Montreal's new 'fully-accessible' light-rail network has seen nearly 30 elevator breakdowns
In REM's 73 days of operation, there have been only 30 days when all 9 elevators were working
Julien Gascon-Samson says he never takes the REM if he has an important work meeting downtown or an appointment he can't miss.
Gascon-Samson lives on Nuns' Island and uses a motorized scooter to get on at the Île-des-Soeurs station.
Although he follows the REM's social media feed and regularly checks the website for elevator breakdowns, he never knows if it will still be working when he arrives and he's scared of being stranded.
"Every time I want to go to Montreal with the REM, I'm taking a risk," he said.
Just last week, he had to quickly adjust to working from home when the elevator at the Gare Centrale station went on the fritz at the beginning of rush hour.
According to the Réseau Express Métropolitain's (REM) social media account, the elevator didn't start working again until later that night, 14 hours later.
"It's completely unreliable," said Gascon-Samson.
Frequent, sometimes hours-long breakdowns
A big part of the REM's branding focuses on how it is fully accessible.
There are nine elevators in all — three elevators at Brossard station, two at Du Quartier, one at Panama, two at Île-des-Sœurs and one at Gare Centrale.
The elevators are sleek and modern in appearance with a display screen outside and glass walls.
But since the REM officially opened at the end of July, there have been 29 instances when an elevator was not available. More than half of the delays occurred during peak hours.
This data was taken directly from the REM's own social media feed, @REM_infoservice, which posts whenever an elevator goes offline and when it's back in service.
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When CBC added up the outages, there were only 30 days out of 73 when all elevators were functioning and no breakdowns were recorded.
The disruptions ranged from four minutes to multiple hours. In 12 cases, the elevator was offline for more than eight hours while repairs were completed. In five instances, the repair took longer than a day.
The most glaring was the Gare Centrale elevator, which was broken for nearly three weeks in August.
CDPQ Infra, which operates the light rail system, blamed the breakdown on a "complex equipment failure" due to the large number of visitors on opening weekend. Since then, it's gone down four times, but even a small breakdown can be disruptive.
At Gare Centrale, there is only one elevator, leaving no alternative if it stops working.
"You're stuck and there's nothing you can do," said Steven Laperrière, general manager of the advocacy group, Regroupement des activistes pour l'inclusion au Québec (RAPLIQ).
"So that means you have to either go back in the train and use another station or wait for the shuttle service to get organized."
Transit users with disabilities often don't have a Plan B, said Laperrière, who feels the long repair times demonstrate to him that people with reduced mobility are not a priority.
"If the elevator issue would cause a big problem for a large number of persons, disabled or not, I can guarantee you that these problems would be settled faster," he said.
Brossard station had the most elevator problems — with nine service breakdowns.
Four occurred during the first week of October.
On Oct. 1st, one of the elevators near the station's entrance was out of service for about an hour. Longueuil firefighters confirmed they were called to rescue someone who was stuck.
That same elevator continued to have problems over the next three days, ranging from 12 minutes to more than nine hours when it was not available.
The elevators at Du Quartier station have had seven disruptions since the end of July. The station is directly connected to the Quartier Dix30 shopping district and the Solar Uniquartier, a transit-oriented development project.
According to the REM's tweets, when the elevator on the Dix30 side does not work, people have to use the Solar Uniquartier entrance.
The longest delay at Du Quartier lasted almost 16 hours.
At the beginning of September, there were four consecutive days where one or the other of the station's two elevators was temporarily on the fritz. On Sept. 20, both of the elevators were not working at some point, with about two hours of overlap.
At the Île-des-Sœurs Station, the same elevator has suffered six disruptions varying from about an hour-and-a-half to more than two days.
The Île-des-Soeurs station has a platform for each direction, similar to the Montreal Metro.
When that elevator on the eastbound side isn't available, travellers with reduced mobility can't reach the platform for trains headed toward Brossard and transit users arriving from Montreal can't get out of the Île-des-Soeurs station.
This happened to Gascon-Samson recently. The elevator closure forced him to stay on the train until the next stop — Panama — so he could loop back around and take the working elevator on the other side of the Île-des-Sœurs platform.
"It's added maybe 15 to 20 minutes to my commute," said Gascon-Samson.
"I think it's completely unacceptable. I mean it's a brand-new system."
The one elevator at Panama station has had the fewest breakdowns — a short lived one at the end of August and another last week after midnight.
Users holding doors a problem
CDPQ Infra says most of the elevator issues are due to people holding the doors.
Spokesperson Emmanuelle Rouillard-Moreau told CBC in an email that the system is still in a breaking-in period and each time there is a problem, "teams are on the ground to resolve any malfunctions as quickly as possible."
The REM elevators were installed and maintained by Otis, one of the leading elevator companies in the world.
The company did not answer questions from CBC about the reasons behind the technical breakdowns but said it understood the inconvenience it can cause customers when they are not working.
"In the early stages of operation, there is typically a learning curve by all stakeholders to adjust to factors such as traffic flow and usage. To keep equipment operating properly, we have conducted several training sessions with station staff and performed routine preventative maintenance," said Ray Hernandez, a spokesman Otis.
But Laperrière wonders how long the growing pains are going to last.
He does not think it's normal that such a new service is experiencing so many breakdowns, especially one that celebrates being accessible to all users.
"I understand there are mechanical issues that can happen, what I don't get is why there isn't someone on site with the proper equipment to repair it faster," said Laperrière.
The Société de transport de Montréal (STM) recently installed elevators at several Metro stations including McGill and Place-des-Arts. The elevators were manufactured and installed by a different operator and are maintained by STM staff.
But STM spokesperson Amélie Régis said it has not noticed any particular problems.
According to the REM's social media tweets, the last time one of its elevators was down at a REM station was Oct. 4.
Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante said the elevator failures were "disheartening" at a news conference Thursday.
"Someone who uses a wheelchair has no other option than to take the elevator, so of course it's concerning," she said. "It demoralizes people and prevents them from using public transit."
She said she hopes the REM will find solutions quickly and follow the STM's lead.
"What we want is for all new transportation methods to be universally accessible, so I'm confident that the REM will adapt and find solutions quickly," she said.
METHODOLOGY
CBC Montreal tracked the REM's social media account (@REM_infoservice) which lets transit users know when an elevator is out of service and when it is available again.
CBC noted each time the REM posted a message between July 31, when the REM officially started running, and Oct. 11, 2023.
There were four instances when the start or end time of the elevator breakdown was not posted.
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