After many false starts, the project to extend the blue line should cost some $6 billion and it would finally see the light of day by 2029, promise the government of Quebec and the City of Montreal.
• Read also: Should rents be frozen?
• Read also: Tramway: Minister Guilbault sends the ball back to Ottawa
Excavation work will begin as early as 2023, according to current estimates.
“I assure you that this time is the right one,” said Chantal Rouleau, minister responsible for the Montreal region. “The blue line extension project combines decades of solemn announcements […] which were broken promises,” she acknowledged.
She indicates that this time, “the money is there”, and that the government authorizes the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) to launch the call for qualification for the work of the tunnel boring machine.
Mme Rouleau was accompanied by the mayoress of Montreal, Valérie Plante, by Pablo Rodriguez, minister and lieutenant of Quebec for the government of Canada, as well as Éric Alan Caldwell, chairman of the board of directors of the STM.
The project, reviewed by the STM, would stretch over six kilometres, with five stations, and at an estimated cost of $5.8 billion. The various optimizations would save $1.1 billion, while in April 2021 the costs were estimated at $6.9 billion.
However, the bill might rise to $6.4 billion due to inflation and interest rates.
The government will contribute $577 million to allow the planning of the project. Other envelopes might then follow.
In this new version presented, the terminus station would be under Highway 25. The station at the intersection of Pie-IX Boulevard has also been reconfigured, among other modifications. The tunnel would be dug by a tunnel boring machine, a method that would make it possible to advance twice as quickly, in addition to reducing surface nuisances for the residents of the sectors crossed.
According to STM estimates, up to 25,600 users would use the extended section for each rush hour, and would remove 5,300 cars from the road.
In terms of time, it would be possible to connect the Jean-Talon station to the terminus in Anjou in regarding fifteen minutes, whereas the project now takes around forty by bus.
For her part, the mayor of Montreal, Valérie Plante, recalled that no station had been inaugurated since 1988.
“When we look around the world, we see that other major cities have continuously developed their public transport, but not us. It means that now we are in catch-up mode, ”she recalled, hoping that the announcement will be a first step. “However, there is no question of stopping at the blue line,” added the mayor.
Optimisations
Following public consultations, the STM moved the planned location of the terminus station, which is now under Highway 25, rather than at the Galeries d’Anjou. Aedicules will be set up on each side of the highway, in municipal land to the east and near the shopping center on the other. The new configuration will create a link between the two poles of the borough.
“We completely open up a district, so that citizens finally have access to everything that is happening on the other side of the highway. All Montrealers will have much easier access to the east end of Montreal,” added Ms. Rouleau.
The initial park-and-ride has also been removed, following numerous requests to do so. The bus terminal is also entitled to a new layout.
Since April 2021, the STM has become the owner of the Le Boulevard shopping center, at the corner of Pie-IX, where a future station will also be located.
In the new project configuration, the bus terminal will be resized. An agreement for the use of the Francon quarry will also make it possible to limit the space that will be needed at the site, which will allow the shopping center to continue its operations for the duration of the work.
About twenty sites are subject to expropriation notices. Of this number, 30% would be completed, and 50% would be in progress, with the rest in reserve.
Slow start
The project to extend the blue line to Anjou was announced in 2018 by the government of Philippe Couillard. The following year, the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, pledged $1.3 billion to enable the project to be carried out.
Since then, the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) has made several updates to the project, announcing in 2019 and 2020 the awarding of two contracts for the architectural design of the stations, and carrying out several public consultations.
In 2021, the STM began preparatory work at the corner of rue Jean-Talon and boulevard Lacordaire in order to relocate the underground cables and aqueducts present in the excavation area of the future station. Other work is currently underway to create a pedestrian tunnel that will connect the future Pie-IX station and the SRB project.
Despite these advances, the project was slow to materialize, in particular because of the expropriation procedures, disputed by some owners, and whose costs have exploded.
The government had raised the idea of cutting off the future station at the Viau intersection to revise the costs of the project downwards.
Other major public transit projects might soon see the light of day in Montreal’s east end. The rapid bus service (SRB) on boulevard Pie-IX should begin a trial period during the summer, to be officially inaugurated in the fall.
The Eastern Metropolitan Express Network (REM), for its part, has a route perpendicular to that of the blue line, and should cross it at the axis of Jean-Talon Street and Lacordaire Boulevard. On Thursday, the CDPQ Infra, which manages the project, however announced that it was temporarily putting it on hold.
The plan to extend the blue line to Anjou had been mentioned many times in the past by various governments, but never materialized.
