Dorval wants REM spur to airport train
The city of Dorval wants a spur of the REM to go to the airport train. I can’t help thinking if this was a priority it would’ve been considered in the original plans.
The city of Dorval wants a spur of the REM to go to the airport train. I can’t help thinking if this was a priority it would’ve been considered in the original plans.
Ephraim 07:53 on 2019-05-17 Permalink
It already goes to the airport… they want it to continue to the train station, no?
Kate 09:05 on 2019-05-17 Permalink
Right, yes. I doubt they’ll build a special spur for that, though.
ant6n 10:23 on 2019-05-17 Permalink
That would probably be an extension of the airport spur, which supposedly will end in a tunnel station below the parking garage. I wouldnt be surprised if CDPQInfra planned their system making it very difficult to extend, for example by building the airport station as terminus. I also hear the airport spur is single track, so extending it may create more headaches there as well.
Spi 11:05 on 2019-05-17 Permalink
The same argument gets repeated ad nauseam by commentators and public officials to justify it but without any study or figures to support it. They keep saying that it should be extended in order to create an inter-modal transit hub at Dorval.
Francois Cardinal is especially guilty of just repeating this point without actually diving deeper into the issue.
The current Dorval station is used by EXO/STM/VIA. If the purpose of an intermodal hub is to facilitate connections between these services then looking forward, the pertinence of the Dorval station is questionable at best.
With the WI spur of the REM and a new ile-au-tourte bridge with dedicated bus lanes, the majority of riders of the Hudson-Vaudreuil EXO line will most likely have better connections to the REM through the WI spur, especially with the anticipated reconfiguration of STM bus lines.
The current STM services at Doval consist mostly of West-East express/commuter service to downtown and a few local lines that terminate at Dorval (to feed the aforementioned express buses to downtown) These will most likely be completely rethought when the WI spur of the REM comes online (and absorbs a large portion of those commuter/express bus riders) and the STM uses the freed up buses on local routes that feed the WI stations.
Finally, Francois Cardinal’s favorite argument, that if the high-frequency train from VIA ever sees the light of day, passengers from out of town (Ottawa, Trois-Riviere, Quebec City) who are flying out of YUL will have a shiny new automated metro to shuttle them 700-meter from the Dorval Station to the airport. When there is already a bus shuttle that exists at the moment, that barely gets used.
Yes, the extension is less than 1km but what purpose will it serve? Do people actually think it’s a good idea to spent hundreds of millions more for a 700-meter airport shuttle replacement?
Ian 13:11 on 2019-05-17 Permalink
The bus shuttle barely gets used because it’s a lousy ride. Have you taken the 747? You quite often won’t even get a seat – try doing that as a family that has just come off a flight and endured customs. I happily pay for the cab ride whenever I am flying.
As to your point about the REM absorbing bus riders, the train to Sainte Anne (for instance) will be way more expensive than the bus, and you will still have to take a shuttle bus to get to Sainte Anne because the new station will be in a stupid location that serves nobody except property speculators – I notice Broccolini has already built a new housing project out that way.
To make the bus service west of Dorval better it would make a lot ore sense to build out a proper grid instead of forcing everything through the Dorval circle, which adds to congestion and slows travel. Also, if the express buses were actually express buses instead of milk runs along Lakeshore it would improve the trip immeasurably. We don’t need a new train. We need reliable, consistent, and faster rides – all of which could be achieved by rethinking the bus routes. I can drive from Lionel Groulx to Sainte Anne in 30 minutes, there’s no reason it needs to take an hour on the bus, or for the bus schedule to be so intermittent outside rush hour as there are literally thousands of students and staff headed to Sainte Anne every day on a school schedule, not an office schedule.
david99 14:24 on 2019-05-17 Permalink
I seem to recall that CDPQ Infra and Montreal are already way in on this, and the request has already been submitted to the government for funding. I also seem to recall that the government was enthusiastic about the project and wanted it costed so they could send a demand to the feds. Of course, in Quebec speak that could mean anything from ‘it’s a done deal’ to ‘this is utterly dead.’
Ephraim 15:02 on 2019-05-17 Permalink
Ian, I’m in the $41 zone and a block and a half from the 747 and I take Car2Go to the airport.
Ian 21:52 on 2019-05-17 Permalink
Oh cool, I didn’t know you could take Car2Go to the airport. Good to know. I keep my membership “just in case”. Of course with the family I’d have to try to get one of the sedans but still.