Don’t overlook intercity service

The proposed Réseau électrique métropolitain has many things in its favour.

The first is it will be purely electric, unlike the buses and some of the trains it will replace. The second is it will provide a fast, frequent and reliable link to the airport. The third is it will improve mobility for people on the West Island and the South Shore.

As it stands, the only serious drawback I see is the REM will have exclusive access to the Mount Royal Tunnel. This means commuters on the Mascouche line will need to transfer from their trains to the REM instead of riding all the way to Central Station. This will certainly cause many of them to find other ways to travel. Since the Mascouche trains will now have no need to run on electricity through the tunnel, the very expensive bimodal locomotives purchased for this purpose will become white elephants.

As well, giving the REM exclusive access to the tunnel will have an impact on VIA.

If intercity passenger trains are ever going to attract a significant number of riders, they must be fast, frequent and run as much as possible on their own tracks, as VIA’s CEO has pointed out.

Removing the Mount Royal Tunnel from VIA’s route options means it could be more difficult for that company to offer attractive services to Quebec City, Ottawa and Toronto.

I am highly in favour of the REM and I hope to see it built, but not at the cost of weakened intercity services. I hope that the Caisse and its partners can come up with a plan that allows its trains to share the tunnel with fast, frequent, electric VIA trains. Graham Schurman, Châteauguay