The Réseau express métropolitain (REM) will not travel to Montréal-Trudeau airport as planned by the end of 2024. The cost of the station in the future has doubled more since 2018, and the decline in revenues associated with the pandemic has forced Aéroports de Montréal (ADM) to delay the start of construction.
The news, first published in The Presswas confirmed by Radio-Canada.
Work on the airport station only began two months ago. ADM, which lost $ 1 billion in revenue due to the pandemic, had no funds to start earlier. The loans granted by Quebec and Ottawa finally allowed him to start work.
It was 600 million granted to us, which allowed us to restart the project, to re-make a call for tenders, to choose a partner for construction and to start construction, which started on mid -Marchexplained Anne-Sophie Hamel, director of media relations at ADM.
A new in-service date will be announced this fall.
There are several parties involved in the construction of this project, underlined Anne-Sophie Hamel. We need to make the station, we need to connect it to the REM network as well, so we want to make sure we give our fellow citizens the date that is actually the official date of entry into service.
The promoter of the project, CDPQ Infra, confirms in its part that work is progressing smoothly at the airport branch, the tunnel boring machine that has excavated more than half of the route.
However, it is impossible to partially put this section in service until the future Marie-Curie station, downstream from the airport, because trains have to go to the very end of the line to change direction.
The mayor of the borough of Saint-Laurent, Alan DeSousa, was disappointed. This delay will have consequences for Technoparc Montréal, which will host the Marie-Curie station.
Our economic competitiveness depends on the completion and operation of REMhe argued. We have companies building here and there are workers who have to use the transportation system to get to work.
With information from Marc Verreault
Source: Radio-Canada
