The saga continues: the completion of Montreal’s Réseau express métropolitain (REM) has been postponed once again.
Project managers are blaming “highly complex” work in the Mont-Royal tunnel for the delay, saying the Deux-Montagnes and Anse-à-l’Orme branches will not open by the end of the year as planned.
Those branches, which would connect Montreal’s North Shore and West Island to downtown, were originally expected in 2023 before being pushed back to 2024.
In an update published Wednesday, project managers said crews are still working to modernize the tunnel built in 1912 that runs through the mountain. The discovery of century-old explosives caused further delays at the heart of the future electric train network.
Since coming under fire for missing deadlines and breaking promises, the REM’s developer CDPQ Infra has not announced a new timetable for the $8-billion project.
“Obviously, we have a plan. But giving a date today does nothing,” REM project manager Julien Hurel said in an interview with Radio-Canada. “Our commitment is to provide a safe and reliable rail system as quickly as possible.”
Technical tests are set to take place in the next few weeks between the Deux-Montagnes and Sainte-Dorothée stations and will gradually be extended to the entire network over the summer.
But before that, workers still need to install bollards, sensors and 600 kilometres of electrical cables.
Transport Minister Geneviève Guilbault said she would have preferred the REM project stay on schedule. But if CDPQ Infra, the infrastructure arm of Quebec’s public pension fund manager, needs more time to test the system and ensure safety, postponing it is the “right thing to do.”
“The first criteria for me is the safety of the system and the reliability of the system,” Guilbault said.
The REM is currently in service from the downtown Central Station to Brossard, Que. Twenty-one of the 26 stations planned for the network have yet to open.
Two of those stations, Montreal-Trudeau Airport and Griffintown-Bernard-Landry, are scheduled to be completed in 2027.
Government ‘failure’ to oversee project: opposition
While acknowledging the need for public transit, opposition parties slammed the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government for allowing the project to reach a state of limbo.
Official Opposition economy critic, Liberal MNA Frédéric Beauchemin, said Wednesday “it’s tragic” that the government did not make sure that plans for the REM were executed properly.
“There was no due diligence done as the project was evolving,” Beauchemin said. “The Caisse was acting on its own without being supervised.”
So far, none of the transit projects overseen by the CAQ government have been completed — a point Québec Solidaire House Leader Alexandre Leduc made to reporters Wednesday.
“Public transportation is complex and costly,” Leduc said, noting that the challenges are proof that entrusting CDPQ Infra with the project “wasn’t necessarily a good idea.”
Instead, Leduc suggests that the government develop future projects “on their own.”
He added that important setbacks like those the REM face don’t inspire confidence, although transit is sorely needed.
Joël Arseneau, Parti Québécois critic for municipal affairs, said the repeated delays point to the “failure” of having the government oversee CDPQ Infra.
He said that Quebec is long overdue for a discussion on whether CDPQ Infra is the “right player” to develop public transit for the province.
The hype is real. It’s finally here. Watch this before hopping on board.