On a fresh, sunny morning last week, I hopped aboard the REM for the first time, joining the ranks of 170,000 Montrealers who gave it a test run during the West Island line’s debut the previous weekend.
I rode the newly inaugurated branch of the $9.4-billion light-rail network from Anse-à-l’Orme to the McGill station.
The driverless electric trains now whisk passengers from the West Island terminus to the city centre — and all the way to Brossard or Deux-Montagnes — every 14 or 15 minutes from about 5:30 a.m. until half past midnight (and even more often on the other two lines during peak hours).
Direct service of that frequency will surely be a game changer for many students, workers, shoppers, concertgoers and Canadiens fans along the route.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t live up to the hype for others.
The problem is not the REM itself; it’s how countless bus routes have been eliminated or reconfigured to funnel passengers to the new network. The Société de transport de Montréal rejigged 80 lines in six boroughs and nine municipalities for the sake of the REM. And Exo, which runs buses on the North and South Shores, overhauled several more off-island.
But some of the connections are long and circuitous. Other routes that offered direct service to prime destinations were cancelled outright because they would compete with the REM.
My journey from the bus stop at the end of my street in Hudson to the Gazette newsroom took two hours.
So, shiny and new doesn’t mean faster or more efficient.
To complete the trip by public transit alone, I had to take two buses just to get to the REM station, which accounted for half the travel time. The first brought me to Gare Vaudreuil, where I transferred to a second bus that meandered through a residential neighbourhood before getting on the highway, crossing the Île-aux-Tourtes Bridge and dropping off passengers at Anse-à-l’Orme.
With a 20-minute wait between buses (which was actually shorter because of traffic) and a 13-minute wait on the platform because the REM pulled out of the station as I arrived, the time quickly added up.
The 39-minute REM ride itself was smooth sailing, dropping me off deep underground in the heart of downtown.
Why would anyone choose this when the Exo train from Hudson to Lucien-L’Allier is a seamless trip?
It was fun and all. But two hours is not a realistic commute on a regular basis. Four hours a day in transit, counting the return, is downright ridiculous.
Why would anyone choose this when the Exo train from Hudson to Lucien-L’Allier is a seamless trip that takes one hour and 20 minutes and driving (in good traffic) takes 54 minutes?
If the goal is to improve the offering of public transit and get more people to leave their cars at home, it has failed right out of the gate.
St-Lazare Mayor Geneviève Lachance shared a similar experience and the same concerns in a recent Facebook post.
It’s rather disappointing after such a significant investment.
Trips would be considerably shortened if there were express buses directly to the REM. But to facilitate other connections, like the one to John Abbott College from Gare Vaudreuil, the buses must stop elsewhere.
Driving to Anse-à-l’Orme would also save a chunk of time, but there are only 200 parking spaces. At Kirkland, the next station over, most spots are reserved for local residents.
Getting dropped off at the REM would cut down on the journey — except a family member would then have to turn around and drive back home.
While some people have these options, others are being screwed over by the cutting of lifelines they once depended on.
There has been an outcry over the loss of the 40 express bus many college and university students take from the Vaudreuil transit hub directly to the Côte-Vertu métro station. Ditto with Bus 91, which goes straight to CEGEP Gérald-Godin in the West Island. Instead, they will ferry riders to the REM, where they must transfer to reach their destination.
Exo restored these buses for the rest of the academic year after a protest attended by local mayors, students and parents. But what about next year?
Instead of trying to hook the next generation on the merits of public transportation, the new schedule will only show them transit is an inconvenient hassle.
And while residents of smaller communities and distant suburbs can’t expect the same level of transit frequency as people who live in the urban core, surely they deserve better than two hours door to door.
The REM heads downtown from the West Island on May 18, 2026. If the goal of the West Island line is to improve the offering of public transit and get more people to leave their cars at home, it has failed right out of the gate, Allison Hanes writes. Dave Sidaway / Montreal Gazette
The REM should be an addition to the existing public transit network, providing alternative trajectories and servicing new corridors. But transit agencies from the STM to Exo are contending with operating deficits. Without adequate funding, they have warned of devastating service cuts to trains, buses, even the métro.
So there is a risk service could shrink in the future. Then the REM will have become an expensive displacement or replacement of what already exists. That would be a waste.
Aside from the REM, there has been too little investment in expanding public transit in Quebec to make it the first, most obvious choice for commuters and the backbone of the transportation system.
The extension of the Blue Line of the métro has been decades in the making and is finally tunnelling along. A tramway to the east end is under study after the REM de l’Est project failed to clinch social acceptability. But a tramway to LaSalle and Lachine, a dense and populous transit desert, was quietly sidelined by the Quebec government last year.
If governments were really planning for the future, they would have extended the Anse-à-l’Orme branch a few kilometres farther to the fast-growing Vaudreuil-Soulanges region, with stops at John Abbott, the Macdonald Campus of McGill University, and the brand new hospital under construction for the region. At the very least, room should have been left for it on the new Île-aux-Tourtes now being built — just as it was on the Champlain Bridge when it was replaced.
Sadly, the REM is not the transformational project for Montreal it could have been.
There are winners and losers when everyone should come out ahead. There are too many “if only”s and “what if”s tempering the excitement. And there are concerns that other, more reliable transit lines will be sacrificed for its sake.
After my morning adventure on the REM, I was glad to be able to jump on the Exo train home at the end of the day — and will from now on, thank you very much.
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I started at The Montreal Gazette in 2000 as an intern. Since then I have covered the National Assembly and courts, worked on the assignment desk and written editorials, before debuting as city columnist in 2017.
