Today's Gazette
Premier cuts ribbon on metro extension to Laval
The Gazette
Published: Thursday, April 26 2007Commuters and the curious in the thousands are expected to ride the metro this weekend to check out three new stations in Laval.
Premier Jean Charest today officially opened the stations - Cartier, de la Concorde, and Montmorency - as extensions to the Orange line from Henri Bourassa.
It was built at a cost of $745 million and is opening two months ahead of schedule with free rides on Saturday and Sunday.
The three new stations are bright and airy, full of natural light, with lots of concrete, open spaces exposed to the outside, and decorated with ceramic tiles of varying colours.
Charest paid tribute to former Parti Qubcois premier Lucien Bouchard who in 1998 announced in a pre-electoral period that the Laval metro would be built.
"He said it would be realized because it is not an electoral promise," Charest told several hundred invited guests, including a bemused Bouchard.
"He can be very proud today that we are here today to open a metro in which he believed," he said to sustained applause.
Charest said the way the project was carried out is a tribute to Quebec managerial and engineering excellence.