The presence of explosives in the Mount Royal tunnel, tensions with the neighborhood and the proximity of a century-old water pipe are some of the challenges that the workers in charge of the construction have faced in recent years. construction of the Édouard-Montpetit station of the Réseau express métropolitain (REM), which is still moving “at breakneck speed”. Visiting places.
The firm CDPQ Infra invited media representatives on Wednesday morning to visit the site of this station, whose structure and wooden roof are already clearly visible from avenue Vincent-D’Indy, in the Côte-des-Neiges district. . However, this is only the “tip of the iceberg” of this project, underway since the summer of 2018, says the spokesperson for the REM project office, Jean-Vincent Lacroix.
To see the extent of the work in progress, The duty rushed into an elevator in order to enter the lair of this station, where up to 5000 users will pass every hour from the fall of 2023. At 55 meters deep, we reach what will become the mezzanine of this station, which will include five elevators, escalators and a traditional one, for emergency situations.
On the principle of metro stations, users of this station of the future light train will have access to two separate platforms to go either to Deux-Montagnes station, on the North Shore, or to the city center. as well as in Brossard, on the South Shore. The trip between this station and the McGill station will be three minutes, while the train frequency will be two and a half minutes during rush hour.
“It will completely change the population’s transportation habits,” Jean-Philippe Pelletier, the deputy director for the realization of the REM project for the Deux-Montagnes section, foresees. Currently, residents of Côte-des-Neiges must plan about 25 minutes, by bus or metro, to get to the city center, due to the detour imposed by the presence of Mount Royal, he explains.
The construction of this REM link between downtown and the Côte-des-Neiges district will also make it possible to materialize a project imagined by the City in 1961, in the era of former mayor Jean Drapeau. Identified as red in the archives, this hypothetical metro line was to use the railway line that passes under Mount Royal to get to the city center. With the REM, “we are closing the loop”, rejoices Mr. Lacroix.
A depth record
The station’s lair is ultimately doomed to have a polished architecture that will feature windows opening onto the rock of Mount Royal and strong lighting that will compensate for the lack of natural light.
“We are going to leave a whole section of wall that will show the rock of the Mount Royal tunnel, which will remain there and which will be integrated into the architectural concept of the station,” explains Jean-Philippe Pelletier. A work of art will also be installed in the station, he explains. For the moment, however, the fifty or so workers at work on this site must circulate in several places on loose and uneven ground in an austere and cold setting.
From the mezzanine, we then descend wooden steps to access the Mount Royal tunnel, which had to be widened to leave enough room for the station platforms, which will be fitted with platform doors to avoid any downtime. by the presence of users or objects on the rails, as is often the case in the metro. These docks will be 72 meters deep, a record in the country.
“We are in the equivalent of a 20-story building, but upside down,” says Mr. Pelletier. Despite this depth, the elevators that will be installed in this station will only take 20 seconds to connect the surface to the platforms, he adds.
Many challenges
However, there have been many challenges since the start of this project. In July 2020, an unforeseen detonation and the discovery of explosives residue in the Mount Royal tunnel dating back a hundred years took workers at the huge REM construction site by surprise, resulting in a one-year delay. as to the initial work schedule for the stations located in the Mount Royal tunnel and an increase in the costs of the light rail project.
The biggest challenge, according to Jean-Philippe Pelletier, however, was that of cohabitation with the neighborhood around this station, located five meters from the Marie-Victorin pavilion of the University of Montreal and a hundred meters from Saint-Germain Elementary School, in Outremont. Construction methods have thus been revised to limit noise pollution, in particular at night, while noise barriers have been installed around the site.
“This work is the same type of work that we are going to do in northern Quebec when we dig to make water avenues for hydroelectric power stations, but we did that in the heart of the city ”, illustrates the engineer by training.
Workers have also had to exercise caution in their blasting operations in recent years to ensure that the vibrations generated by them do not damage a century-old water main located only two meters from this future station. of the EMN, notes Mr. Pelletier.
Despite everything, the work is progressing “at breakneck speed”, rejoices Mr. Pelletier, who is thus confident about meeting the latest deadline for this project. To be continued.