Eastern REM 2.0 | Two experts offer a “revised and improved” route

Two former members of the REM de l’Est expert committee are sounding the alarm: Quebec and Montreal will have to preserve the connection with the city center to make it an “efficient” network. A few days before the start of the electoral campaign, they are proposing a “revised and improved” route for the east of the metropolis.

Henri Ouellette-Vezina
The Press

“After all these meetings to discuss, ending up with this project seemed insufficient to us. What is on the table currently has great limits, ”explained the general manager of Vivre en ville, Christian Savard, during a technical meeting on Thursday.

The other former expert on the CDPQ Infra committee, the president of the Société de développement Angus Christian Yaccarini, also says that he “felt the need to make a new proposal”. “We want the committee’s mandate to be broadened to include a downtown connection. You have to tell the political parties: you have to broaden the mandate of the group, to make a connection with the heart of the metropolis,” he said.

Concretely, the new proposal of the two experts suggests several modifications to the three branches of the light rail. First, the East branch – still aerial – would have the same route as that of the CDPQ Infra project, except that it would go up “to the north to connect to the green line at L’Assomption”. It would then continue to a “common branch” which would have the Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital as a “junction point”, with the possibility of extending to Lanaudière.

On the north branch, MM. Savard and Yaccarini propose to take the current route, but to make it “fork” towards this same “common branch”, with a possible extension towards Rivière-des-Prairies. Everything would be underground.

The north and east branches would therefore meet at Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont, a “strategic” place because it is located between the blue and green lines, and then “continue westward in Rosemont and the Plateau”. This common branch, underground, would then head “south towards the city center by connecting to the orange line at Sherbrooke station and the green line at Saint-Laurent station”, to then join Central Station. Ultimately, their proposal would include six new transfer points on the future REM de l’Est: the possible Lacordaire station, L’Assomption, Sherbrooke and Saint-Laurent stations, as well as Central Station and Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital.

All “augmented” possibilities

“With our proposal, we are ensuring that people from the East can have access to a single transfer to [toute l’île] much more easily, which increases the possibilities exponentially,” said Mr. Savard. According to him, reviewing the route would also allow “better service” to several neighborhoods, including Montreal North, “the poor relation of public transport”.

The two experts do not hide it, however: their proposal will necessarily increase the costs of the Eastern REM, which is currently estimated at 10 billion. “Is it going to cost more than 10 billion? Most likely. However, this is the kind of investment needed to bring public transit up to standard in Montreal. If it’s costing us dearly now, it’s because we haven’t done anything for 40, 50 years. We have a lot of catching up to do,” said Mr. Savard.

” When we want we can. And we have no choice, we have to. There is a real political will from Quebec and Montreal to carry out a project. If the government is ready to pay to bring the REM to the other side of the river, to Lanaudière, we must connect with the heart of the network. It’s nonsense to take people from Terrebonne and send them anywhere without connections,” added Mr. Yaccarini.

Montreal and Quebec will decide

The experts’ proposal was sent to Quebec and Montreal, which announced in May that they would take over the torch from the Eastern REM, whose social acceptability was not there. CDPQ Infra was therefore ousted from the project. Abandonment of the downtown route, new connection with the green line, potential extensions to Laval and Lanaudière: the REM de l’Est had then completely changed direction.

Since then, the new committee in charge of the project – made up of the STM, the ARTM, the Ministère des Transports and the City of Montréal – has met regularly. MM. Savard and Yaccarini claim to feel “open” from this committee to review the project.

“The committee now has the studies carried out by CDPQ infra, which allows it to speed up its work. […] We are therefore confident that they will be able to submit a proposal to us within the prescribed deadlines, ”raised Thursday the press attaché to the office of the minister responsible for the Metropolis, Catherine Boucher.

The Plante administration, for the moment, favors “the underground option in the Mercier-Est sector”, because it “crosses residential neighborhoods”. According to our sources, the Plante administration is not closed to aerial sections in other sectors, as long as they “integrate well into their environment”.