CDPQ Infra assures that its teams will move “as quickly” as possible to minimize the postponement to 2025 of the northern and western branches of the Réseau express métropolitain (REM). Opening other sections without linking them to the Mont-Royal tunnel would have made “no sense”, according to its president.
“People have been waiting a long time. I understand and I am very empathetic, especially for the users of Deux-Montagnes. But if you compare to what is happening elsewhere in the world in terms of duration and effectiveness […] we are progressing really well. Yes, we are late, but overall, we are going to move as quickly as we can,” explains the organization’s president and CEO, Jean-Marc Arbaud, in an interview.
He assures that the entire northern part of the light rail, apart from the Mont-Royal tunnel, is “completed from a physical point of view”. “Unfortunately, and for a while we looked at it, if we started this without the tunnel, we would have had to stop after a few months and start testing again. It would have made no sense for public transport,” explains the manager.
PHOTO HUGO-SÉBASTIEN AUBERT, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Jean-Marc Arbaud, President and CEO of CDPQ Infra
According to him, the tests which will be launched in a few weeks “will be proof of everything” for the future. “There is no point in giving a date,” he whispers, when asked if it is possible to move forward on a more precise timetable than 2025.
According to our information, commissioning is not planned for the first months of 2025. We must therefore expect a delay of several months, or even almost a year. That said, the idea of delivering the two antennas in summer, as was the case for the South Shore section, seems plausible behind the scenes.
It is especially the discovery of explosives in the tunnel, in 2020, which still hurts, in terms of delays. “At the very beginning, if you remember, we wanted to open the tunnel at the same time, if we hadn’t had all these problems. There, today, the fact of operating the South Shore also poses a constraint of access and mode of operation for the entire tunnel,” admits Mr. Arbaud.
” Nothing to see “
In his eyes, however, the REM has “nothing to do with the financing of other” transport companies. It is also quite difficult to explain why certain actors on the municipal scene are calling for “bringing order” to the sharing of income and expenses, such as The Press reported earlier Thursday.
According to calculations by the City of Montreal, the REM will monopolize more than 10% of transportation revenues in 2027. On the South Shore, for example, Longueuil bus fare revenues only represent 66% of the pre-COVID level. .
“We are doing a project to build an artery at a competitive cost and we are taking all the construction risks, we are assuming all the costs. I don’t even understand what the debate is. The real debate is between the municipalities and the government, but that we are in the middle of that, I don’t understand,” illustrates Jean-Marc Arbaud.
The “most fundamental”, he concludes, “is that we have as many services as possible”. “It’s not just the REM, the solution, obviously. The REM, on the other hand, is a huge artery to have a circuit that allows you to get around, like the metro. Except that it takes drawdown. It’s an overall combination. »