‘It’s hard not to be cynical’: REM won’t be stopping in Griffintown anytime soon

A Brossard resident felt left out by the Metropolitan Express Network (REM), whose Griffintown-Bernard laundry station was announced for late 2023.

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Excited by the idea of ​​having a station less than ten minutes from her job in the Old Port of Montreal, Annique Beauchemin gushes, “I live with a certain cynicism, it’s hard not to be cynical.”

Its location was announced in spring 2020, with a late 2023 opening. At the start of the inauguration of the five stations between Brassard and the city centre, it was clear that nothing was going to happen on the site where it would be built.

A subsidiary of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec that manages REM (CDPQ-Infra) plans to open the network in late 2024 when it is fully operational.

50% more

Meanwhile, M.^me Beauchemin spends 50% more time on public transit, and his monthly pass ranges from $108 to $155.

With express bus 90 from Riso de Transporte de Langueil to the city center, it took her 34 minutes to get to work from her home.

When the REM arrives, since RTL buses can no longer cross the Samuel-de-Champlain bridge, it will take 51 minutes and two connections, for which CDPQ-Infra has secured exclusive rights.

A second disappointment for a marketing executive who had long hoped that a Chevrier station would materialize in Brossard.

“Potential” before REM’s first sensation in 2017, the station was not in the CDPQ-Infra plans.

CDPQ-Infra argued that the station would be built in a “complex” environment, integrated into the overpass.

Photo by Pierre-Paul Poulin

“Already, it has extended us a bit, but it’s okay, REM will go faster and I can go to Griffintown-Bernard-Landry, but in the end that’s also uncertain”, loose M^me Nice way.

Questioning

Avid users of public transit, she and her spouse chose to live in Brossard for its highly efficient bus network.

“We’re questioning whether we’re going to stay or whether we’re going to move. It makes a big difference in our quality of life. I have great flexibility to go to work when I want,” she laments.

The Griffintown-Bernard laundry station will open by the time the network is fully commissioned, CDPQ-Infra spokesman Emmanuel Roullard-Moreau said in an email.

The station argues that it will be installed in a “complex environment”, integrated into the Viaduct Sud, a railway structure where heavy trains run.

“We are currently completing detailed studies to establish proper and safe construction practices for workers,” she said, adding that the studies would be available at the end of the year.