It is a tramway which will ultimately be recommended to the Legault government to replace the REM de l’Est rather than the 36 billion underground route proposed last summer, we have learned The Press. The bill would be reduced at least by half to around 13 billion.
Several sources familiar with the matter confirmed the information in recent days on condition of anonymity, not yet authorized to speak publicly about it.
A report from the Regional Metropolitan Transport Authority (ARTM) will be submitted to the government at the end of January or beginning of February to detail this new proposal. But according to our information, a lot of discussions have already taken place behind the scenes about the need to ultimately choose the tramway, rather than an automated light train similar to the Réseau express métropolitain (REM).
According to our sources, this change would reduce the total cost estimated at around 13 billion. The proposed tramway would have 31 kilometers of rails and 28 stations, spaced 1.1 kilometers apart on average.
The construction costs of this network, which would be partly in the footprint of existing tracks, at ground level, would be close to 5 billion, according to the current estimate. It is by adding all the contingent costs, such as provisions for risks and financing costs, that we arrive at an overall bill of 13 billion.
This is a drastic reduction compared to the most recent version of the “Eastern Structuring Project” (PSE) called to replace the defunct REM de l’Est, a network originally proposed by a subsidiary of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, CDPQ Infra.
From July, The Press revealed that the final bill for the most recent version of the PSE reached 36 billion. This first ARTM scenario envisaged a 34 km underground route with a ridership of 29,000 passengers in the morning.
According to this first scenario, the automated trains would have run from Pointe-aux-Trembles to Cégep Marie-Victorin, in Montréal-Nord, with two connection points with the green metro line, in addition to an extension of four stations towards Rivière -des-Prairies, Laval and Charlemagne, in Lanaudière, all on a 100% underground route. Sectors where current public transport service is lacking.
François Legault quickly became unfavorable to the project, judging that such a cost made “no common sense”. The Minister of Transport, Geneviève Guilbault, also insisted on the fact that an “optimization effort” appeared “essential” to be able to hope to successfully complete the PSE. Then, last September, Quebec officially scrapped the idea of a 100% underground project because of its too high cost.
PHOTO HUGO-SÉBASTIEN AUBERT, THE PRESS
Traffic in eastern Montreal
Asked to find a “financially responsible proposal”, the ARTM then planned to deliver studies before the end of October on the possibility of a rapid bus service (SRB), a tram or a light transport system on rail (SLR). This process was delayed, finally being completed at the start of 2024.
A first project for the transport agency?
According to our information, the authorities envisage that the tramway in eastern Montreal could be the first project of the future transport agency intended to reduce delays and costs.
The Legault government hopes to table the bill that would create this agency next February, with a view to adoption in June. Objective: for the agency in question to be ready to operate in September. Its creation will be a priority for the next parliamentary session.
In interview with The Press in November, Minister Geneviève Guilbault confided that the expertise of CDPQ Infra should be at the heart of this new agency. The arrival of the latter will ensure that in Montreal, the role of the ARTM, whose work has been criticized more than once by the government, will at the very least be reviewed.
“Apart from the STM, which delivered the metro in recent decades, who delivered a major public transport project in contemporary history? It’s CDPQ Infra,” argued Mme Guilbault. Already, in addition to the Réseau express métropolitain in Montreal, the subsidiary of the Caisse de dépôt et placement has just received two major mandates in Quebec: to propose a scenario for a structuring transport system, the tramway project having been put on ice, and another for the third link.
Warning signs
The idea of a tramway had already been mentioned last summer by François Rebello, former PQ MP then CAQ who became rail advisor for the ARTM, on 98.5 FM.
He then argued that unlike the REM, which is automated, the tram would be equipped with a human driver, which would make it possible to design a route including intersections on the streets where the cars circulate, and therefore to lower the costs. At the time, the ARTM reframed its comments by maintaining that several options were still being studied.
At that time, however, the mayor of Montreal, Valérie Plante, had coolly welcomed the idea of transforming the Eastern Structuring Project into a tram network.
I love streetcars, our team loves streetcars. But we must not forget that it is a slower mode of transport. It fulfills other functions. We must not question the project as presented.
Valérie Plante, mayor of Montreal, last summer
It is still unknown which arteries the proposed tramway would take or if it would go as far as Lanaudière. However, certain extension options are already being studied, according to our sources. In September, Prime Minister François Legault committed, in front of an audience of business people from the region, to bringing the REM de l’Est to Lanaudière, maintaining that the connection to the north would be a “condition non-negotiable” for the success of the project.
“I want to tell you today that I guarantee you, and this is also a non-negotiable condition, that the project that we hope to submit quickly will go to Lanaudière,” said Mr. Legault, passing through at the Chamber of Commerce of the MRC of L’Assomption, the region he represents in the National Assembly as a deputy.
With the collaboration of Maxime Bergeron, The Press