Construction of REM station Édouard-Montpetit

Nature of the work

The construction of the station will require digging rock and building the entire infrastructure for the station. Work began in July 2018 and will continue until 2022.

Excavation of the future Édouard-Montpetit station, which began in the fall of 2018, will be completed at the end of winter 2020. Other work stages will be done, in parallel, on construction of the station itself. 

Here are the activities happening:

• Completing excavation of the galleries by controlled blasting: For about 3 months, day and evening
• Beginning of concreting of station foundations: From mid-January, day and evening

Notice – Weekend work

Starting on January 2020 and throughout the winter, work will be carried on weekends periodically. It will include blasting activities (1 to 2 times per day), in order to complete the excavation of the galleries. Contrarily to weekday activities, the blasting schedule will not be in effect. The goal is to focus on carrying out the noisiest tasks during the day.

The configuration of the underground galleries is shown below:

Impacts and mitigation measures 

• The controlled blasting schedule will remain the same as the current one, i.e. between 7:00 and 7:15 am, 11:00 and 11:15 am, 3:30 and 4:00 pm, 7:00 and 7:30 pm, and between 9:00 and 9:30 pm. Approximately 2 to 3 micro-blasts are planned per day for the galleries. 
• This work will generate noise, vibration and dust.
• The number of trucks will remain about 20 to 25 trucks per day for rock removal. It will decrease thereafter to allow construction of the station. 

All monitoring and control measures for excavation of shafts and galleries shall remain in effect until the end of controlled blasting activities. Noise and air quality monitoring stations, as well as seismographs installed all around the construction site, help to ensure the project complies with applicable standards. 

⚠ Since the end of September, crews have shifted to only horizontal micro-blasting. Horizontal micro-blasting differs slightly (sound, vibrations, etc.) from vertical blasting due to the longer blasting sequence (about 8 seconds) and the depth of the main shaft, which creates an echo effect. Air movement induced by micro-blasting may cause windows to vibrate.