Business owners in Dix30, a shopping district on Montreal’s South Shore, say the region’s new light-rail network has been a boost to foot traffic since it opened last year.
“We’ve seen a lot of people coming to the park for the first time, and I ask them where they are from, and there are a lot of people coming from Montreal,” said Stéphane Vallée, co-owner of Spin, an indoor skate park.
“It’s a really good thing for us.”
Vallée said the Réseau express métropolitain (REM) has helped bring in more young skaters. He expects the benefits of the REM will be even greater as the transit network grows and gains recognition.
Among those using the REM to access the shopping district is Anne-Sophie Viens, who visited recently with her son, Gabriel. Viens said she’d never been to Dix30 before the REM, but that she and Gabriel plan to return.
“We’re discovering everything today, and we saw that there is a park that he likes with trampolines, a skate park here,” she said.
The REM is also bringing more investment to the South Shore, according to Jean-François Lévesque, CEO of the local chamber of commerce, the Chambre de commerce et d’industrie de la Rive-Sud.
“There are $20 million being invested to revamp the Dix30 as it is, and we expect that other investments are coming,” he said.
CDPQ Infra says service is improving
While businesses appear to be benefiting from the REM since it opened one year ago, the new public transit link between Brossard and downtown Montreal hasn’t pleased everyone.
“We did have a very rocky start. There were a lot of issues, and we still have too many power failures, breakdowns and delays, but things are getting better and better,” said Pierre Barrieau, a lecturer specializing in transportation planning at the Université de Montréal.
After a year filled with excitement as well as reliability and accessibility struggles, the developer behind the city’s light-rail transit system says staff have gained knowledge and know-how that can be applied to lines set to open in the coming years.
CDPQ Infra, the developer that manages the REM, says the automated light-rail network attracts 24,000 riders every day. During its peak last spring, there were about 36,000 passengers per day.
While there are currently 16 kilometres of track in operation, eventually the network will be extended to 67 kilometres of track, reaching places like the West Island, the Montreal airport and the North Shore.
CDPQ Infra spokesperson Francis Labbé said the start of the REM did not go as smoothly as hoped. He said building and operating the driverless network has presented a rare set of challenges posed that can be complicated by Quebec’s widely ranging temperatures.
“It’s very particular. So considering all this, we are quite proud of where we are, but we’re not there yet,” he said, noting that though outages do still occur, their frequency and duration are shrinking.
CDPQ Infra says there have been 65 outages of more than 20 minutes in the past year. Since March, there have been about three outages per month, with only one in July.
“Last year, if an outage occurred, it would take us an hour to restore everything,” said Labbé. “Now it’s less than 20 minutes so we are getting more efficient.”
Looking ahead to more rail lines opening
Barrieau said there are several stations left to open, and there could be surprises along the way — namely in the colder months.
“We only had a few months of operation in the winter and the reliability level was much lower than it is the rest of the year,” he said.
Problems as simple as the accumulation of de-icing gravel in a train’s door tracks can cause service shutdowns, said Barrieau, not to mention the effects of temperature variations, ice, water and snow.
Sarah V. Doyon heads Trajectoire Québec, a citizens’ group for REM users. She said on top of the long outages in after the REM began operations, there were also flaws in how it communicated with passengers.
Nowadays, she said, there is still room for improvement, but overall, called the REM is “a success.”