The establishment of a transport infrastructure has three dimensions: the choice of route, that of the mode and the methods of establishment.
First term of the equation, the route must respond to a network design, so as to promote intermodality and optimal service to the targeted areas. By subordinating the first two terms of this equation to its business plan – a light rail train – CPDQ Infra submits the coherence of the Greater Montreal multimodal network to its financial interests and does not optimally meet the needs of the East. of Montreal, far from it. This uncompromising positioning – take it or leave it, we insisted – generates a serious problem of implantation which we are trying to persuade us that will be solved by an architectural signature. However, the examples mentioned in the file published in Press of November 22 by the architect Jean-Paul Viguier to convince us of this do not stand up to analysis.
Read Marc Tison’s dossier
The example of the Confluence leisure and shopping center in Lyon is irrelevant. The problem in Montreal is not to cross an existing rail corridor, but to establish an infrastructure of many kilometers in built environments. If there is a comparison between Lyon and Montreal, it is on the side of the row of Place Ville-Marie, Central Station and Place Bonaventure overlapping the trench where the CN railways are located that you have to watch. And if there is one lesson to be learned, it is that tunnel routes are far preferable.
The examples of the Orange Monde headquarters in Issy-les-Moulineaux and the residential building in Toulouse are also irrelevant. It is certainly not forbidden to think that the REM could encourage the construction of real estate complexes. But that is not the question.
We simply cannot reduce the CPDQ Infra project to a string of remarkable buildings. On the other hand, we must seriously worry about the impact of the REM on existing built environments, remarkable or not.
The example of line B of the Rennes metro is hardly more valid. Of course, the proposed image makes a good impression. The section shown is elegant. The fact remains that the location chosen to illustrate the project makes the architectural signature look good. However, this is not the kind of environment that the designers of the REM will face. Far from making infrastructure look good, built environments – at least most of them – will instead suffer from its many drawbacks.
Jean-Paul Viguier, whose services were retained by CPDQ Infra, also recalls that certain examples reported by journalist Marc Tison were carried out in countries which have a great culture of intermodality, of balance between different modes of transport. transport. They are, he insists, ahead of us. This candid admission is all the more surprising given that the Eastern REM was designed in isolation, without the knowledge of the regional metropolitan transport authority, and that CPDQ Infra recognizes that part of the ridership of its trains will be based on cannibalization of customers of the green and blue metro lines, the East train and the SRB Pie-IX. Obviously, to say that they are ahead of us is an understatement.
The architect also mentions that the “primary objective of transport infrastructure is no longer to link sectors that specialize in an activity – business, commerce, industry, housing, leisure – but to create places where all functions are accessible in less than 15 minutes, using the transport best suited to the needs of the moment ”. While this trendy city design is appealing, it is a far cry from the cut to the lips. A large part of the areas served by the REM have been developed according to a segregative principle and have densities that contradict this conception, while being endowed with great inertia.
And, it must be emphasized, the transport needs of residents, workers, students and consumers in the East, although distributed in specialized sectors, are very real and are only very incidentally satisfied by the REM.
It is worth remembering in this regard that only 13% of public transport users in the morning rush hour go to the city center, which should be enough to cast doubt on the merits of a radial route characteristic of the city. second half of the 19th centurye century and early twentiethe century.
Contrary to what CPDQ Infra is in the interest of claiming, the REM de l’Est project cannot be reduced to a problem of architectural design. It is fundamentally the questions of layout and mode that are problematic. CPDQ Infra has every interest in our not being able to understand it. This is what the demagogic argument of the architectural signature is for.
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