Busy managing the problems of repeated breakdowns of the Réseau express métropolitain (REM) between Brossard and downtown Montreal, CDPQ Infra has decided to withdraw from the project to extend the automated train on the South Shore, in the axis from Taschereau Boulevard.
“Our priority is currently to ensure the reliability of the South Shore antenna of the REM, a reliability that users have the right to expect,” indicated Monday evening Michelle Lamarche, director of media and content relations. digital from CDPQ Infra. This specifies that the teams of the subsidiary of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec are actively working on the file of the other REM branches which will enter their testing phase in the spring. In addition, at the request of the Legault government, CDPQ Infra must undertake analysis work on mobility needs in Quebec and a report must be submitted in June, added Mme Lamarche.
“A project on the South Shore would require mobilizing teams that are not currently available. In all cases, the working parameters, such as city development plans and the economic context, have changed in recent years and the studies that had been carried out would need to be updated,” underlines Michelle Lamarche.
In 2020, Quebec announced that it was considering an extension of the REM in the areas of Taschereau Boulevard and the extension of the yellow metro line, in Longueuil, and announced that it was entrusting CDPQ Infra with the mandate to identify the “optimal solution for a structuring mobility project” for the South Shore.
However, following a meeting held Friday with the Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Geneviève Guilbault, the mayors of Longueuil and Brossard asked the government to entrust the file to its future public transport agency, revealed Radio-Canada Monday. Mayors Catherine Fournier and Doreen Assaad believe that the extension project could be carried out more quickly if it were entrusted to the future agency that Quebec plans to create.
CDPQ Infra is plunged into turmoil these days due to the multiple REM outages that have occurred in recent days and the frustration of users exasperated by service outages and communication problems.
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