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Posted May 15
Four years ago, Valérie Plante launched the pink line office which was to make studies public. I haven’t seen anything in the news on this subject and with the REM de l’Est which is going to change form. Would a merger between the two projects be possible?
Nicholas
The pink line was among Valérie Plante’s promises when she ran for mayor of Montreal for the first time.
Created in 2018, the pink line project office had the mandate to carry out studies on the impact of a new metro line that would link the southwest of Montreal to Montreal North.
In four years, a lot has changed. First, the pink line office has been replaced by the Sustainable Mobility Projects Department (DPMD), which employs nine full-time people, in addition to contract workers who are added according to mandates.
Its role is to “supervise and ensure the planning of major sustainable mobility projects on the territory of Montreal, from the study of needs to the development of solutions”. The DPMD must also ensure the coordination of the services and boroughs involved as well as liaise between the City and the various actors involved in a project. His records? The pink line, the revitalization of Notre-Dame Est, the extension of the orange line to the west and, of course, the REM de l’Est.
As for the southwestern section of the pink line, the Government of Quebec and the City of Montreal announced last year the completion of preliminary studies at a cost of $20 million for a public transit project that would connect Lachine in downtown Montreal. It is the Regional Metropolitan Transport Authority (ARTM) which will have to draw up an opportunity file based on the studies that have been carried out. At the time, Mayor Plante was talking about a streetcar, but nothing has been confirmed.
As for the section of the pink line connecting the city center to Montreal North, it will effectively be replaced by the REM de l’Est on which we have written a lot. The investment will come from the Ministère des Transports (MTQ), but the project will be piloted by the ARTM. The governance of this new team made up of the ARTM, the STM, the City of Montreal and the MTQ has not yet been specified.
In other words, the pink line in its original version may not see the light of day, but its layout will. One day…