REM takes east-end land meant for store
It’s a relatively minor issue compared to CDPQ-Infra running an elevated train through the heart of town, but people in Tétreaultville are not happy that a long-promised grocery store has been nixed by the REM, which has placed a reserve on the lot intended for the store.
Odd that the lede starts off “Le REM continue de bousculer l’administration de Valérie Plante” because this has nothing to do with city hall, and city hall has no leverage against it.
In fact, if I could offer Plante & Co. any advice this year, it’s to set out clearly which citizen grievances can be placed fairly at their door, and which are from Quebec’s high-handed meddling in how this city works. All over the place I see the city blamed for highway problems and now the REM, none of which is their doing, and little of which they can change, but so many people simply aren’t aware of the distinction.
Thomas 09:53 on 2021-04-07 Permalink
We live in a federal country, and Canadians still don’t understand who does what. Notwithstanding general ignorance, the idea that Valérie Plante invented orange cones (and everything else that’s supposedly wrong with this city) seems to be particularly pervasive. It really is quite maddening…
Bill Binns 15:36 on 2021-04-07 Permalink
Plante was elected on a big promise she had no power to fulfill (The pink line). She was going to “pressure the province” or “work with the province” or some such. It didn’t work for the Pink line but maybe she can use her awesome diplomatic skills to fix the REM and the Tetraultville food desert?
dhomas 18:35 on 2021-04-07 Permalink
@Bill, your apparent sarcasm aside, Plante was elected when the Liberal government was still in power. Love them or hate them, the Liberals still needed to listen to Montreal because they needed their votes.
The CAQ got elected almost entirely without the support of Montreal. Plante (or any other Montreal mayor, really) have no leverage with the current provincial government. This applies to the Pink line, the REM, or the grocery store. If anything, the grocery store might be salvageable because the CAQ has a bit of a foothold in Eastern Montreal that they might want to cultivate.
ant6n 03:55 on 2021-04-08 Permalink
Remember, the REM proposal came out of Legault promising some light rail to the two Eastern ridings that voted CAQ. It makes very little sense from a cost-benefit point of view. There are two ridings out East that voted CAQ: Bourget, surrounding the Eastern end of the Green Line and Pointe-aux-Trembles further East. That second riding is basically getting a new metro line — but they only have a population of 40K, spread over a fairy large suburban area.
Total bus ridership of all the bus lines that exist out there (189, 187, 186, 86, 430, 182, 183) is like 22K riders per day – and a lot of that is probably local ridership in Tétreaultville feeding into the Green line, which won’t be affected by the REM. It’s kind of bizarre that the PM draws a line of the map and everybody rushes to build this line.
Anyway, it appears they later added that second Northern branch to the REM to capture a bunch of ridership and get a metro out to a bunch more people, which makes the proposal as a whole make a bit more sense.
Still, it’s a pretty wonky way of building transit for the next 50 years: PM wants to reward his own voters, pension fund adds a second branch to make this more economically viable together with the giant piles of subsidies that will get shoveled into this.
Chris 09:26 on 2021-04-08 Permalink
>Love them or hate them, the Liberals still needed to listen to Montreal because they needed their votes.
Alternatively, the Liberals *don’t* need to listen to Montreal because it always votes Liberal no matter what they do.