Quebec greenlights first steps of tramway project in eastern Montreal
Repentigny mayor says project will help stimulate local economy
Quebec's Transport Minister has given the go-ahead for the first steps of a tramway project replacing the contentious REM de l'Est light-rail project — broadening public transit options for commuters in eastern Montreal.
Geneviève Guilbault made the announcement at a news conference at the Repentigny, Que., city hall Wednesday morning.
The tram will be developed by Quebec's new transport agency, Mobilité Infra Québec (MIQ), becoming its first project. However, the region's public transit authority, Autorité régionale de transport métropolitain (ARTM), will oversee the initial phases of the project.
A call for tenders will be issued in the fall. MIQ will take over from the ARTM when the agency is up and running, something Guilbault estimates should happen by the end of this year.
"We don't have any time to waste," said Guilbault at Wednesday's news conference.
She says the procurement process should be done by 2027 at the latest.
The projected route would bring riders through the east end of the city into Montréal Est and Repentigny, Que., a suburb east of the city. It would also connect to the STM's Blue and Green Metro lines and to the Mascouche line of the Exo commuter train.
"You can spare up to one hour if you give up your car and take this eventual tramway," Guilbault said.
The project is expected to cost more than $18 billion, according to ARTM's estimates in a 2024 report.
CDPQ Infra, a subsidiary of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, initially led the project, which was called REM de l'Est at the time, to reflect its vision of an automated light-rail train. CDPQ Infra backed out after the government decided the route wouldn't connect directly to Montreal's downtown. The government took it over in 2022 and the project was renamed Projet structurant de l'Est (PSE).
Repentigny Mayor Nicolas Dufour, who joined Guilbault at the news conference, said his residents have been waiting for real public transit options for nearly 40 years.
"My citizens lose about an hour, an hour-and-a-half to go to Montreal to work every morning — same for the students. So, for the first time, we're going to have a real and true alternative to single-occupancy vehicles," Dufour said on CBC Montreal's Daybreak earlier Wednesday morning.
Dufour said he'd like to see more bus lines, in the meantime, but that they get stuck in traffic like every other vehicle when going to Montreal.
"There's nothing much we can do because we only have one way to go to Montreal and it's stuck every morning. So it's truly necessary that the project moves fast and we construct the tramway the fastest that we can," he said.
He's hoping the public transit project will help bring more people to Repentigny and stimulate economic activity.
Some say project could be improved
Rodrigo Victoriano-Habit, a research assistant with Transportation Research at McGill, says any project that encourages people to move away from car-dependent mobility is a win. But the tram's price tag could be even cheaper, he said.
He says because the tramway will operate on a ground-rail, the time savings aren't that significant.
"We can achieve the same [by] giving buses their own right of way and this takes the same amount of space for a much lower price tag and it also gets built in a lower amount of time," he said.
He says buses aren't very attractive politically, but "it's one of the compromises we have to make if we want reliable fast transit that is not being affected by car traffic."
He says upgrading the existing Mascouche Exo line to REM standard also could have been an option.
Philippe Jacques, a spokesperson for Trajectoire Québec — an organization that promotes public transportation throughout the province — welcomed Wednesday's announcement.
"We've been waiting for a long time for that project and it's good to see how many people were here today," he said.
But like Victoriano-Habit, he believes there is room for improvement.
He says there's concern over how fast commuters will be able to get downtown using the future tram.
"Right now, it's one and a half hours to take public transit to go from Montreal to Terrebonne or Repentigny, or the other way. And with a car, it's only like 30 minutes," Jacques said.
"So we're not sure it's going to be that close to the car. We need to compete against the car."
The issue, he said, is that some sections of the project will be running through denser residential neighbourhoods, where having fast-moving trains is not desirable.
"It's not a perfect project. It won't be perfect, but still, things can be added on in the next months or years," Jacques said.
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With files from Steve Rukavina, Lauren McCallum and Daybreak