PQ would cancel REM plan in favour of trams, buses
A Parti Québécois government would pull the plug on a proposed Montreal-area electric train network (REM) and point its funding toward a network of tramways, high-speed buses and extensions and improvements to the existing commuter train system.
“Quebecers have become so used to not being ambitious that they wonder whether they have the right to be,” PQ Leader JeanFrançois Lisée said on Tuesday.
He spoke of a “state of mind” that reigns in terms of public transportation in Quebec that hinders ambition and efficiency.” He did laud the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec’s REM project, which Lisée says demonstrates the province can do something ambitious quickly. However, he denounced the project’s scope as too limited for the needs of Montreal.
The PQ’s transport plan, dubbed “le grand déblocage” — the big breakthrough — calls for nine express bus routes in the east and west of Montreal and on the North and South Shore, as well as five tramway lines serving MontrealTrudeau airport, the site of the former Blue Bonnets horse racing track, St.-Laurent Blvd. and the city’s east end.
An express tramway serving the South Shore would span the Champlain Bridge and extend to Taschereau Blvd., with spurs heading to St-Hubert airport and St-Constant.
The PQ plan for commuter trains would see additional stations and departures on all existing lines and the extension of the St-Hilaire line to St-Hyacinthe, the Candiac line to St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, the Train de l’Est to Joliette and the Train de l’Ouest to Côteau-du-Lac.
The PQ estimates its project would cost the same as the REM project — $7.4 billion — and would require the same level of financial support from the Caisse de dépôt as the pension fund agency has pledged to the REM. Failing that support, the PQ plan says an equivalent sum could be raised by reducing provincial debt payments, obtaining increased funding from Ottawa and the province’s Green Fund.
The remaining unknown in the plan is how much it would cost to cancel contracts already signed for the REM project.
In presenting his ambitious plan, Lisée did not hide from wanting to make it an electoral focal point. “This is one of the most important parts of the path of victory,” he said.
He argues this plan would remove 133,000 cars from the road by 2025, nearly 80 times more than the 1,700 in the case of the REM, and that the plan will account for nearly 510,000 transit trips, four times more than the REM, the overwhelming majority of which will be electrified.
Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante dismissed the PQ’s plan to scrap the REM.
“For us, the REM is something to move forward with,” she told reporters.
The project will “solve many issues around mobility as well as support economic development. It’s good for the airport, it’s good for downtown as well. The planning phase is over. We’ve had those debates before; now it’s time to move forward.”
However, the REM “does not solve all of Montreal’s mobility issues. That is why we’re waiting for the (métro) Blue Line extension and why we will be continuing to work on (a new métro) Pink Line.”