Valérie Plante reiterated her wish, Thursday, to see the City of Montreal be involved in the decisions in the case of the Eastern Metropolitan Express Network (REM). The mayor said that when the route change was announced two weeks ago, the City had only been notified the day before.
“It’s major. A route on Sherbrooke, with the impacts for the population, has changed and we know it the day before, ”lamented the mayor on Thursday, on the sidelines of a press conference on the relaunch of rue Saint-Denis.
On January 25, CDPQ Infra, the subsidiary of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), announced that the route of the REM de l’Est would be modified over a distance of more than 4.5 kilometers in order to the train on a railway right-of-way located near Souligny Avenue, in the Mercier-Est district, rather than in the axis of Sherbrooke Street.
“For me, this is tangible proof that we are not at the decision-making table,” said the mayor. “I think that if we want it to work, we have to work hand in hand. The mayor even said that the City had proposed, a year ago, that a route near Souligny Street be considered, but that this suggestion had not been followed up.
Valérie Plante is calling for the creation of a joint project office within which the City would have a decision-making role on the future REM de l’Est, which will cross several districts of the city. Does the mayor want a right of veto on the project? “I work as a team so I’m not in veto mode,” she replied.
The City participates in the work of several committees set up by CDPQ Infra, but its role is advisory, she specified. “Those who have the big end of the stick in this project are the CDPQ and the Quebec government,” she said.
However, the mayor insisted that the REM de l’Est was a project that the City wanted to see happen. The investments of $500 million that her administration intends to devote to it are proof of this, she added. Valérie Plante also indicated that she had discussed Wednesday with the Minister of the Metropolis, Chantal Rouleau, and that she had shown an openness to the government contributing to the financing of the facilities and urban integration of the REM.
A “beautiful adjusted project”
In the chamber on Thursday, François Legault came under criticism from opposition parties. Liberal leader Dominique Anglade criticized the prime minister for wanting to discredit the Regional Metropolitan Transport Authority (ARTM), which, in a notice sent to the government last week, recommended that other transport options be considered. She also accused him of relying on the mayor to decide the future of the project.
“I told the mayoress of Montreal, and I repeated to her two days ago, that the government is also ready to make an effort — I’m not talking about the Caisse, I’m talking about the government — to have this beautiful project to develop the East of Montreal”, answered François Legault.
The Prime Minister underlined that Mayor Plante considered that the leaders of the Caisse were “a little harsh in the negotiations”. “The Caisse will carry out the project, but, to draw the project, we accepted, indeed, that the mayor, the representative of the City of Montreal, be in a committee to redraw the project”, he advanced, promising that there would eventually be a “beautiful announcement of a beautiful adjusted project”.