Builders of the new Réseau électrique métropolitain announced it will add three new stations in the city centre to its proposed route.
Announced last April, the $5.5-billion project is being built by the Caisse du dépôt et placement du Québec, but depends on federal and provincial funding to become a reality. The electric, driverless train — to be built by 2020 — would go from Brossard in the south and Deux-Montagnes in the north, passing through Central Station downtown. It would extend Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue in the west and the Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau Airport.
The proposed route, using most of the existing Deux-Montagnes train line, would cut through Mount Royal tunnel.
On Friday, CDPQ Infra, the infrastructure arm of the province’s largest pension fund, announced it would build stations underneath and beside the existing Édouard-Montpetit and McGill métro stations, linking the train to the métro. The REM will also have a stop at the Peel Basin, to serve the Griffintown and Point-St-Charles areas.
The Édouard-Montpetit and McGill stations were considered to be provisional in the original proposal because of the technical difficulties in building them.
But on Friday, the CDPQ unveiled its plans to build the station. For Édouard-Montpetit, because the tracks would sit 70 metres below the métro station, the equivalent of 20 storeys, it would not be feasible to build escalators to get to the métro station. For that reason, four high-capacity elevators would be built that can transport 5,000 people per hour, and take 20 seconds to make the trip each way.
Artist’s rendition of part of the proposed REM network, a 67-kilometre electric, driverless train system linking Montreal’s Gare Central to the West Island, Trudeau Airport, the North Shore and South Shore.
The McGill station would be built in the city’s underground between the Eaton Centre and Place Montréal Trust, next to the existing McGill métro station.
Building both stations would mean a significant time saver for many people travelling between the two stations. CDPQ estimates it will take two to three minutes to travel between McGill and Édouard-Montpetit. To get there now, it takes about 30 minutes, because McGill is on the métro’s Green Line and Édouard-Montpetit is on the Blue Line; users must transfer to the Orange line to get from one station to the other.
The work would require closing part of McGill College Ave. for about eight months to build the McGill station, but minimal traffic disruptions for the construction of the Édouard-Montpetit station.
Macky Tall, the president of CDPQ Infra, said the new stations would cost about $400 million and result in a projected 15-per-cent increase in passengers.
The REM is being built as a private project, in partnership with the provincial and federal governments. According to the deal reached with the Quebec government, the Caisse will build, own and run the new train network, with an objective to earn a market-competitive return on its investment through fares.
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