The commissioning of the branch of the Metropolitan Express Network (REM), scheduled for 1er December, is postponed to spring, has learned The Press from several sources. CDPQ Infra, owner of the REM, will confirm the information Friday morning in a press meeting.
Posted at 5:18 p.m.
Updated at 5:31 p.m.
Given the scale of the operation required for the commissioning of this mode of transport, CDPQ Infra prefers to play it safe and postpone the opening to the spring, several people familiar with the matter tell us. The leaders of the subsidiary of the Caisse de depot want to avoid at all costs a repeat of the disaster experienced by the Ottawa light rail during its first winter of operation in 2020.
CDPQ Infra must confirm any postponement to the main transport organizations on the South Shore with a minimum of 30 days notice, i.e. October 30 at the latest.
A few days before this deadline, it’s still “no sound, no image”, told us a source close to the file. Another source pointed out that “everything points” to a postponement of the entry into service, a few days before the deadline for the notice.
Remember that the southern branch of the REM, which connects Brossard to Montreal’s Central Station via Île des Sœurs, was originally scheduled to be inaugurated at the end of 2021. The schedule was later postponed to the spring. or in the summer of 2022. Since last January, CPDQ Infra has been talking about commissioning in the fall of 2022.
Another missed “opportunity”
These new delays come at a very bad time, when many residents of the South Shore hoped to be able to count on the REM when Quebec would close three of the six lanes of the Louis-Hippolyte-Lafontaine tunnel, as of October 31.
Motorists will have to deal with major obstacles from Friday 21 October: next weekend, between Friday evening and Monday morning, the tunnel will be completely closed in the north direction in order to install lane usage lights and guardrails. concrete. Then, from Friday 28 to Saturday 30 October, the tunnel will be completely closed in the south direction to carry out the same type of work.
The Press also demonstrated on Wednesday that automobile traffic on the Jacques-Cartier and Samuel-De Champlain bridges is already higher than before the pandemic, and that the start of the Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine tunnel megaconstruction site will cause even more congestion . According to several experts, the situation could indeed cause saturation points to be reached on all the crossings between the South Shore and the Island of Montreal in the coming weeks.
“From the point of view of users, it is certain that it is extremely disappointing,” concedes the executive director of the organization Trajectoire Québec, Sarah V. Doyon, which represents the interests of commuters throughout Quebec. “The work in the tunnel will put enormous pressure on the infrastructures of the South Shore. The REM would have been such an attractive solution. We just missed an opportunity to change certain behaviors, ”she insists.
Once completed, the REM will have 67 kilometers of rails between the South Shore, downtown, Montréal-Trudeau Airport, the West Island and the North Shore. This $7 billion+ project will be one of the largest automated light rail systems in the world.