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La Ville souterraine is the well-known underground city complex in downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is also known as the Ville intérieure as not all of it is underground.
Several different sections of underground city exist in Montreal. The largest and best known is located in the centre of downtown, between Peel and Place-des-Arts metro stations on the green line and between Lucien-L'Allier and Place-d'Armes stations on the orange line.
It consists of 30 km of tunnels spread over an area of twelve square kilometres of downtown Montreal. The underground city includes 60 residential and commercial complexes comprising 3,6 million square metres of floor space, including 80% of all office space and 35% of all commercial space in the centre.
Services include hotels, shopping malls, banks, corporate headquarters, museums, university buildings, seven metro stations, two commuter train stations, and the Bell Centre hockey arena. There are more than 120 exterior access points to the underground city. Some 500,000 people use the underground city per day, especially to escape Montreal's harsh winter.
It is difficult to establish criteria for ranking, but in terms of length, extent, use, and number of shops, Montreal's Ville souterraine beats out Toronto's PATH underground city, recorded in the Guinness Book of Records as the longest.
The Ville souterraine is promoted as an important tourist attraction by most Montreal travel guidebooks; although the urban planning achievement is impressive, the services accessible through them (mainly shopping malls) are rather commonplace.
Most parts of the underground city are open during the entire hours of operation of the metro (5:30 AM to 1:00 AM); though many accesses are closed outside of business hours, many others remain open. A notable exception is the ICAO building, linking Bonaventure and Square-Victoria stations, which keeps business hours. Also, the tunnels between the Bell Centre arena and Bonaventure metro station cannot be used before and after events at the arena, owing to fire regulations (access is available via Lucien-L'Allier station instead). Access to the underground city is free.
Unlike Toronto's PATH system, the different elements of the underground city are controlled by the individual building authorities; there is no unified signage, which may make use somewhat confusing. However, maps of the underground city and the metro can be obtained free from all metro stations, and the network of buildings is usually indicated on city maps.
The first link of the underground city arose with the construction of the Place Ville-Marie office tower and underground shopping mall, built in 1962 to cover an unsightly pit of railway tracks north of the Gare Centrale. A tunnel joined it to Gare Centrale and the Queen Elizabeth Hotel.
The advent of the Montreal metro in 1966 brought tunnels joining Bonaventure station to the Château Champlain hotel, the Place du Canada office tower, Place Bonaventure, Gare Centrale, and Gare Windsor, forming the core of the Underground City. Square-Victoria station connected to the Tour de la Bourse, Montreal's stock exchange building.
Adding to the development of the underground city was the Montreal Urban Community Transit Commission's policy of offering the aerial rights above metro station entrances for construction through emphyteutic leases, an advantageous way to acquire prime real estate. When the metro began running in 1966, ten buildings were already connected directly to metro stations; development would continue until not a single free-standing entrance to Peel, McGill, Bonaventure, Guy-Concordia, or Place-d'Armes stations was left.
In 1974, the Complexe Desjardins office tower complex was constructed, spurring the construction of a "second downtown" underground city segment between Place-des-Arts and Place-d'Armes station, via Place des Arts, Complexe Desjardins, the Complexe Guy-Favreau federal government building, and the Palais des Congrès (convention centre).
Between 1984 and 1992, the underground city expanded, with the construction of three major linked shopping centres in the Peel and McGill metro station areas: Cours Mont-Royal, Place Montréal-Trust, and the Promenades de la Cathédrale (built underneath Christ Church Cathedral). McGill station was already linked with The Bay, Eaton's (now Les Ailes de La Mode), Eaton Centre, and two other office/mall complexes. Between 1984 and 1989, the underground city grew from 12 km of passages to almost 22.
Mega-projects added to the size throughout the 1990s, including Le 1000 De La Gauchetière (the tallest building in Montreal), Le 1250 René-Lévesque, and the Centre de commerce mondiale. Although these office spaces have only a secondary commercial sector, they use their connection to the underground city as a selling point for their office space. Also, the construction of a tunnel between Eaton Centre and Place Ville-Marie consolidated the two central halves of the underground city. The construction of the Bell (originally Molson) Centre connected Lucien-L'Allier metro station to the underground city, as well as replacing Gare Windsor with the new Gare Lucien-L'Allier commuter train station.
Finally, in 2003, the complete redevelopment of the Quartier International de Montréal consolidated all the separate segments of the central underground city with continuous pedestrian corridors. The construction of the ICAO headquarters joined Place Bonaventure to Square-Victoria station. This station was in turn was joined to the Palais des Congrès and the Place-des-Arts/Place-d'Armes section via the new Caisse de dépôt et de placement building and a tunnel under the Place Jean-Paul-Riopelle. Uniquely, the new tunnel sections in the Quartier International contain educational and artistic displays sponsored by major Montreal museums. As a result of this construction, one can now walk all the way across the centre of downtown, from Place des Arts to the Molson Centre, completely underground.
Atwater metro station, on the eastern edge of downtown just inside the territory of Westmount, is connected to the Plaza Alexis-Nihon and Westmount Square shopping, office, and residential complexes, and to Dawson College, a major cégep.
Berri-UQAM station, the central station of the metro network, is located on the eastern end of downtown. In addition to several buildings of the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) - the Judith-Jasmin, Athanase-David, and Hubert-Aquin pavilions - it is also connected to Montreal's central interurban bus station, the Place Dupuis shopping, office, and hotel complex, and to the Grande bibliothèque du Québec, presently under construction.
Presently, Guy-Concordia station does not offer direct connections to either of the two towers built above its entrances. However, two major new buildings now under construction, both part of Concordia University, will offer underground city links to the metro and to other parts of the university.
Several other metro stations outside downtown are directly connected to other buildings.
Plans for the new McGill University Health Centre superhospital include a direct link to Vendôme metro station.
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