No one will miss the Caisse de depot et placement du Québec in the Eastern REM file, after it abandoned its claim to build it “on time and on budget”, as it claimed. at the time when he was entrusted with the REM de l’Ouest.
Posted May 8
No one will miss his colonial attitude towards the citizens of the neighborhoods concerned when they had the audacity to show up at consultation meetings to question projects where everything was decided in advance.
No one will miss its CEO who had the immense courage to blame the mayoress of Montreal, since he still could not criticize his boss, the Prime Minister.
We won’t even miss the name REM de l’Est, which we couldn’t use because it’s a registered trademark. Meaner than that…
Throughout this file, the Caisse has been a very bad corporate citizen and it will have to work hard to regain its reputation. His way of presenting everything as a “take it or leave it” when we want to build and operate a public service would have required a certain flexibility.
But now that the Caisse has withdrawn from the project, the REM must be successful. And it won’t necessarily be easy with a table of four partners (STM, ARTM, MTQ and the City) who have the advantage of speaking the same language, but who also have the unfortunate reputation of moving too slowly.
That said, it would be unfair to blame them for the delays in the SRB Pie-IX or the blue metro line projects. These delays are due to the lack of political will of the Government of Quebec, which has had a tendency to stop everything each time there has been a change of party in power.
The first condition for the success of the REM is to listen rather than hold bogus consultations with citizens. And to put their cards on the table instead of lying to them like the Caisse did. Everyone remembers the downtown buildings that were about to collapse and the promise that the Deux-Montagnes train would only stop for a few weekends…
There are still complaints about the route, and we will have to listen to the citizens, especially in the Souligny-Mercier East sector. It will also be necessary to give firm assurances that we will preserve Morgan Park.
But also, it is necessary – without starting from scratch – to wonder if a layout on the ground would not be a better solution. Easier to build and less expensive than the aerial train on stilts required by the technology chosen by the Caisse. One only has to look out west to see the urban scar that an overhead train will cause.
Just go to Europe, and particularly to France, to see how much the arrival of a tramway has become a solution to both mobility and environmental problems. The Caisse has always refused to consider this solution, but we could certainly give it another chance without causing undue delays.
We must also do everything that was promised by Mr. Legault and Mr.me Plante during their press briefing last Monday. In particular, the modernization of the green line, which will allow an increase in the frequency of trains. The Montreal metro is over 50 years old, it needs love, and not just on the green line.
Especially since the solutions that will be put forward to increase the frequency on the green line can also be used on the orange line, which needs it even more.
It is fortunate that the Prime Minister and the Mayor have already made it known that the powers given to the Caisse, in particular with regard to expropriation, will be maintained. We should ask ourselves if these powers should not be made available to the STM for the extension of the blue metro line. That’s one of the reasons it’s progressing so slowly.
Finally, the business model that caused the Caisse de depot’s loss in this matter must definitely be discarded. The important thing is to build a structuring public transit network for the citizens of the East. It is not to have a fixed return on investment.
It was this business model that required automated trains without a driver and therefore at height. It is this business model that has meant that the Caisse has always refused to seriously consider the idea of burying the REM downtown, even if it means disfiguring René-Lévesque Boulevard. What would have been, and Mme Plante is right to say, “a historical error”.
It now remains to keep and build the good aspects of the project. With a lot of political will, it shouldn’t be too complicated.