REM link to Dorval train station shelved till after federal election!
12 Oct 2019
Dorval Mayor Edgar Rouleau remains cautiously optimistic the Réseau express métropolitain will eventually be extended to the Dorval train station, just south of Trudeau airport.
But the mayor said the matter of extending the REM another 700 metres — from the airport to the train station — will have to wait until after the Canadian federal election.
“We have to wait, that was the answer,” Rouleau said he received from federal Transport Minister Marc Garneau.
Rouleau said he will be watching the Oct. 21 election results closely.
“We’ll have to wait for the new cabinet,” he said.
But Rouleau said he thinks the REM extension, which he has called a “no-brainer”, will eventually be built.
“I’m still confident. But when, I don’t know.”
The federal government announced in July that it was conducting a $2-million feasibility study on an REM extension.
In May, the city of Dorval also unveiled an independent study it had commissioned that found that an REM extension, located just one stop beyond the REM’s planned airport station, would bring an additional 3,600 passengers to the REM on a daily basis.
According to the study by Trajectoire Québec, a new intermodal station, linked with the Via Rail, EXO commuter train service and adjacent ATM bus terminal, would provide access to the REM for 40,000 transit users who pass through the area on a daily basis.
The study also found that an REM extension, located just one stop beyond the REM’s planned airport station, would shorten commuting times by an estimated 12 to 58 minutes, depending on departure and destination points.
It would also ease congestion in the Dorval Circle, which is used by an estimated 150,000 drivers per day.
Rouleau noted the extension idea enjoys widespread support — from the airport authority (Aéroports de Montreal), Via Rail, the Caisse de Dépôt, and the city of Montreal.
Funding for an REM extension will likely require funding from both the federal and provincial levels of government, said Rouleau.
“We will have keep pushing,” he said. “It has to get done.”
Rouleau told the West island Gazette in July that he would continue driving his car downtown without an REM extension.
