REM too unreliable, bring back buses linking South Shore to Montreal, Brossard mayor says
REM's non-compete clauses cause headaches for users, critics say
The mayor of Brossard, Que., is calling for the return of bus lines connecting the South Shore municipality to downtown Montreal until the REM is more reliable.
Doreen Assaad said Friday she wants the 45 and 90 bus lines — which transported riders over the Champlain Bridge into the city before the REM's non-compete clause axed them — re-established.
"I'm asking for them to reopen the agreement and not force this exclusivity because they're holding everybody hostage," she said. "I want something continuous and stable."
The REM, the light-rail link which currently only connects Montreal's South Shore to downtown, will in the fall connect to both the city's western and northwestern suburbs. But it has of late been plagued by shutdowns and delays tied to weather.
Earlier this week, the REM's leadership team met with Quebec Transport Minister Geneviève Guilbault to discuss the REM service outages.
After that meeting, the Autorité régionale de transport métropolitain (ARTM), the Montreal transportation authority, announced that the shuttle buses that were ferrying stranded users to and from the city would stay in place until further notice.
Assaad said she wanted to see more done, however. She said her constituents need a reliable public transit link to Montreal.
"I'm saying 'let competition dictate how well the performance will be.' Let's go back to the way it was before," she said.
Residents at REM stations this week expressed varied opinions about the return of buses linking Brossard to Montreal.
Some travellers said they preferred the return of buses, citing personal experiences, such as arriving home late due to REM delays and believed that buses could offer a more reliable solution.
Some commuters expressed that they did not prefer one method over another, as long as it got them from one point to another in a timely manner.
One man told Radio-Canada that he didn't think buses were necessary. He suggested that patience is needed until the REM's technical issues are resolved, expressing confidence that the system will improve over time.
When the REM opened, the bus lines that had previously linked Brossard to Montreal stopped transporting passengers over the Champlain Bridge. Now, the buses drop passengers off at the city's REM stations.
The bus lines were axed because when the plans for the REM were drawn up, officials decided that to be viable and have the number of passengers necessary to justify its existence, the REM would have to be the sole public transit link to the destinations it served.
That means that the REM also has non-compete clauses for its other lines, which are not yet open: Montreal's suburbs of Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue and Deux-Montagnes and, later, the airport. It is unclear which bus lines, if any, to those destinations would be axed to accommodate the REM as the sole transit link.
Alan DeSousa, the mayor of Saint-Laurent, said the problems the REM is having in Brossard are a harbinger of what could be coming in the fall when the new lines open.
He said the non-compete clause is preventing other public transit services from integrating with the REM, which he argued would provide redundancy in the case of a shutdown.
"The non-compete clause just serves further to exacerbate the problems the REM currently has," he said.
In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for the ARTM said they were aware of Assaad's request for the return of bus service, but did not respond to further questions.
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