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 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........

© Montreal Gazette