Laval moves on extending metro
Laval has made a move towards extending the orange line by getting several major landowners to agree to excavations for free. There’s no map of the imagined future stations.
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Kate
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DeWolf 11:06 on 2025-03-17 Permalink
La Presse has a map: https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/grand-montreal/2025-03-17/prolongement-de-la-ligne-orange/laval-s-allie-a-six-promoteurs-pour-convaincre-quebec.php
I mean… yes. Imagine how many tens of thousands of people you could house in the redeveloped properties around these metro stations. This is exactly how transit is developed very successfully in places like Tokyo and Hong Kong.
Kate 11:15 on 2025-03-17 Permalink
Thanks! I hadn’t seen that.
Bert 12:33 on 2025-03-17 Permalink
The thing is that the whole area just north of the 440, on St Elzéar is now a high-rise condo hot-spot. I can’t see that walking from there to a station, which would be presumably at Carrefour Laval, would be well received. There are places where there are no sidewalks. There is no footpath over the 440.
There could be a quick local-loop bus service, but multi-modal is not ideal. The plan should consider a stop on the north side of the 440, between Marché 440 and Labelle, where the new residential is. Use Carrefour as a day-time parking lot and don’t have the people on St Elzéar drive 5 minutes to get to Carrefour.
Blork 13:48 on 2025-03-18 Permalink
It’s been decades since I relied on the Orange line to get me downtown from the Plateau, but even then it was becoming unbearably crowded during rush hours. So what is this going to do?
I’m not against expanding the Metro by any means, but when you just keep extending an already crowded line, you just make it more crowded. (In this case, since it closes the loop, some riders will opt to take the western side of the Orange line, but I think the net result will still be more crowding on both ends of the Orange line.)
If only we could run express lines like they do in some other cities. Imagine if, during rush hours, 2 out of 3 trains coming in from Laval skipped every station after Sauvé until they got to Berri-UQAM. That would allow people in Villeray and the Plateau to actually have a chance of getting on the Metro without having to wait until after 9:00AM, or to endure sardine-squishing.
Unfortunately that will never happen because it would essentially need a set of parallel tracks between Sauvé and Berri-UQAM, and that ain’t never gonna happen.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: what we need is more lines, not more stations on existing lines. But I also know it’s futile to say that, as it’s all too expensive.
Joey 15:37 on 2025-03-18 Permalink
Increasingly it seems like the only way we can improve circulation (or, as the mayor likes to put it, mobility) in Montreal is to greatly expand our bus network. Even if the province were enthusiastic about investing in the Pink Line, the problems around expropriations and the inevitable construction delays and over-expenditures would probably mean it never gets done. How long have we been talking about extending the blue line, which is an idea with basically no real opposition (unlike, say, a new metro line for Plateau bohos, cue the Journal). Bus lanes, in theory, are cheap and relatively easy to implement, though I’m sure there will be PTSD following Pie-IX, which I gather is much more than a bus lane project. Maybe the SRB on Henri-Bourassa will encourage our transit policymakers to embrace the bus. If you’re on a major street and it’s rush hour, you should never be waiting more than 2-3 minutes for a bus. Maybe once we’ve got the bus network fixed we can set our sights on more underground transit, but even then…
CE 21:53 on 2025-03-18 Permalink
The Orange line really only has chronic crowding on the east side between Jean-Talon and Berri-UQAM, the west side isn’t as bad. A loop would take some pressure off the east side by sending some Laval commuters to the west. I’m also hoping that the second phase of the REM will take some of the north-south passengers who transfer to the Blue line. Imagine you work near McGill station and need to get to Acadie. You’ll go from two transfers and 13 stops to one transfer and 4 stops. It’ll be a no brainer for a lot of people.
Ian 22:03 on 2025-03-18 Permalink
This is a very good point. It was only after the line extended to Laval that the southbound east side of line became unusable. I used to catch the metro at Laurier when I worked downtown, but after the extension I just took the bus instead as it was faster – I would often have train after train pass me with no room to get on.
Bradley 07:52 on 2025-03-20 Permalink
@Blork They can do what they do in Copenhagen. Essentially, they run two trains from the terminus, the first one is express-skipping stops, and the second one behind it is local and serves all of the stations. At some point near the middle of the line, the first train changes to a local and the second train changes to an express, giving them time to catch up to each other at the other terminus.