Posted at 9:00 a.m.
We need to believe
You have to believe in the Eastern REM! I have lived in Pointe-aux-Trembles for 60 years. This neighborhood is also called the Far East of Montreal. The bus takes forever to get to the hospital, CEGEP or university. Service is pitiful outside of peak hours. The train offers few services outside of peak hours, only one access point. There is no longer direct access to Central Station since the work on the Mount Royal tunnel and no service on weekends. My conclusion: long live the future REM or long live the automobile… Most of the people around me dream of the REM, not to mention the positive impacts to be expected on the development of the East and its densification. Let’s have a vision of the future and not of the short term!
Manon Blais
I changed my tune
As much as I thought the REM was going to be a revolution, from now on I no longer want it to see the light of day, at least not in its current form. The cost to society will be far too great. The ARTM only raised what many had been saying for a long time: the REM should not duplicate existing structures. In addition, in urban areas such as on Notre-Dame, it must be buried. Who would have the idea of doing the blue metro line above ground? Anybody. It’s the same principle for the REM, the disadvantages would be the same. But as has been the case for the past 50 years, the politician is ready to sacrifice a former working-class neighborhood. It doesn’t pay in votes, so who cares… it’s contemptuous. In short, the REM de l’Est was only a shooting star… and a false good idea.
Jocelyn Beaudoin, lawyer, future resident of Hochelaga
Stop disfiguring Montreal
I never really believed in the Eastern REM. In any case, not as presented in the current project: too expensive, in competition with the green line of the metro, a visual and environmental horror! Driving regularly on Highway 10 and Boulevard Décarie, I can see the lack of aesthetics (a euphemism…) of the REM de l’Ouest. Erecting such a high structure in the city center and Sherbrooke Street seems to me an aberration. Moreover, the north of Montreal being already disfigured by the Metropolitan, we would only disfigure our city further. Note, however, that I completely agree that the east and north of Montreal should be better served by public transport. But it seems to me that we could find ways to do it that are less expensive, more efficient and more aesthetic than the Eastern REM. This would obviously require greater and “smarter” collaboration between our municipal and provincial governments.
Diane Roussel
An announced disaster
I am responding to this appeal to everyone on the Eastern REM as a former citizen of eastern Montreal who has lived in Gaspésie for almost five years. I want to make myself heard because I lived for 30 years on rue Dubuisson, opposite the railway line where there is now talk of raising the REM. It’s nonsense (I won’t go into the debate on town planning, the vibration problem, the ugliness, the noise, the dust in such a quiet residential area. I want to cry out my despair just to think about it). The REM de l’Est project as currently presented is an announced disaster. I come to the mode of transport. My mom didn’t have a car, and I took public transportation throughout my childhood, teens, and college years. I know that everything is not perfect, but I got along very well with our buses and the metro, I don’t know why people always want more. Even in my last years in Montreal, I lived at the end of Pointe-aux-Trembles, just before the bridges for Repentigny, and there were express buses, I never suffered from the service, and moreover now there is the commuter train. Why add a REM in the East? To do like Mirabel airport? To throw billions out the window? It’s a project that has no purpose, we have to think about other solutions.
Julie Vaillancourt, engineer
A long wait
Being a Pointelier since I was born, it was with great pleasure that I heard the announcement in December 2020 that there would be an REM branch east of Montreal. We are very poorly served by public transport and it is not “express” bus routes that will correct the situation, nor the tramway for that matter because of our climate. The train seems to me to be the best option for providing users with fast and comfortable service. Can this Eastern branch be better integrated and complementary to current networks? Certainly, but cutting the ax in this project will only push back to the Greek calendars a structuring project for the east end of Montreal that we have been waiting for for decades.
Mario Pelletier
Inadequate gait
I think it’s a project that was a poor response to a real problem. The Legault government still seems inadequate when it comes to the environment and transportation. The REM de l’Est is a good example. That the Caisse de depot et placement du Québec is the prime contractor is an aberration in itself. Its mandate is to produce performance, not to serve the citizens concerned. Why not involve the specialists and the population in the framework of a joint approach so that the project meets the needs of these citizens.
Claude Marcoux
The users of tomorrow
Yes, I believe in it and without reservations. This project essentially concerns mobility and the development of the territory. Montreal has been waiting for this type of project for a very long time. It is no longer the time to procrastinate. Let’s go ahead and get this going now. The City is interested in it, which gives us the chance to improve the project for its integration in the environments where it will pass. It’s totally achievable. The people who complain about it today will be the users of this mode of transport tomorrow.
Daniel Valiquette
Don’t lock us in anymore
No, I no longer believe in the Eastern REM. I live in the Mercier-Ouest district and I am very apprehensive about this aerial structure which will make my neighborhood even more ugly and enclave. We are already served by the green line metro. We would no longer need a tramway on rue Notre-Dame which would cross the city from east to west. I suggest instead to continue the green line metro after Honoré-Beaugrand, as well as the blue line. People want fast and complementary active transportation to get downtown, but also to get around within their neighborhoods. This would improve our quality of life and also accessibility to local and commercial activities in the east end of Montreal.
Isabelle Durand
The East deserves better
The media often mention the pillars of REM 1 which are “essentially” in industrial areas or on motorway rights-of-way. They forget to mention that nearly half of the route (32 km out of 67) comes from the Deux-Montagnes line, which is located almost entirely in a residential area. And that there are large portions of the route that are aerial. These horrible concrete pillars, topped with massive beams, are of an ugliness only surpassed by the walls that replace the pillars in the sloping sections. See what it looks like at the corner of rue Alexander and rue de la Station in the borough of Pierrefonds-Roxboro. It’s scary! So building an entirely aerial line is a no! Residents of the East, where public transport is poor, deserve better!
Josée Riopel, Sunnybrooke station
What we can do with 10 billion
I lived for 10 years in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, near Morgan Park. I saw its transformation and the embellishment of rue Morgan to the Maisonneuve market and its beautiful farmer’s wife. I have lived in Pointe-aux-Trembles for 20 years now. The public transport service is well below what is done elsewhere on the island. It is enough that one of the two main arteries, Notre-Dame or Sherbrooke, is blocked (accident, work, strike, demonstration) to make the return from the city center by bus hellish. The river shuttle was an excellent initiative, but it is only available in the summer. The REM would solve the problem of access to the city center. In its current form, however, it is a bad project. The thought of concrete pillars along Morgan Park, with all the catenaries, sends shivers down my spine. And without discussing what is projected on René-Lévesque… With the new reality of telecommuting, I no longer see traffic jams as a disaster, I will only have to go downtown two days a week. It’s not so bad… There are bound to be other solutions. Why not extend the green line to Pointe-aux-Trembles? Refineries are an obstacle, you can’t get past them. So why not get the land trains out on Sherbrooke Street before the refineries? Even if it means protecting them from the weather by having them travel a short distance in a tube like the Hyperloop? Yes, we need a transport solution for the east end of the city. But not at the expense of other neighborhoods. I am against the current version of this Eastern REM. With 10 billion on the table, surely there is a better option.
Jean-François Durocher, citizen of the east end of Montreal
We demand the best
Everyone agrees that it takes a good structuring transportation project for the east end of Montreal, including Rivière-des-Prairies. Unfortunately, the CDPQ Infra project does not meet the needs of Rivière-des-Prairies. It wildly crosses Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, mortgaging the green strip along Notre-Dame, Morgan Park and then the residential neighborhoods in Tétreaultville, then the homes along Sherbrooke in Pointe-aux-Trembles. The residents of Montreal East are also forgotten since there is no station planned for them. The sound that the train will generate is not to be neglected either. CDPQ Infra calculates the noise over a 24-hour period instead of measuring the sound in real time. The REM will pass within 150 meters of at least three schools. Windows open, hard to concentrate with sound peaks every 2-4 minutes. There are several structuring transport project offers on the table. We must not let ourselves be blinded by CDPQ Infra and its business model, which has nothing to do with the real needs of users. We demand the best. And for the moment, we have to admit that what is offered to us is really not the best. I am a resident of rue Dubuisson. The REM should pass 20 m from the front of my house. I’m against. But I was also against it when it had to pass Sherbrooke Street. You can’t change the vocation of residential neighborhoods without taking the people who live there into consideration, right?
Julie Cadieux