Watch: Getting to and from the West Island
MONTREAL – The commute to downtown Montreal for thousands of West Island residents is a daily battle.
Heavy traffic clogs the streets, making the ride extremely long and frustrating for most.
But the problem isn’t a one-way street.
People who work in the West Island but live in Montreal face similar traffic delays.
But unlike those heading into the city, public transit options are limited.
READ MORE: Off the rails – no late night trains heading West
“Took me an hour and fifteen minutes to get in,” Yovan Gavrich said from his office at Compuset.
The Nun’s Island resident would use public transit to travel to his Pointe-Claire work place if it was s a viable option.
“Knowing that the Turcot Yards are coming down and that is going to be a nightmare for traffic. So definitely I would consider it,” he said.
One proposal being offered is extending the Orange Metro line from Cote-Vertu to the Bois-Franc train station on the AMT’s Deux-Montagnes line.
“It would allow people to hook up to the Deux-Montagnes train line and have immediately metro access to parts of the city that the train does not reach,” said Alan DeSousa, St-Laurent Borough mayor.
More than 100,000 people work in St-Laurent alone and it has one of the largest industrial parks on the island.
Pointe-Claire and Baie d’Urfé also have sprawling industrial parks employing thousands of people as well.
But getting to these West end towns can be difficult.
Baie d’Urfé Mayor Mari Tutino was told by one employer the lack of mass transit could cost her town jobs.
”They said unless you do something about that you will eventually lose the park because we cannot attract people to come in. So it is a huge problem,” she said.
But until mass transit overhaul is offered then commuters like Gavrich will continue to take their cars to work and deal with the traffic headaches.
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