Montreal is currently holding an operation to free the streets of orange cones during the construction holidays, which will begin this Saturday. In just a few weeks, the city claims to have suspended the activities of more than a hundred illegal construction sites.
“We went to get the equivalent of three tennis courts, or about 2,080 square meters, in public space given back to the population. The goal is really to free up as many streets as possible as soon as possible,” rejoiced the administrative spokesperson for the City of Montreal, Philippe Sabourin, on Friday.
Since June 24, its teams have been carrying out a surveillance blitz on construction sites in Ville-Marie to verify whether they are compliant.
Since last year, Montreal has required the installation and removal of signage surrounding a construction site 24 hours before the start or after the end of work, in addition to demobilizing work zones that have been inactive for more than five days. And since the construction holidays last about ten days, “we want to make sure that contractors will respect this rule,” says Mr. Sabourin.
He promises that this increased surveillance will continue in the coming weeks. “The focus is really on real estate and residential development, and then anything that is industrial construction,” he notes.
PHOTO ROBERT SKINNER, THE PRESS
The administrative spokesperson for the City of Montreal, Philippe Sabourin
101 fewer construction sites
In total, authorities inspected 416 construction sites in just over three weeks. Last year, fewer than 390 construction sites were inspected during the same period.
Of the total, 164 contractors who received a visit from the City did not hold valid permits. “We have 63 contractors who were collaborative and who we supported in obtaining a permit. But for the rest, 101 of them, we closed the site,” says the public relations officer.
If it wasn’t for the work we did with our inspectors and the Mobility Squad, honestly, it would be the Wild West downtown.
Philippe Sabourin, administrative spokesperson for the City of Montreal
In addition to the construction sites themselves, more than 1,360 signage items have also been recovered by the City to improve traffic flow. These may include, for example, abandoned orange cones, useless signs or any other construction site instrument that is left behind or non-compliant.
A similar effort is underway on the highway and motorway network. Last year, Quebec also committed, following the Construction Site Summit, to removing cones after 72 hours of inactivity on a construction site and to using metal barriers instead of cones on its construction sites whenever possible.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ) issued a call for vigilance a few hours before the start of the construction holiday. The SAAQ records some 1,500 road victims every year during these two summer weeks, including an average of 19 deaths, 83 serious injuries and 1,466 minor injuries. The main causes of accidents remain fatigue, impaired driving, distraction, reckless behaviour and speed.