23 April 2010

All Aboard for the Last Train to Rigaud

Train service between Montreal and Rigaud has been in place since the original
station was built in the late 19th century.

Rigaud Quebec - Marc Chouinard says there's a good reason why only a handful of people use the soon-to-be-shuttered Rigaud commuter-train station:  It is served by only two trains per weekday, one to, and one from, downtown Montreal.
 
"If they actually provided service, more people would use it," said Chouinard, who takes the 90-minute trip daily from his home in Rigaud to his information-technology job in downtown Montreal.
 
With a housing boom in the region, it doesn't make sense to kill the service, said Chouinard, who fears the tracks will be removed, making an eventual revival difficult.
 
"Keeping an existing service running costs a lot less than reinstating it in a few years," said Chouinard, who last year started a blog, www.stationRigaud.com, in a bid to rally support.
 
About 15 to 20 people board the train every day at 6:40 a.m. and return on the 5:20 p.m. train from Montreal, he said.
 
As of 1 Jul 2010, the service will be cancelled after the town of Rigaud announced it cannot afford to pay about $300,000 annually, up from $160,000, that the Agence metropolitaine de transport (AMT) is demanding to keep the service alive.
 
Train service between Rigaud and Montreal has been in place since the late 19th century. Rigaud, population 7,500, is 60 kilometres west of downtown Montreal.
 
Hudson will be the new terminus for what is now known as the Dorion/Rigaud line, a service heavily used by West Island commuters. One station east of Hudson is Vaudreuil, the line's western hub, which is served by 25 trains on weekdays.
 
The AMT, Montreal's regional public transit authority, said Rigaud was asked to pay more because it is not part of the Montreal Metropolitan Community, which helps finance AMT service via property taxes and a gas tax at the pumps.
 
The AMT had offered to increase service to Rigaud but only if the town joined the 82-municipality MMC, said AMT spokesperson Martine Rouette.
 
"The direct costs are too high for the community's capacity to pay," Rigaud town manager Chantal Lemieux said of the AMT's demand for more money. "There is a certain nostalgia to see the end of rail transport on our territory, it is not a decision we made lightly."
 
Lemieux said commuters from the Rigaud train station won't be left stranded.
 
The town is in negotiations to replace the train with a bus that would take passengers to the Vaudreuil train station, Lemieux said.
 
Chouinard, who bought his house in Rigaud in 2006 in part because of the train service, said buses to and from Vaudreuil station aren't a solution. The drive between Rigaud and Vaudreuil, normally a 20-minute trip, can take twice that long because of traffic, Chouinard said.
 
The town of Rigaud does not know what will happen to the train tracks in Rigaud, Lemieux said.
 
"There had been talk of making it into a bicycle path, but it is not our property," she said. "It belongs to CP Rail, and I don't think they'll be dismantling the tracks any time soon."
 
CP Rail spokesperson Michel Spenard did not return calls seeking comment.
 
Unlike Rigaud, Hudson, a town of 5,000, is a member of the MMC.
 
"The AMT is keen to keep Hudson on the line," said Hudson Mayor Michael Elliott.
 
Elliott said the AMT is considering increasing weekday service to his community to three trains per weekday, up from the current one. "We're pushing for three and we've been told that's a possibility," he said.
 
Before that can happen, though, $3.4 million would have to be spent on improvements, including upgrading railway crossings and the signalling system, said Rouette of the AMT.
 
Elliott said there is also hope that a new station may eventually be built between his community and fast-growing St. Lazare to replace Hudson's current station. If that happens, service could be increased to six trains daily, he added.
 
"We've got this excellent railbed and we should be using it," Elliott said.
 
Rigaud and Hudson are the least-used stations on the Dorion/Rigaud line.
 
In 2008, the last year for which statistics are available, Rigaud station was used by 8,800 people (4,400 in each direction), while Hudson was used by 30,500. That compares to 353,000 people who used Vaudreuil station in 2008.
 
Andy Riga.