Ou tout simplement dévier la ligne de train vers l’aéroport pour assurer une correspondance où se trouve la gare de REM, un peu comme la boucle qui était évoquée quand on a construit la gare sous le Marriott. Pas besoin de se lancer dans des projets titanesques pour enfouir l’autoroute ou construire un métro pour la clientèle assez modeste de Via et Exo.
De toute façon, les gares d’exo et de Via sont assez mal placées en ce moment. Une gare de REM sous les gares resterait trop loin pour bien desservir la ville de Dorval, et on arriverait aussi probablement assez vite à un problème de capacité avec une fréquence maximale aux 15 minutes. En plus l’arrivée du TGF nécessiterait probablement le réaménagement du secteur pour accommoder une gare plus ambitieuse que celle qui est là en ce moment (on peut imaginer qu’il y aurait plus qu’une plateforme).
Aussi bien profiter du fait qu’il n’y a rien d’autre que des stationnement à ciel ouvert entre les gares et l’aéroport pour construire ce qu’il y a à construire à cet endroit!
Probablement la 204, la 209 ou la 460 qui font déjà la correspondance toutes les 30min entre la gare et l’aéroport. C’est la solution la moins optimale, mais celle avec laquelle on a le plus de chances de se ramasser si on ne rejoint pas les deux lignes.
Toronto a décommissionné le trottoir mécanique de sa station Spadina à cause de problèmes techniques chroniques. Je doute que ce soit la meilleure solution ici.
Cette entente-là ne concerne pas Via Rail ou tout autre opérateur qui prendrait sa place dans le cadre du projet de TGF, ce n’est signé que par l’ARTM. Et renégocier une entente du genre pour y amener la gare Dorval d’Exo serait encore nettement plus simple et moins couteux que toute forme de métro ou d’autoroute enfouie.
C’est vrai, ça connecterai efficacement les 3 services (REM, Exo, Via), mais ils seraient alors encore moins accessibles à la population de Dorval. Ça ne satisfera probablement pas les résidents et la Mairie, mais la solution est très intéressante.
Une gare exo aux standards du 21eme siècle ce serait le plus beau cadeau pour Dorval. Après il faut voir les connections. Le spagetti d’autoroutes à côté n’aide certainement pas.
À mon avis, on aurait besoins d’une gare “flagship”. Qui inclue passerelle pour traverser l’autoroute et donner de l’accès aux résidents de Dorval, des marquises parce qu’on est en 2022 et un terminus d’autobus complet comme à panama. On est à l’aéroport donc c’est justifiable comme dépense d’avoir une gare respectable. Le TGF deviendrait une option enviable pour se rendre à Dorval et les fonctionnaires chez exo pourront célébrer de ne pas avoir été oublié.
The REM’s tunnel boring machine has completed a 2.5-kilometre link from the Technoparc in St-Laurent to the underground area where the REM station will be built in the airport’s basement level. PHOTO BY REM
Dorval Mayor Marc Doret says it would be a missed opportunity if the Réseau express métropolitain (REM) is not extended to the Dorval train station, less than a kilometre away from Trudeau airport.
Earlier this month, CDPQ Infra, the arm of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec tasked with building the 26-station light-rail network, announced its massive tunnel boring machine had reached the airport.
But there is no immediate plan to extend the REM to the nearby Dorval train station, Doret noted.
Doret said extending the REM another 700 metres underground would provide a direct link to Dorval’s train station, which serves as an intermodal transportation hub for VIA Rail, Exo commuter trains and nearby STM bus terminal. It would also alleviate automobile traffic in the Dorval Circle area.
“If we want to commit to being a greener city, to reducing carbon emissions, to reducing car traffic, then we need to act,” Doret said. “This is our opportunity.”
Doret said the price tag for another station could be as much $250 million, but he added that “infrastructure projects like these only come around every 40 or 50 years. It will cost much more in the future (to add REM stations).”
If the REM is not extended, Doret said other possible links to the airport, such as an above-ground tram, will likely be considered.
“Plan C would be some kind of bus shuttle between the airport and the bus and train stations,” he said.
Doret’s concern is that too many commuters will opt to drive their cars if they have to take two or three buses to access the airport REM station.
“From most places in Dorval, even the West Island, you’re already looking at taking two buses to reach the bus terminal in Dorval” he said.
In 2019, the city of Dorval commissioned an independent study by Trajectoire Québec that found a REM extension one stop beyond the airport station would result in an additional 3,600 passengers to the REM on a daily basis.
The study also found a REM extension would also ease congestion in the Dorval Circle, which is used by an estimated 150,000 drivers per day.
Doret said he plans to speak with the federal minister of transport, Omar Alghabra, next month to find if an extension is still possible.
Doret said the REM extension plan is complicated because it involves three levels of governments, as well as transportation authorities such as VIA RAIL, EXO trains, STM buses, the Aéroports de Montréal (ADM) and CDPQ Infra.
“There are lot of different groups with a stake in what happens there,” he said. “But we know that the ADM is in favour of an extension to the train station.”
Doret said linking the airport with train station makes even more sense if a high-speed train link is eventually built between Quebec City and Windsor, Ont.
Former Dorval Mayor Edgar Rouleau, who once called the extension a “no-brainer”, said the tunnel extension could be done first and a station could always be added later.
“If the tunnel is not there, they will never build the station,” Rouleau told the Montreal Gazette in 2020.
Rouleau said it was never explained to him why the Dorval station was excluded from the REM network plans in the first place. “Honestly, I think they must have just forgot,” he said.
“It worries me that no one is talking about it now,” Doret said.
I think it would be “easier” (not easy) to order 4000 more tunnel voussoirs and just bore all the way to Jardins Dorval over the next year or so. The retrieval pit can be dug during that time, and a proper multimodal station complex can be infilled at any time later on.
Pretty sure it’s a bad idea. Rust and mold would quickly start damaging the TB. Of course, there could be maintenance, but I think it would get more expensive than just taking the machine apart in the long run.
I agree with you, options are either to stop right now, or dig until they reach south of the A20. Leaving the TBM idle isn’t an option.
That being said, stretching the tunnels brings many problems:
Was the ground surveyed south of the airport? they would be getting closer to the river…
Lots of critical infrastructure above it, so they have to be uber cautious
They would definitely need lots of permits (MTL city, Dorval city, provincial environment? the feds because of the CN/CP tracks?)
Who would pay for the extension? Not NouvelR for sure as its not in their contract. CDPQ would fit the bill?
Lead time to order and get the voussoirs
Conduct a study on how to operationalize an extension and new terminal station, considering the single track tunnel.
Unfortunately all this should have been resolved 2 years ago during the ‘who will pay the station’ saga, when all stakeholders were involved and media focus was high. Its too late now.
Thinking about it… part of an hypothetical Dorval extension could be street level or elevated. It would likely be the definitive terminus of the branch; sure the tunnel boring machine is there, but say there’s already little impetus for the extension, might as well consider all options to make it happen.
I’m not sure they can make it elevated. You need a lot of clearance to have a gentle grade (lower than 2%) and I think there’s a lot of things in the way.
I guess it also depends on exactly how much tail track tunnel there is after the (presumably, logically) dual-track, island platform Aéroport station. The access pit in P5 (from where the drilling and blasting machinery for the station vault was lowered and the the excavated rock removed) is some 220 m from the elevator shaft near the proposed transit centre at the front of the terminal. If the access pit is indeed near the end of the tail tunnel, it can remain for future use. The eventual extension could be excavated with traditional excavation (like the station vault), using a roadheader, or even a return of a similar TBM (unlikely for a 1 km tunnel).
