Starting Monday, users of the Réseau express métropolitain (REM) will officially no longer have to make a long detour via the Longueuil terminus in the event of a breakdown, as reported The Press.
This was confirmed by the Autorité régionale de transport métropolitain (ARTM) in a press release issued on Thursday. As of September 16, the emergency shuttle service will be improved during peak hours in the afternoon, to reduce the journey between the South Shore and Central Station by 20 to 30 minutes.
Until now, when a breakdown occurred on the REM between 2 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., users had to take the yellow metro line and go to the Longueuil terminus, then take a bus to one of the South Shore stations. In the morning and the rest of the day, however, shuttles left from the Terminus centre-ville (TCV).
From now on, all buses will leave from very close to the Central Station, in front of Place Bonaventure, on De La Gauchetière Street, towards the REM stations.
Originally, as previously reported in our pages, the protocol had been designed primarily for reasons of bus availability and road traffic in downtown Montreal. However, measures formally adopted in recent days have made it possible to facilitate peak traffic by making right turns on the Robert-Bourassa axis, in particular.
In its statement, the ARTM particularly welcomed the fact that these changes will improve the overall experience “thanks to the reduction in connections” and will offer “better predictability for both users and transport operators who implement the plan on the ground.”
For several months now, users have been complaining about having to go through Longueuil in the event of a breakdown in the afternoon. “I don’t understand the idea of putting shuttles at the Longueuil metro when we have a terminus 5 minutes from Central Station,” one of them said recently on social media.
All this comes at a time when, just a few months ago, restarting the REM after a breakdown took an average of one hour. CDPQ Infra now estimates that it can get the system back up and running in an average of 20 minutes. The number of breakdowns has also decreased overall.