REM nixes TMR request to bury its tracks

Builders of the $6.3-billion Réseau express métropolitain are throwing cold water on a request by the Town of Mount Royal to bury the part of the line slated to run through the suburb.

Residents of the area recently packed the town hall for an information session about the project, which would see the number of trains running through the town increase to 550 per day, from 62 currently.

T.M.R. Mayor Philippe Roy said he would like CDPQ Infra, the REM’s builders, to put all of the future line running through the town into a trench.

On Wednesday, the REM’s builders published a press release that stated they examined the possibility of burying the tracks in the affected area, but determined it would be too costly and take too much time.

Jean-Vincent Lacroix, a spokesperson for the REM, said that at T.M.R.’s request, builders did a preliminary analysis of a project to bury the train tracks in the area, and determined it would cost at least $300 million to do the work and that the work would delay the project by at least one year.

“It’s not just a question of the cost, but also of time that it would take,” Lacroix said.

He said the builders have opted not to bury the train tracks in the area, but pointed out the trains are much smaller, lighter and quieter than the trains that currently run through the Mount Royal tunnel.

The new train network is expected to be up and running in phases between 2021 and 2023.