"I kind of rolled the dice," said St-Pierre, who waited 50 minutes at the REM Brossard station before a train finally arrived. 

The interrupted commutes have prompted questions about whether the services were adequately designed for Canadian winters.

"It's quite a scratch-your-head-and-wonder," said Steve Munro, a Toronto transit advocate, who recently conducted an analysis showing travel times on the Finch Line are often longer than they were for the buses it replaced.

"I don't think that they have factored in winter as much as they should," said Lavagnon Ika, a professor of project management at the University of Ottawa.

Indeed, this Canadian winter has proven dicey — and some experts CBC spoke with say winter hitches may just just have been part of the tradeoff these cities took when opting for LRT systems instead of much more expensive underground subway lines. 

"You get one interruption every year or every two years when there's very heavy snow — and normally you won't get the interruptions — but you take that risk. Or, you pay seven times more," to dig tunnels, said Ahmed El-Geneidy, a professor at McGill University's school of urban planning. 

El-Geneidy says he's surprised Montreal's REM didn't launch with more snow removal mechanisms.

Heavier trains, such as diesel-powered suburban transit trains, struggle far less with snow and ice because of their weight and the strength of their engines, he explained.

The Reseau Express Metropolitain (REM) launched in St-Pierre's area two years ago and faced several snags — many of them weather-related — but had improved since, and St-Pierre wanted to believe it could withstand the 30 or so centimetres of snow, relatively typical to Quebec winters.

A newer REM line heading north of the city was launched to much excitement in November. Part of that line runs underground and has had a smoother launch than the Brossard line in 2023. 

But Thursday morning, many parts of the REM, namely the Deux-Montagnes line, were down or operating at extremely reduced speeds. So was Toronto's new Finch Line LRT, as well as Ottawa's Line 2 diesel LRT, which reopened after upgrades last year.

The Finch Line — which by Thursday evening was still not up and running again — has been mocked for its issues since launching late last year.