No elevated REM downtown please!

Pressure was strong on CDPQ Infra to make public the first sketches of the REM de l’Est project. It’s been done since Tuesday. Like all architects’ plans, the images are idyllic: a slender, almost translucent REM, rolling on “dancing” pylons (this is the term used by the promoter), surrounded by greenery, bicycles and passers-by. . You can almost hear the birds singing.

Behind the proposed changes, let’s recognize that there has been a lot of work. First from CDPQ Infra, which consulted and then improved the project. On the part of the committee of experts as well, which succeeded in making very enriching proposals despite its limited mandate which was to focus exclusively on the architectural aspect as well as the layout of the project, and this, without a budget to order additional expertise. His contribution made it possible to significantly improve the initial project, which is very different from that of the REM de l’Ouest.

The Eastern REM is therefore improved, but it still has several flaws. The largest remains its passage on an elevated structure planned on René-Lévesque Boulevard, in the city center.

The Fund repeats what it already said last September, that it is absolutely impossible to dig underground at this location: too complex, too risky, too expensive. Forget that ! It is in this context that the committee of experts therefore proposed an urban promenade on René-Lévesque and that the architects themselves imagined a “green” belvedere that would overlook the opening into which the train would rush, the corner of René-Lévesque and Jeanne-Mance.

Let’s face it, the teams of architects from the Lemay firm did a great job in the circumstances and within the timeframes allocated to them. They delved, pondered and thought “outside the box”. But they did what they could with what was given to them.

This belvedere is the demonstration by the absurd that a gaping hole has no place in the city center. We may have imagined greenery and walkers walking their dogs there, why would there be a raised space there? To admire what? Office buildings? The potholes below?

We cannot tolerate this fracture in the middle of downtown, a fracture that goes against the actions taken in Montreal in recent years and which aimed to get rid of the structures of the 1960s by lowering, among other things, the interchanges of Les Pins and Turcot.

We are also thinking about repairing the scar caused by the Metropolitan. And we would come and erect concrete pylons in the middle of the city? It just doesn’t make sense!

There are other irritants in the progress report presented by CDPQ Infra, including the noise barriers called “sails” which will be 2 meters high for the entire length of the route, but 4 meters in certain places. . We hope they’re translucent, but here’s another surface that could tickle graffiti artists who will have a field day and transform all this sparkling white into a surface to be cleaned again and again.

Last major irritant: the lack of connection with the Honoré-Beaugrand station, the terminus of the green line. It was the price to pay to respond to residents’ criticisms and to pass the REM on Souligny rather than Sherbrooke Est, explained the promoter.

But there is another solution that would connect the REM de l’Est to the metro’s green line while sparing the city center: stop the REM coming from Pointe-aux-Trembles at the Radisson station, which is already the arrival point for 10 bus lines, and which would thus become a key intermodal station for the east of the city.

This solution would have an impact on the Caisse’s business model, it’s true. But she would avoid making a regrettable gesture downtown.

In the end, it is up to the Legault government to decide. It was he who initially chose the REM de l’Est. It was he who dangled economic development for the east end of Montreal. He must first modify the governance model of this project so that the City of Montreal – and its mayor – is seated once and for all at the table where the decisions are made. And he has a moral duty to bring to fruition a quality project that will not disfigure the downtown core of Quebec’s metropolis.