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• Roads will remain open to local traffic between worksites on Jean-Talon
• Local businesses are still open and accessible.
• Flaggers will be present at worksite entrances and exits for pedestrian safety.
• North/south transit lines will be maintained
• Access to homes will be maintained at all times
• Bus routes will be adjusted as needed, and a reserved lane for buses will be added on Bélanger
• Signage will be posted to direct pedestrians, cyclists and drivers
• Paratransit service will continue to operate on Jean-Talon
• The roads will remain like this for several years.

Based on our current schedule, the initial excavation work on the Blue line extension will begin by the end of 2024.

The excavation will require a full closure of Jean-Talon Street. We’ll be able to provide more details about the worksites in the coming months. This will mostly be done through public information sessions.

Several lots were purchased to build the future stations and infrastructure of the Blue line extension. Over the next few months, several buildings will be dismantled to secure the sites and prepare them for subsequent excavation.

The following will be dismantled over the coming months:

• Two commercial buildings at Galeries d’Anjou, between Des Roseraies and Louis-H.-La Fontaine.
• Two commercial buildings located East of highway 25, at the corner of Châteauneuf and Louis-H.-La Fontaine.
• Former gas station building at the corner of Jean-Talon and Langelier.
• West side of the commercial building on Jean-Talon, at the corner of De la Villanelle. Only the portion currently occupied by the convenience store will be removed. Nearby businesses will remain open.
• West side of Le Boulevard shopping centre. The shopping centre will remain open during the dismantling.

Boots on the ground

Our accomplishments to date are a tangible sign of the project’s progress. The preparatory work that we have carried out in recent months includes moving underground infrastructure out of the way of the excavation sites for the future Langelier and Viau métro stations.

Geotechnical borings were also conducted at several locations to characterize the rock in the area where the new infrastructure will be built.

In addition, we demolished several buildings to make way for the new stations and operational infrastructure. The buildings were carefully dismantled, and their components were gradually sorted for recycling.

Community first

This year, the Blue line project team met with the public on several occasions. Our experts attended several conferences and held information sessions and good neighbour committee meetings to explain the work ahead and address people’s concerns.

Photo: Olivier Bousquet

Have you noticed the bright colours decorating the street at the corner of Jean-Talon and Lacordaire?

With the help of municipal funding, the Société de développement commercial de la rue Jean-Talon Est (SDC) teamed up with local arts organization MU to create a new piece of public art on an STM-owned building on Jean-Talon, breathing new life into the street.

Ready for worksites in 2024

There is no doubt that 2024 will be an important year. The stations’ architecture will be revealed, and major construction will begin. By the end of the winter, more buildings will be demolished to make way for future infrastructure that will benefit the entire community.

Preparatory work and building demolitions

Preparatory work in the Viau area is progressing as planned. In late May, work will end in some areas, freeing up more street parking. The work should be completed in fall 2023.

In late June, preparatory work will begin in the Langelier area. This will continue until the fall and require street closures at the intersection of Jean-Talon and Langelier. The work will be carried out in phases to reduce the impact on your travel.

We have also finished demolishing several buildings to make way for new stations and operational infrastructure. In a few weeks, we will also remove the buildings located at the site of the secondary entrance building of the future Pie-IX station. Once these sites have been secured, we will be completely ready to begin the excavation in 2024.

Le Boulevard shopping centre redesign project

In the next few months, measures will be implemented to ensure harmonious coexistence between Le Boulevard shopping centre and the future Blue line project worksite. Sections of the parking lot on the south and east sides of the building will be refurbished, including the area that was used as a snow disposal site last winter.

Following efforts to optimize the Blue line extension, the locations of certain operational infrastructure have changed. The Anjou terminal station will have two entrance buildings to serve the areas located west and east of Highway 25. We reviewed the locations of the infrastructure needed to operate the métro in Anjou and created a final plan after studying several scenarios with the project partners.

Work in Anjou is currently expected to begin in 2024. Traditional excavation methods will be used east of Highway 25, as the tunnel boring machine will exit the ground west of the highway. Between now and the start of the work, surveys or drilling could be required to help engineers complete the plans and specifications. This work would be occasional and not very disruptive.

This month, we will begin preparatory work for the construction of the future Viau station. The work will first take place mainly on Viau Boulevard, where teams will demolish the central median. Then, all southbound lanes will be closed between Jean-Talon and De Paisley streets. Between now and fall 2023, this major work will allow us to relocate underground utilities (water, sewage and cabling) out of the way of the future station excavation site.

For full information on this worksite, check the web page for the future Viau station.

Following the expert committee’s work to optimize the project budget, some parameters have been revised.

Key details: 

• Construction of all five new universally accessible stations up to Anjou as planned
• Reconfiguration of the Pie-IX station bus terminal
• Removal of lower-traffic secondary entrance buildings (Viau and Langelier)
• Sharing of the planned secondary entrance building at Lacordaire station with CDPQ Infra to be integrated with the REM de l’Est.
• Repositioning of the Anjou station with entrance buildings on each side of Highway 25.
• Removal of park-and-ride lot in the Anjou area
• Use of a tunnel boring machine to build the tunnel

Next steps: 

• Preparatory work in the Viau area in summer 2022
• Commissioning of the extension in 2029

In the spirit of agility and collaboration, every effort has been made to make this project the best that it can be and to bring us closer to this long-awaited asset for the east end of Montréal.

The STM is now the owner of Le Boulevard shopping centre, having completed the expropriation process started earlier in the project timeline. The mall will be able to remain in operation during the expected construction period of the new Pie-IX station.

This month, the second preparatory worksite for the extension of the Blue line will get up and running at the intersection of Jean-Talon Street and Lacordaire Boulevard. Between now and the spring of 2022, this major work will make it possible to relocate underground utilities (water, sewage and cabling) out of the way of the future station excavation site. Two other locations, namely Viau and Langelier, will undergo similar work later this year.

To learn all the details on this worksite, check the web page of the future Lacordaire station.

The chosen station names will go down in history as a mark of Montrealers’ collective imagination. They should be announced later this year.

The naming committee is composed of several STM representatives, a City of Montréal elected official, representatives from boroughs where the extension is being built and experts in place naming and urban planning. Montréal’s women, cultural communities and Indigenous peoples are also represented on the committee, and proposals from these groups will be given particular consideration.

The beginning of this process marks one more step toward the project’s completion!

In February and March, a public consultation process took place in the form of several information evenings and input sessions. The goal of this community dialogue was to design a project that would integrate seamlessly into the lives of Montrealers.

The Commission leading this process has submitted its report and issued 43 recommendations that will allow us to enrich the project and produce infrastructure that meets the expectations of our customers and citizens. Both the Commission’s report and the STM’s action plan in response to it are available at www.stm.info/consultation.

There’s no doubt about it—the Blue line project is right on track!

The work will mainly involve relocating urban public utilities, giving us free rein to begin the massive excavation that will be needed to build the new infrastructure.

Other target areas

In the next few months, we will also begin work in three other locations, near the future Viau, Lacordaire and Langelier stations. Information on these worksites will be available a few weeks before the start of the work.

The information evenings and input sessions are now closed. We would like to thank you warmly for your relevant and useful comments. This dialogue with the community is essential to helping us design a project that will integrate seamlessly into the lives of Montrealers.

The Commission’s report will be available at stm.info/consultation this summer.

Two new teams of architects have started working on the drawings for the buildings of the future Viau and Lacordaire stations. These complete the design brigade which started work at the end of 2019. An initial draft of the architectural design of these stations will be presented to the public in spring 2020.

Teams of architects have started working on the drawings for the buildings of the future Pie-IX, Langelier and Anjou stations. By the end of the year, two other groups of architects will join the design team and create Viau and Lacordaire stations. An initial draft of the architectural design of these stations will be presented to the public in spring 2020.

In addition to conducting ongoing above-ground seismic surveys and boring tests all along the Blue line extension route, we are collecting geotechnical data at Saint-Michel station.

Our teams will be conducting surveying work on the Saint-Michel tail tracks to gather highly detailed data on the existing tunnel and plan the connection to the new extented tunnel. As the heat released by the trains stationed on the tail tracks interferes with the accuracy of the laser instruments used for surveying, we will have to close the tail tracks on September 21 and 22.

Minor impact on your trips at this station

As trains will not be able to pull onto the tail tracks to turn around, customers going toward Snowdon will exceptionnally have to board on the exit platform. The train will then switch tracks when it departs toward Snowdon.

As part of the input data collection, geotechnical tests have begun along the corridor between Saint-Michel métro station and Highway 25 in Anjou.

The purpose of the tests is to classify soil and rock in the selected area in preparation for the construction of the underground tunnel and stations. The tests comprise two major phases, namely seismic surveys and boring tests.

1. Seismic surveys involve sending waves into the ground along a conducting wire connected to sensors. This non-intrusive, quick, one-time method limits the number of boring tests required for classification that will be conducted in a second phase of exploratory work.

2. Boring tests allow us to obtain more detailed data on soil and rock conditions, such as their resistance and profile. These characteristics serve as input data for the engineers who will design the plans and specifications.