Montreal’s light rail link to the South Shore will not open this fall as planned, sources say

It appears that Montreal’s new light rail network link to the city’s South Shore will not open this fall as planned.

Sources told Radio-Canda that the project has been delayed until spring. The REM project leader, CDPQ Infra, will officially announce the delay on Friday morning.

The announcement comes as commuters heading to and from the South Shore anticipate major delays as the province’s Ministry of Transportation closes three lanes of the Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine tunnel for at least three years.

It is not the first time the inauguration Metropolitan express network (REM) The connection between Brossard and Montreal’s Bonaventure-Central Station via Nuns’ Island, originally scheduled to open in late 2021, has been delayed.

It was pushed back to spring or summer 2022, then this fall.

From the station near Quartier DIX30 on Montreal’s South Shore, the electric train will make two stops as it heads north, crossing the Champlain Bridge and stopping at Nuns’ Island before heading downtown.

It will provide commuters with a public transport alternative to driving or taking the bus through heavy rush hour congestion.

Eventually, the light rail network will run across the city, but the project has faced major setbacks over the years.

Last month, construction came to a complete halt when Quebec’s Occupational Safety and Health Commission (CNESST) ordered a halt to work on the track’s 67-kilometre catenary system while investigators look into an incident that did not injure anyone, but caused. significant damage

That was because a railway maintenance vehicle had a technical fault with its connection system. He was thrown down the slope of the Champlain Bridge and fell at Nun’s Island station.

As for the rest of the network, 18 out of a total of 26 stations were to be opened gradually in three phases between autumn 2023 and autumn 2024.

CDPQ Infra later scaled back that plan to open all at the same time in late 2024.

On REM’s information website, it still says that the first trains are expected to run in 2022 from the South Coast to Bonaventure-Central Station.