Over on London Reconnections we have what I think is the most comprehensive overviews of the REM project, including an interview with one of the project’s tunnelling engineers.

@heliomass @LongBranchMike "Initially CDPQI planned to open the A3 and A4 branches together"

Initially, ADM was to pay huge part of the airport station (and hope to draw premium fares from it as many airport do). It had even been working ofn a white elehant project to extend the landside of terminal with a huge glass dome over the area where station would be. As soon as COVID hit and flights stopped ADM , this time, stopped everything to avoid bankruptcy as it almost did as 9-11 hit as it was building the US terminal.

CDPQ wentto federal governent who agreed to take on ADM's funding. But did notspecify how quicklythe funding would be made. There were environmental issues as well for the tunnel portal on north side and CDPQ changed route to airport a few times.

However, eventually got final route and dug tunnel. ADM demolished the part of elevated parking to let CDPQ dig station. Station dug reached tuinnel, the work stopped 2 years. restarted in 2025.

Lack of funding would be the reason for delay.

@heliomass @LongBranchMike "It will be elevated beside the Autoroute 40 highway, also known locally as La Métropolitaine, as well as serving the quarter’s shopping mall complex."

The Métropolitain is the section between Décarie/520 interchanges and jsut east of the 25 interchange (the elevated portion). In teh west iosland, the 40 is called "Transcanadienne".

Cadillac Fairview expresly forbade contruction of the Fairview station attached to its mall since it would cause lose of rentable store space.
This is also why Gallerie d'Anjoe won't have a metro entrance/exit inside its mall and they had to change plans to move station away from shopping mall.

The REM fairview station is about 500 metres from the first entrance at the former Sears store and that is walking diagonally through parking lot. It is on a 1-way highway service road but Ave Fairview vives non-highway access. It destroyed a big part of a valueable forest Pointe Claire residents fought to keep (because CF refused to have it on its lot)

@heliomass @LongBranchMike

Anse à l'Orme station on Ch Ste Marie does not connect to Baie d'Urfée station. There is now a walkway that connects the station to Clark Grap0ham ave, not no buses can reach the EXI station from the Baie D'Urfée industrial park.

This is a big challenge for STM. Shify work with his spikes in demand during sghift changes, and 0 traffic otherwise. They can't magically make buses appear thsi far from garage for a few minutesto handle the peak and then go back to garage.

And this won't (hopefully) be a park and ride. Ch Ste Marie was the quoet way for cyclists to cross the region and that fucken station in middle of where will generate huge amounts of traffic. Not much room for cars to park thanfully.

Also, STM buses cannot go from Bair d'Urfée, Ste Anne de Bellevue to that station because buses forbidden in Ste Anne village. (except for mini buses which STM refuses to use because it lacks maintenance facilities).

@heliomass @LongBranchMike Apart for destroyed forest, note that CDPQ purposefully built the train garage to prevent any future lenghtening of line.

Similar but less undoable design at the Deux Montagnes Garage.

@heliomass @LongBranchMike The US terminal built in early 200s over many years due to near bankrupcy had a bult in train station until mid 2010s. It faces south to make it easy to reach the Kingston or Vaudreul subs dor direct airport to downtown train.

When CDPQ was asked, it was given a mandate to replace expless busses between Panama and downtown on the replacementf pr champlain bridge, and to use the corridor along the CN lines to reach the existingstation at Dorval. The rebuilt of Turcot all the way to Montreal West left room for 2 dedicated tracks.
Sabia (now happily destroying federal govt workforce) didn't want to deal with former employer (CN) so decided to avoid the direct and easy reoute and decided instead to destroy the mont royal tunnel.

Do you know how many billions this will cost Alto to reach montréal because of this ?

Secondly, at that time there was much uncertainty about the Dorval stations (VIA, EXO, STM) due to planned transformation of the "circle". Where to put REM station?

@heliomass @LongBranchMike "Furthermore, the new south shore Champlain bridge was designed with median tracks for the REM line,"

Nop, The mandate was for either reserved bus lanes or light train/metro. The former bridge had normal lanes reserved for buses. The new bridge would have dedicated separate lanes for buses had CDPQ not launched its project.

@heliomass @LongBranchMike " A spur would be built off the existing Saint-Jérôme rail line for this operation."

The CN tracks extended from Deux Montagnes (at the time their trai storage depot) not only to Mirable, but also went around to St-HJérome. Both CN and CP had big presence there in part due to the GM car assembly plant that existed at Ste Thérèse and truck assembly plant in St-Jérome.

Service to Mirabel would have likely been on the CN line.

Mirabel alredy had its train station built during initial contruction. Trains would arrive from St-Scholastique .

@heliomass @LongBranchMike "like the 2.7 km between Côte-Vertu Métro as the northwest terminus of the Orange Line and the Bois-Franc REM station."

The main reason the STM spent a gazillion dolars to bbuild a new underground garage on the side of Cote Vertu station (instead of at its end where it was before) was so that the line could be extended north to not only meet with the then EXO Deux Montagen line, but continue to Laval. Those were the long term plans. Because CDPQ stole all the transit funding, all those plans have been abandonned, includig work in progress, and the short extension fo blue line has its budget stretched over many more years to delay its opening as much as politically possible.

Bot STM and EXO are now in survival mode withstaffing and project cuts because theur funding was redirected.

@heliomass @LongBranchMike "In 2022 a new, underground Métro train depot and storage yard opened a kilometre north of Côte-Vertu Métro station. It is also half the way to Bois-Franc REM station."

Nop, the Côte Vertu garage is WEST of the station, specifically to allow extension of the line. Itis now a park , you woudln't know there was a hige metro garage under. Pic 4 shows the only permanent building sticking out of ground.

@heliomass @LongBranchMike "It is already attracting high density development around many of its stations."

One station. du Quartier.

The right of way along the Deux Montagnes line developped when Canadian Northern opened the line as part of its trans continental service. And that line is pretty much developped all the way along.

People don't quite like living on a busy 6 lane highway with 24h traffic. There is a good reason the land around the trans canada was zoned industrial. You should not torture people by forcing them to live on a highway where "15 minute city" is next to impossible due to high traffic, and good life impossible due to high noise.

CDPQ likely owns the farmland and forests around its Ste Anne station and hoped to develop it. I hope it fails and that the forests (what is left ofthem) remains.