It had been many years for the reason that final main funding in Montreal public transit. The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec appeared out of nowhere, providing to shoulder many of the up-front prices for connecting the western half of the metropolitan space to downtown.
In trade, it could get the revenues generated from working the community.
“It is most likely one of many best initiatives we have seen in [public transit] within the final 50 years,” gushed the mayor on the time, Denis Coderre.
Late final 12 months, the Caisse introduced it was increasing its gentle rail community, now dubbed the REM, into Montreal’s east finish. However the reception, this time, was decidedly much less enthusiastic.
Architects and concrete planners have publicly criticized the plans. Neighbourhood teams are lobbying for modifications. A petition has attracted practically 2,000 signatures. Even metropolis corridor has expressed reservations.
All of them share issues in regards to the present design plan for the undertaking, which options an elevated monitor supported by large concrete pillars working by way of a few of the most densely populated areas of the island of Montreal.
“We’re scared about what is going to occur to our neighbourhoods with this immense construction,” mentioned Catherine Miron, a spokesperson for a gaggle of involved east-end residents known as REM et citoyen-nes de l’Est de Montréal.
CDPQ Infra, the arm of the Caisse that oversees the REM, maintains the elevated monitor is the one approach the east-end community could be constructed on time and on funds.
These are necessary issues for the provincial authorities, which campaigned on a promise to attach the island’s east-end suburbs to downtown.
And, up to now, CDPQ Infra has proved its various mannequin for funding infrastructure can ship. Whereas different transit initiatives backed by municipal governments and transit authorities have stalled on the drafting board for years, the west-end REM is nearing completion and within the ballpark of its unique funds.
However it sped forward with solely marginal enter from unbiased consultants and residents, say observers of the method. They concern an identical dynamic is rising because the REM expands east, resulting in a undertaking that can scar neighbourhoods within the curiosity of revenue and politics.
“It won’t be the precise mode of transit in the precise place,” mentioned François Pepin, president of the general public transit advocacy group Trajectoire Québec.
Lukewarm reception from area
There may be not a lot debate that the east finish of Montreal wants higher transit connections with downtown Montreal. A lot of that territory solely has bus service, which is normally crowded and sluggish throughout rush hour.
In Could 2019, the Coalition Avenir Québec authorities requested CDPQ Infra, versus the co-ordinating transit authority for the Montreal space (identified by its French initials as ARTM), to have a look at assembly that demand.
That CDPQ Infra ended up proposing a lightweight rail community was no shock. It is the one transit expertise it has on provide, although transit consultants have prior to now prompt different options for the east finish, corresponding to bus-rapid transit or tramways.
The elevated monitor being inbuilt Montreal’s West Island runs alongside highways, and hasn’t stirred a lot public concern. However within the east finish, giant stretches of the REM community would run alongside boulevards in blended residential-commercial neighbourhoods.
As properly, the prospect of noise, shadows, and numerous concrete has city planners frightened.
“It is a massive construction going by way of areas the place individuals reside. It dangers destroying their high quality of life,” mentioned Sylvain Gariépy, president of the Quebec Order of City Planners.
Gariépy expressed frustration on the lack of detailed data CDPQ Infra has supplied in regards to the proposed buildings, making it tough to judge the undertaking.
Citizen teams have additionally struggled to get extra details about the undertaking, and to supply their suggestions. Miron mentioned she has attended two conferences with CDPQ Infra in current weeks, however they resembled advertising classes relatively than consultations.
“They gave the identical PowerPoint presentation at each of them and could not reply our technical questions,” Miron mentioned.
CDPQ Infra stresses the proposal it has made public is a piece in progress. It’s promising to spend the following two years consulting extensively with the general public in addition to an unbiased group of consultants.
WATCH: Take a tour of the brand new gentle rail vehicles coming quickly to Montreal’s transit community:
CBC’s Jay Turnbull takes you on a guided tour of the way forward for transportation in Montreal. 1:53
Virginie Cousineau, the group’s public affairs director, mentioned consultations will play a bigger function within the ultimate design of the REM’s extension in contrast with the consultations that have been executed forward of the primary section of the undertaking.
“There are issues we’re doing otherwise within the REM East, issues we did not do within the REM 1.0,” Cousineau mentioned in a current interview.
However she additionally acknowledged that sure components of the undertaking are non-negotiable. Many have known as for the monitor to go underground because it approaches downtown. Cousineau mentioned whereas that choice was studied, current subway traces and previous sewers threaten to escalate prices to prohibitive ranges.
“The Caisse cannot endanger the pensions of Quebecers with a undertaking the place we’re unable to manage the dangers,” she mentioned.
The politics behind mass transit decisions
The issues in regards to the REM’s east-end extension are usually not simply technical issues about an engineering undertaking, nonetheless. They’re half of a bigger debate about which establishments should be shaping the way forward for Quebec’s cities.
Provincial funding for Quebec Metropolis’s tramway undertaking was held up when the CAQ authorities started demanding last-minute modifications to the route, though it had been the topic of in depth session since 2018 and had widespread native backing.
Premier François Legault mentioned the undertaking wanted to raised serve the suburbs in an effort to get his authorities’s approval. Neighborhood teams in Quebec Metropolis, and the mayor, accused him of meddling for political acquire.
Within the case of each the Quebec Metropolis tramway, and the REM in Montreal, native transit authorities gave the impression to be sidelined at key levels of the decision-making course of.
That is a disgrace, mentioned Pepin, provided that transit authorities, just like the ARTM, have been created with the intention of limiting the affect of politicians on main initiatives and making public session routine.
They’re meant to be comparatively unbiased our bodies which have the experience required to plan a transit community with the pursuits of the general public in thoughts.
“It is a science,” Pepin mentioned of public transit planning. “We discuss it for the vaccine; perhaps we should always do the identical factor for public transit and hearken to the science.”
Transit authorities, although, usually function too slowly for politicians. That makes various funding fashions that may fast-track initiatives, like CDPQ Infra, interesting.
“The concept, after all, is to get a undertaking shovel-ready earlier than the following election,” mentioned Pierre Barrieau, president of Gris Orange, a Montreal-based city transit consulting agency.
On the identical time, group teams in Montreal have tailored to CDPQ Infra’s tempo.
They discovered from the primary section of the REM, Barrieau mentioned, and are mobilizing on the outset of the second section to demand extra enter.
“We should always count on a undertaking that can take feedback from the general public into larger consideration,” he mentioned. “I believe the Caisse understands that what they did for the primary time is not going to fly for the second time.”
