Two La Presse reports (September 28 and 29, 2026) give opposite readings of ridership on Montréal’s REM, the light-rail network built and owned by CDPQ Infra, a subsidiary of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec. For ALTO, the useful lesson is less which reading is right than what the dispute shows about forecasts, baselines, and the per-passenger-kilometre payment model used for the REM.

1. What the two articles report

The first article also reports that ARTM pays La Caisse $0.72 per passenger-kilometre under the 2018 agreement. CPCS puts the shortfall at 148 million passenger-km a year, which La Presse reports as over $100 million the public pays under a performance guarantee.

2. What the dispute shows

The parties disagree on the baseline as much as the ridership. CPCS’s expected figure is about 114,000 a day. CDPQ Infra’s “40% above” implies an expected figure near 93,000 (Initiative calculation: 130,000 ÷ 1.4). Neither article sets out the published baseline for the current stage.

The two figures measure different things. CPCS uses daily trips at the end of 2025. CDPQ Infra uses a weekday average over about five weeks in September, which Professor Jean-Philippe Meloche (Université de Montréal) notes is historically a busy month. The payment is per passenger-km, and neither article gives passenger-km for the current period.

The business-plan forecast did not anticipate the network’s behaviour. The study behind the business plan projected that the Anse-à-l’Orme and airport branches together would add 9% to ridership. Weekday ridership went from 80,000 in May (as stated by La Caisse’s CEO) to 130,000 now, about 63% higher (Initiative calculation), before the airport branch has opened. How much is seasonal is not known; CDPQ Infra says a fuller update will follow this fall.

3. What this means for ALTO

1. Forecasts can miss by large margins in either direction. On the figures reported, the REM was well below its projection at end-2025, and a single branch has since outperformed its forecast several times over. ALTO’s 24 million annual trips by 2055 (Canada’s Moment, August 2026) is one central figure; the REM case shows why published ranges and sensitivity tests matter at this stage.
2. A per-passenger-km payment scales public cost with use. If ridership falls short, La Presse reports the public still pays under the performance guarantee; if ridership rises, payments rise with it. ALTO’s payment mechanism has not been published. If it followed the REM model, public cost would depend on ridership in both directions, which a “no subsidies” description would not capture.
3. A ridership number needs its basis. Weekday or annual average, trips or passenger-km, which season, which stage of the network. ALTO’s 24 million is an annual figure; any comparison with it, or with REM-style reporting, needs the same basis.
4. Land value capture has a real-world ceiling nearby. The REM levy is $12.26 per square foot, capped at $600 million over 50 years, and the developer reports it is slowing construction near stations. The McGill HSR analysis (July 2026) assumes $12 billion in land value capture, 20 times the REM cap (Initiative calculation). ALTO projects 63,000 housing units while noting it does not control land use.

Sources

• 1Vincent Larin, “Le REM serait loin de l’achalandage promis,” La Presse, September 28, 2026.
• 2Vincent Larin, “L’achalandage du REM bondit,” La Presse, September 29, 2026.
• 3ALTO, Canada’s Moment: The Economic Opportunity of High-Speed Rail, August 2026.
• 4Zhang, Negm and El-Geneidy, High-Speed Rail in Canada: Insights from a corridorwide survey and a financial analysis, Transportation Research at McGill, July 2026.
• 5The CPCS report itself has not been published; its figures are as reported by La Presse.