The mayors of Montreal, Laval and Longueuil will sign a deal later this month to ask Quebec to pay for a $3 billion, 20-kilometre extension of the metro network, a source familiar with the proposal tells ctvmontreal.ca.
The project would see the orange line looped through Laval from Montmorency station to Cote Vertu station. The blue line would be pushed further east into Anjou while the yellow line would be extended deeper into Longueuil's dense urban neighbourhoods.
The Laval extension would add five stations to the orange line, says the source, who didn't want to be named given that the deal is not yet finalized.
Gerald Tremblay of Montreal, Claude Gladu of Longueuil and Gilles Vaillancourt of Laval will sign the formal agreement.
"In the next few days, by the end of the month, it should be signed," he told ctvmontreal.ca on Friday.
Money
The mayors have talked about the metro extension project in the past, but such projects are usually funded by the province.
Tunneling through dense urban areas is costlier than tramways or beefed-up bus lines and so far the Liberal government has not announced plans to foot the bill for metro extensions.
Ridership
The source predicts taxpayers will buy into the massive transit plan.
"I don't think it will be too difficult to convince the population," he said.
"You just have to look at the success of the extension that's been open for two years in Laval."
