'Build it and they come': Environmental groups back Caisse's light rail project
Plan gets support from Équiterre, David Suzuki Foundation
A group of environmental groups has come out in favour of the light rail project planned for Montreal, despite a scathing critique from the province's environmental review agency.
Équiterre, the David Suzuki Foundation and Vivre en Ville joined forces in support of the project.
"'Build it and they come' is usually what happens," Stephen Guilbeault, co-founder of Équiterre, said Wednesday.
He said the bottom line is the project would take cars off the road.
"We're seeing it with the subway, the express buses that are at full capacity at morning and night. People want public transit."
The show of support comes after Projet Montréal, the Official Opposition at City Hall, called for increased scrutiny of the project, which would include 27 stations connecting the South Shore, the West Island and Trudeau airport to downtown.
Quebec's pension fund, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, is spearheading the project and has committed $3 billion to build the 67-kilometre light-rail transit system (LRT).
The balance of the projected cost, about $2.9 billion, is expected to come from the federal and provincial governments.
Questions of transparency
Last month, Quebec's environmental review agency — known by its French acronym, BAPE — issued a 300-page report that called several aspects of the light-rail project into question.
The BAPE concluded the documentation for the project is incomplete, and "several essential elements of the project were not subject to public debate and unable to be analyzed."
The Caisse subsidiary leading the project, CDPQ Infra, issued a lengthy rebuttal of the BAPE's review, saying in a statement that it "ignores facts and distorts reality."
The importance of the BAPE review was also downplayed by Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre and Premier Philippe Couillard.