A new multimodal transit station will be built in suburban Montreal to integrate Via Rail, Exo – the city’s suburban commuter train system – the STM bus system and Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport.
The project, in co-development and without a price tag yet, is likely to begin construction next year and wrap up in 2029.
It will be consolidated on the current Exo station site within a few hundred feet west of Via’s existing train station.
The two are divided by the so-called Dorval Circle, an interchange among local highways that connects to the airport. It’s a thoroughfare increasingly plagued by traffic congestion, so bad passengers at times have gotten out of cars and made better time by walking the remaining distance with their suitcases to the airport terminal.
In fact, the Exo station is kind of an integrated station already, with buses using it, on a footprint larger than the Via station, which has been in place originally serving the Grand Trunk Railway since 1888. No future plans for the site have been announced.
The four development partners – Via Rail Canada, Autorité régionale de transport métropolitain, Exo and Aéroports de Montréal – announced the long awaited project in August and chose Omaha-based Kiewit, through its Laval, Que. arm Construction Kiewit Cie, which has extensive experience in Montreal projects as well as U.S. transit infrastructure like the East Side Access tunnel to New York’s Grand Central Station.
The co-development means the parties will now get to work on the detailed design, identify technical challenges and provide accurate cost estimates. However, Via indicated it is paying the lion’s share of the project.
After the official announcement Aug. 12, the key players didn’t respond to requests for follow-up media interviews.
But local officials are optimistic some long-term local, regional, even inter-provincial, transportation problems will be alleviated by the so-called “hub.”
Dorval Mayor Marc Donet called it a “big step” in integrating two disparate terminals. At present “it’s very complex to get people to interconnect together and get to the airport or get downtown in a fluid manner.”
Donet added this isn’t just about his municipality.
“This is a long-term commitment by Via Rail for anybody who’s within that circle that resonates around Ottawa, Kingston and downtown Montreal. So, people in Kingston will now have an easy choice to come to Montreal on a Via train and get off at the airport .”
And while there is a current shuttle bus from Dorval’s Via station this will be streamlined. Some 250,000 passengers “pass through” Dorval yearly, according to the Via release.
“For travellers, this will mean easier transfers, less travel between facilities, shorter transfer times and, ultimately, a more seamless and predictable travel experience,” the railway stated.
Donet said his municipality had long been lobbying for “better connectivity to the airport.” He said the new light rail REM will connect to the airport next year but that will serve people north of the airport.
“If you’re south in Montreal it’s very difficult, so we’ve always been lobbying for a fluid easy-to-use connection.”
Donet said traffic to the airport is “gridlocked every day” and “it can take 45 minutes just to get on to the airport property.”
Moreover, “we’ve always been pushing for better connections to downtown Montreal.”
The mayor says he believes the present Via station will be demolished.
“What happens after that is unclear,” he said.
As for the current shuttle bus, that also gets caught up in traffic, “so it’s not easy to navigate.”
Clifford Lincoln, a former politician and provincial cabinet minister who has long campaigned for better train service to the city’s so-called West Island, which includes Dorval, called the terminal “certainly a good idea,” saying airport congestion today is “just awful.”
He thinks the hub will bolster train services – Exo, on the south side of the West Island, while the new REM serves the north side.
“So long as this stays then it makes a heck of a lot of sense to co-ordinate
in Dorval,” he said.
Rachelle Cournoyer with Citizens for a Better Dorval, said co-ordinating Via Rail and Exo means Exo passengers will be able to avail the shuttle bus just like Via’s now are.
She also hopes there will be public consultations.
One question she has is whether travellers will lose parking spaces now at the Via station, where they park and hop on a train, say, for a two-hour commute to Ottawa.
“The Via Rail line is used by a lot of civil servants,” she said. “If they consolidate the Via station with the (new) transit hub across the road does that mean that you lose those spaces.”