Mercier Bridge, domino effect crippling Montreal
The Globe and Mail today posted, to a nationwide audience, the city crippled by construction and failing infrastructure. Have the major abrupt closures effected you in any way? Currently, under emergency work is the Mercier Bridge, the Ville Marie approach from Decarie, and the Ville Marie westbound descent towards the Tascherau Yards.
Every driver in Canada brakes for road repair during construction season, but few have seen the chaos that has blocked the Montreal commuter before summer has even arrived.
The annual season of motorway overhaul is on, but in Montreal, stunning emergency shutdowns of rusting major bridges and crumbling overpasses have paralyzed much of the city.
Real estate agents say suburban property values appear to be dropping with the emergence of horror stories about four-hour commutes. Company owners in Montreal say they are having trouble recruiting workers from the South Shore because of bridge closings
This is before the looming $3-billion teardown and rebuild of a spaghetti interchange that already strangles much of Montreal’s freeway system. (Parts of it were closed just a month ago for an emergency fix.) Work on the full reconstruction will last at least five years.
On top of all that, civic leaders have carried on merrily with summer festival street shutdowns and traffic re-organization designed to eliminate shortcuts on residential streets. Even bike paths are congested with commuters desperate to find another way.
“CHAOS,” shouted the banner front-page headline in the sober Montreal newspaper La Presse.
“You would think some of these closures could have been put off once the state of the bridges was known,” said Mr. Poitras, who lives on the South Shore but travels all over Montreal to meet clients. “Once again, there seems to be a horrendous lack of co-ordination in planning in this city.”
While other Canadian cities have heard warnings about aging infrastructure, the situation in Montreal is “truly extraordinary,” said Saeed Mirza, an expert on infrastructure and professor at McGill University. “Everything is deteriorating.”
Many of Montreal’s freeways and bridges were completed in a rush during the good times of the 1950s and 1960s, as the Expo ’67 deadline loomed, Prof. Mirza said. Quality control was poor and much of it is falling apart all at once.
Water and sewer pipes attract less attention, but they are in equally bad shape, Prof. Mirza said.
“I’ve been preaching for years that maintenance must not be deferred, at any cost. We have to get away from the present philosophy of design, build and forget. This is what happens.”
So. What do we do now? The answer is obvious, build new bridges. This is the price we pay for living on an island right? The answer is easy. Getting there is not. How do we pay for them? Bridges are normally under federal juristdiction. Do we ask Ottawa to hurry and up buy us new bridges? Would you be willing to pay tolls? An increase in taxes? A toll for anyone to get on the island? How is this effecting your commute or your routines? Who on earth is going to pay for all of this?
As a sidebar, is there any interest in a LJ community to talk about stuff like this? This community seems more reserved for a different kind of talk. Would anyone be interested in something where we talk about the city, whats happening in it, and some of the issues facing it? If so, lets join and work together on montreal_talk (Mods if this is not appropriate, let me know)
Every driver in Canada brakes for road repair during construction season, but few have seen the chaos that has blocked the Montreal commuter before summer has even arrived.
The annual season of motorway overhaul is on, but in Montreal, stunning emergency shutdowns of rusting major bridges and crumbling overpasses have paralyzed much of the city.
Real estate agents say suburban property values appear to be dropping with the emergence of horror stories about four-hour commutes. Company owners in Montreal say they are having trouble recruiting workers from the South Shore because of bridge closings
This is before the looming $3-billion teardown and rebuild of a spaghetti interchange that already strangles much of Montreal’s freeway system. (Parts of it were closed just a month ago for an emergency fix.) Work on the full reconstruction will last at least five years.
On top of all that, civic leaders have carried on merrily with summer festival street shutdowns and traffic re-organization designed to eliminate shortcuts on residential streets. Even bike paths are congested with commuters desperate to find another way.
“CHAOS,” shouted the banner front-page headline in the sober Montreal newspaper La Presse.
“You would think some of these closures could have been put off once the state of the bridges was known,” said Mr. Poitras, who lives on the South Shore but travels all over Montreal to meet clients. “Once again, there seems to be a horrendous lack of co-ordination in planning in this city.”
While other Canadian cities have heard warnings about aging infrastructure, the situation in Montreal is “truly extraordinary,” said Saeed Mirza, an expert on infrastructure and professor at McGill University. “Everything is deteriorating.”
Many of Montreal’s freeways and bridges were completed in a rush during the good times of the 1950s and 1960s, as the Expo ’67 deadline loomed, Prof. Mirza said. Quality control was poor and much of it is falling apart all at once.
Water and sewer pipes attract less attention, but they are in equally bad shape, Prof. Mirza said.
“I’ve been preaching for years that maintenance must not be deferred, at any cost. We have to get away from the present philosophy of design, build and forget. This is what happens.”
So. What do we do now? The answer is obvious, build new bridges. This is the price we pay for living on an island right? The answer is easy. Getting there is not. How do we pay for them? Bridges are normally under federal juristdiction. Do we ask Ottawa to hurry and up buy us new bridges? Would you be willing to pay tolls? An increase in taxes? A toll for anyone to get on the island? How is this effecting your commute or your routines? Who on earth is going to pay for all of this?
As a sidebar, is there any interest in a LJ community to talk about stuff like this? This community seems more reserved for a different kind of talk. Would anyone be interested in something where we talk about the city, whats happening in it, and some of the issues facing it? If so, lets join and work together on montreal_talk (Mods if this is not appropriate, let me know)