April 25, 2006

New commuter line approved for Montreal

The new track is just one way the Quebec government is tackling traffic woes in Montreal area

IRWIN RAPOPORT

correspondent

montreal

The Quebec government recently gave its approval for a new $300 million commuter rail line to service East End Montreal and the Lanaudiere region, a project that it will be financing.

The 51-km track — Mascouche to the downtown Central Station — will utilize 39 kms of existing Canadian National Railway track, along with construction of 12 kms of new track.

Of the 14 stations, three already exist as part of the Two Mountains line. The seven new stations slated for Montreal (west to east) are L’Acadie, Sauve, Pie-IX, Lacordaire, Louis H. Lafontaine, St. Jean Baptiste and Pointe-aux-Trembles.

The four stations in the Lanaudiere region are Charlemagne, Le Gardeur/Repentigny, Terrebonne and Mascouche.

The new track will be placed between the two lanes of Highway 640, similar to tracks in Washington, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles and southern Florida. Adjustments will also be made to the CN track.

The route for the 51-km Mascouche to downtown Montreal commuter line, which is expected to begin carrying passengers in 2008 or 2009.

“We hope construction will start by the beginning of 2007,” said Joel Gauthier, president and CEO of the Agence Metropolitaine de Transport, the provincial agency responsible for commuter rail service in the greater Montreal region. “The biggest element of the project will be to choose the rolling stock. We’ve hired consultants from Philadelphia. The locomotives will have to be hybrids — diesel and electric and the passenger cars will be double-deckers, just like the GO trains in Toronto.

“We’re looking at the same type of rolling stock that New Jersey Transit and the Long Island Railroad are using,” he added, noting that just as New York region lines must pass through a tunnel to gain access to Manhattan, the Mascouche line will be passing through a tunnel cut across Mount Royal.

“We’re working very closely with our counterparts in the New York region.”

The locomotives will be powered by electricity for the tunnel portion of the route.

About 60 per cent of the $300 million slated for the project will be used to purchase rolling stock and locomotives — 30 passenger cars and five locomotives.

Tenders for the construction of the new line and the supporting infrastructure will be published in late 2006 or early 2007.

“We’re hoping to have the line operating in 2008 or 2009,” said Gauthier.

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