SMALL PARK OVER REM IN T.M.R.
Deal sees 40-metre section covered
It’s not the 1.8 kilometres that it had initially proposed, but the Town of Mount Royal said Monday it is happy with a deal to cover a small portion of the tracks in the centre of the city.
Planners of the Réseau express métropolitain (REM) announced they had come to an agreement to cover a section of 150 metres of train tracks in the centre of Town of Mount Royal — stretching between two bridges currently being used by cars. The new public space will have a surface area of 23,000 square feet.
“We’re quite happy with this, especially that it’s right in the centre of the town,” T.M.R. Mayor Philippe Roy said. “And, hopefully, (after the construction of the REM) we will pursue this and cover other parts.”
He said the covered portion — which runs from Laird Blvd. to Cornwall Ave. — will probably be a park and have bicycle paths, but the city of 19,500 residents will hold a public consultation in the coming months to determine the wishes of its citizens on how to develop the area.
The suburb that owes its existence to the railway raised alarm bells last year about the dramatic increase in trains the REM project would entail — going from 62 per day up to 550.
When it comes into operation gradually between 2022 and 2024, the T.M.R. branch of the line will serve as a feeder to four separate branches of the rail network, which stretches to Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, the city of Deux-Montagnes, the airport and Central Station, linking to the South Shore over the Samuel-de-Champlain Bridge. Trains will be passing through T.M.R. at the rate of one every 2.5 minutes during rush hours, which stretch over six hours each weekday. Outside of those periods, the trains will run roughly every five minutes. Trains will be in service 20 hours a day, from 5 a.m. to 1 a.m.
The REM is being built with federal and provincial money, with a slight majority coming from the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), the province’s public pension manager — which is also building and operating the train.
As a way to reduce the noise from the trains, T.M.R. had proposed to cover the entire section of the tracks in its municipality, stretching from the Metropolitan Expressway to Jean-Talon St. That plan called for the covered section to have a linear park with a bicycle path, single-family homes, a commercial area as an extension of the centre of town and condo
towers at the south end.
Last October, the pension fund manager said it studied the idea and determined it would take $300 million and delay the project by a year.
When the scaled-back plan was unveiled Monday, Roy said it’s just a first step for the city.
“It opens the door to recovering other sectors of the tracks,” Roy said. “This is the fruit of many long months of negotiations with CDPQ Infra.”
He said the dream to cover all the tracks in the town is still alive, but will have to wait until after the REM project is completed.
“I know it is technically possible to do it without interrupting the trains,” Roy said. “We covered the Ville-Marie Expressway without having to close it down.”
Harout Chitilian, executive director of corporate affairs and development for CDPQ Infra — the infrastructure arm of the pension fund — said planners have made adjustments to integrate the project into T.M.R. in order not to increase its overall cost. He said a sound wall blocking the view of the station has been cancelled, and a passageway that had been planned, which was denounced by some residents as unsightly, has been cancelled. A temporary passageway will be built instead. The Town of Mount Royal will put forward $6.5 million toward the project, according to the agreement.
Roy said, however, that his residents remain concerned about noise levels the project could bring to the quiet municipality, and said he has been given assurances that the overall noise from the trains would be less than the ones that currently go through the city.
“They tell us it’s many more trains, but they will be much quieter than the ones we have now,” Roy said. “We’ll see.”
I know it is technically possible to do it without interrupting the trains. We covered the Ville-Marie Expressway without having to close it down.