Something major happened during the meeting of Prime Minister François Legault and Mayor Valérie Plante. In the case of the Réseau express métropolitain (REM) in the East, we started to work according to the needs of the residents of the east of Montreal instead of the sole interests of the promoter.
“We must do a lot more to make the Eastern REM more acceptable,” said the Premier.
To understand the importance of this statement, we have to go back in time to the beginning of the REM West project. The then Prime Minister, Philippe Couillard, saw it as his legacy for future generations.
He therefore gave the promoter, CDPQ Infra, a subsidiary of the Caisse de dépôt, exorbitant powers in matters of expropriation, development and layout, while ceding important infrastructure such as the tunnel under the mountain at a low price. Royal and the Deux-Montagnes commuter train line.
All for 99 years, renewable, but which the Fund can cease to operate after only five years. Mr. Couillard said “yes” to everything!
Mr. Legault’s declaration sets the record straight. It simply says what should have been the position of the Government of Quebec from the start: the REM must be at the service of public transport users.
Now, to continue in this direction, the first step is to decouple the Eastern REM from the business model of CDPQ Infra, whose profitability is ensured by a fixed fee based on the kilometer traveled by each passenger.
This means that the longer the passenger stays in the REM wagons, the more profitable it is for the promoter. Result: we will duplicate and even cannibalize existing infrastructures.
Clearly, this means that the east of Montreal already has an effective link with the city center – the green metro line, which is still underused between Berri-UQAM and the east.
The needs are not between the Honoré-Beaugrand station and the city center, they are east of the last station of the green line. According to the latest origin-destination survey from the Metropolitan Regional Transport Authority (2018), during the morning rush hour, only 13% of passengers from the East go to the city center.
To carry out the project to open up neighborhoods in eastern Montreal, a set of means can be used: the REM, that is. But also fast bus service, reserved lanes, suburban trains and even an extension of the metro.
PHOTO DAVID BOILY, PRESS ARCHIVES
Sherbrooke Street East near Honoré-Beaugrand station
To do this, we must get out of the false debates in which the “take it or leave it” attitude of CDPQ Infra has locked us up.
First, we will abandon the “beautiful against not beautiful”. We cannot make a project really useful for users just by adding aesthetics if the route and the necessary connections with other modes of transport are not optimized.
In particular, we will not reduce the horror of concrete pylons on René-Lévesque Boulevard or Sherbrooke Street East by making it prettier, or even a signature.
We must also get out of the false debate “the REM in height or no REM”. The REM project is high for one reason: to minimize CDPQ Infra’s operating costs to maximize performance. The Caisse is keen on its automated trains without drivers.
But if the price to pay is this concrete scar that will separate neighborhoods from each other and be very expensive in construction and maintenance, is this really the optimal way to serve users? This debate must take place, even if CDPQ Infra has done everything to avoid it.
Finally, can we give back to the experts whose mandate it is to plan the public transport network in Greater Montreal, instead of letting CDPQ Infra place its projects on top of the existing infrastructure and without consultation with anyone?
Since 2017, the Autorité régionale de transport métropolitain (ARTM) was supposed to be responsible for the planning, organization and financing of public transit in Greater Montreal.
But from the start, the REM has been designed in isolation by CDPQ Infra without significant intervention from the ARTM. It will not submit the conclusions of its internal study on the REM until early 2022. It will be necessary to ensure that it is taken into account.
Especially since it is at the ARTM that we find the expertise and the overall vision of transport in the region. Substituting the logic of CDPQ Infra’s performance alone for this expertise was, in a way, the original sin of the REM.
Fortunately, there is still time to remedy the situation and make it a project for the needs of the users.