Mount Royal tunnel: a deal may be struck

Since the REM will soon have exclusive use of the Mount Royal tunnel, the Train de l’est is going to be blocked from getting downtown by that route. Now a new idea has been floated to loop the route past Du Collège metro and approach Central Station from the west. A previous suggestion had been to link it to Sauvé metro on the orange line’s eastern branch, but that’s already maxed out at rush hour. It seems so long as passengers can get downtown, this may work out, even if their train trip is necessarily longer.

Either way, passengers will have a block and a half to walk between the train and the metro stations, which were not built for this intermodal use. And while there is a station at Sauvé, there’s never been one where the train line passes over Decarie near Du Collège. The walk wouldn’t be so bad this time of year, rough in winter, but bound to be always difficult for people with mobility problems.