The Quebec government is authorizing $20 million to the L’autorité régionale de transport métropolitain (ARTM), the public transit authority of Greater Montreal, to launch a study looking into the feasibility of building a dedicated transit line between Lachine and downtown Montreal.
Currently, the borough only has express buses that are vulnerable to traffic delays and detours.
The exo commuter train service has few trains outside of rush hour and on weekends.
And the Réseau express métropolitain (REM) has no plans to add a stop in Lachine in its sprawling electric light rail network.
“I would absolutely, 150 per cent, like to see a tramway,” Michele Flannery, a Lachine borough councillor, told Global News.
Flannery admits that many residents in her district (the western portion of Lachine) are driven by a car culture mentality.
The deputy transport minister says 60 per cent of all people living in the Lachine, LaSalle area use their cars to go to work.
And while Flannery says 750 people take the commuter train on a daily basis, prior to the coronavirus pandemic, she says a tramway would be a game-changer.
“There is space. There is opportunity,” she said.
Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante continued to embrace her idea of a pink metro line with a stop in Lachine at a press conference on Tuesday.
But Plante says she supports any new system that would improve public transit in the district.
“Exciting news for the Sud-Ouest residents,” she said.
Building a new system would still take years to complete.