Future light rail electric train station picked in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue

More details are emerging about the future of the new light rail train station in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue.

The station is planned on a piece of land just east of Morgan Road and North of Autoroute 40, and 200 parking spots will be made available.

The electric train proposal known as the REM will run parallel to the highway, eventually making its way toward downtown.

The local road in the area, Chemin Ste-Marie, will have to be reconfigured to handle the traffic, but the mayor says only marginally.

“It will be able to take it. There will have to be minor adjustments but overall, it will be able to take it,” Paola Hawa told Global News.

Transport Quebec owns the land where the future Ste-Anne station is set to be built. And while the area is surrounded by trees and windblown fields, the mayor says that will soon change making this an ideal location for a future station.

A city master plan calls for new low to medium-density homes to be built in the area and a new industrial park.

“It makes perfect sense for people to get off the train and walk directly across the street to go to work,” Hawa said.

The closest area of developed land sits more than one kilometre away. Some residents living in the north end of Ste-Anne’s welcome the new train but worry about the congestion it could cause.

The next station on the West Island line is Kirkland where close to 2,000 parking spaces are planned to be built.

The mayor tells Global News a new north-south urban boulevard will need to be built as well as an overpass above A-40.

“We’re quite pleased with what’s there. We just have to finalize certain points concerning the access,” Kirkland Mayor Michel Gibson told Global News.

Details of when construction on the West Island line will begin haven’t been announced, but mayor Hawa hopes the future train will be operating in just a few years’ time.