Quebec wants to cover the A25 for nearly 400 meters, in Anjou, in addition to building a new bridge there to cross the highway, according to confidential documents obtained by The Press.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
The government would take advantage of the arrival of the blue line to make these massive investments – over $450 million – in the eastern borough of Montreal.
The objective: “to reweave the districts divided by the A25 motorway”, indicates the government document obtained by The Press. Anjou is scarred by this north-south artery, as well as by the A40, which crosses it from east to west.
INFOGRAPHIC THE PRESS
The Quebec plan would consist of installing a park slab above part of the A25 built in a trench, opposite Yves-Prévost Boulevard, according to the document that we were able to consult.
The computer-generated images commissioned by the government show a development in a green park – even with a fountain – as well as two connected roadways: rue du Rhône could make it possible to cross the A25, in addition to boulevard Yves-Prévost which already allows it .
According to the document, the recovery would be carried out over 380 meters.
“What we want is to make a hyphen, to have cohesion in mobility, indicated a government source. The highway is a scar between the two sections of the neighborhood. »
To this project would be added a new bridge in the axis of Bélanger and Châteauneuf streets, again to reconnect the two banks of the A25. About 900 meters would separate the slab-park from the bridge.
SYNTHESIS IMAGE OBTAINED BY THE PRESS
This computer-generated image commissioned by Quebec illustrates the bridge that would be built in the axis of Bélanger and Châteauneuf streets to reconnect the two banks of the A25.
The structure would be located near the future Anjou station of the extension of the blue line, of which it would be the terminus. The bridge would allow pedestrians, buses and motorists to reach the station without entering the Anjou interchange.
“It would be around 2025 that construction could start,” added the source to the government.
According to our information, these are projects carried out by the Ministry of Transport. Their cost is not included in the bill of 6.2 billion announced for the extension of the blue line. Québec and the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) have already announced that this station would have a kiosk on each side of the A25.
shared sketches
The government document obtained by The Press dates from November 2020, but the project presented is still relevant, according to our information. A second, more modest recovery project is also located there and concerns the Place Versailles sector. However, it would have been postponed indefinitely in the wake of the scrapping of the REM de l’Est by CDPQ Infra.
In Valérie Plante’s office, Monday evening, it was confirmed that a senior official had recently been able to see preliminary sketches of the projects, but that it was still far too early to react to them publicly.
Mme Plante, however, may have to comment on the news sooner than expected: Premier Legault’s election schedule indicates that he will meet with the mayor of Montreal this Tuesday, downtown.
The mayor of the borough of Anjou, Luis Miranda, said he was not made aware of this plan. “It’s news that you teach me, there,” he said on the phone. He pointed out that a pedestrian link passing under Highway 25 had already been included in the blue line project, but nothing more.
Highway covering projects have multiplied in recent years in Montreal.
In 2017, a 125-meter-long square was created above the Ville-Marie highway, at the foot of the new University of Montreal Hospital Center (CHUM), on the border between Old Montreal and downtown. Bill: 68 million. This was the bequest of the Government of Quebec for the 375e anniversary of the City of Montreal.
At the start of his term as Prime Minister, Philippe Couillard announced that he wanted to recover four times as much.
Last year, the municipal election campaign turned its attention to the possibility of covering the Décarie highway, in the west of Montreal. Denis Coderre promised to cover 800 meters of the highway, between Côte-Sainte-Catherine and Queen-Mary, for a budget of 700 million. Valérie Plante wanted instead to devote 95 million to covering about forty meters of the same artery.