Reseau Express Metropolitain (REM) Montreal, QC, Canada

REM station construction begins at Montreal airport: ProgessiveRailroading.com

Aeroports de Montreal (ADM) last week held a groundbreaking ceremony to mark the start of construction on the Reseau Express Metropolitain (REM) metro station at the Montreal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport.

The station construction is expected to be completed by 2023, ADM officials said in a press release.

Upon completion, the stop will be one of 26 stations to be built on the nearly 42-mile REM light-rail network that will eventually connect the airport to downtown Montreal.
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Will be interesting to see what it will take to extend the plan a half mile to the VIA/Exo station at Dorval.

Seven hundred metres.

That’s what separates the planned Réseau express métropolitain light-rail train station at Trudeau Airport from tracks used by Vaudreuil-Hudson commuter trains and Via Rail inter-city trains in Dorval.

And, three years after the $6.3-billion REM project was announced, there’s still no plan in place to link the two.

“Logic suggests, common sense suggests, good planning suggests that they should be linked,” said Alan DeSousa, an opposition city councillor and mayor of St-Laurent borough.

https://montrealgazette.com/news/local- ... tation-gap

I'm pretty sure that they should have just built a people mover from Dorval to the Airport and called it a day, rather than tunnelling all the way from the far side of the airport to connect it to REM

It's easy to suggest a 0.7km extension is "obvious" when you aren't the one footing the bill to build it.

Haven't looked into the REM docs, but a quick search revealed in 2012 Metrolinx signed a contract for the Eglinton LRT tunneling that worked out to just over $50 million / km, so maybe a slightly shorter and 7 years later call it $70 million? Plus the cost of the station, which might be another $100 million?

Add in perhaps lost revenue as people don't ride the REM, and one can see why they may not be so enthusiastic about it.

As for a people mover, they aren't exactly cheap either. Wikipedia, with a link to an archived article, indicates the 1.5km people mover at Toronto Pearson cost $150million in the early 2000's. So call it a tie, and you may as well go with REM.

I intensely dislike people movers. Usually it involves a change of seats, much higher construction costs, new fare structure... Makes no sense from any standpoint, but airport operators love to have people movers because it's "cool" or was in 1990.

I just used JFK air train. Woof. It was like "how do we make the experience less seamless at all points for any possible riders?" and they did it. If you've ever waited in line for a fare from the vending machines behind 100 people that don't know how/speak english, you'd think the same thing. God forbid they just extend the E train into JFK and keep the same rolling stock and track structure that they already have thousands of.

I can see a people mover rather than a bus for inter-terminal movements connecting with one rail station for a fast train to the city--SFO is a good example. A people mover for a greater distance? Not so much. Of course at SFO there's no fare for the people mover.

At a place like JFK I understand. You have to realize that with a place like JFK where you have (currently) 6 terminals spread across a sprawling complex, you're never going to serve everyone with a one seat ride. At some point, someone is going to have to transfer to some sort of people mover. You could build a central station, one at a specific terminal, whatever, but people are still going to have to make some connection. In a situation like that, I see no problem with a people mover like the Airtrain since it's basically just moving the necessary transfer from a facility on the airport to a facility off the airport. Yes, the fare control area at Jamaica needs to be greatly expanded because it is a massive shitshow, but other than that, the Airtrain works.

In the case of Montreal, though, they absolutely should be just running the train right into the airport. One terminal makes it very easy, and even at airports with two (Stockholm) it would be very doable.

This is the outfit killing off AMT!,a totally misguided effort.