Winter is coming to an end, but pothole season is beginning. In Montreal, the City expects this year to have to seal no less than 110,000 holes in the roadway, a figure that is up sharply compared to recent years. A sum of 3.5 million will be spent to achieve this.
“We estimate that 110,000 potholes will be patched this year. To achieve this, the City of Montreal does manual clogging, but also mechanized using Python 5000 devices that can clog 300 potholes each in one day,” said the spokesperson for the municipal administration, Hugo Bourgouin.
By 2022, the authorities had patched around 96,800 potholes in the metropolis, at a cost equivalent to 2.8 million. The previous year, it was 60,320. Over two years, the increase is therefore significant, at around 82%.
The increase is also reflected in the compensation claimed. Between 1er January and February 28, 2022, the City’s 311 service reports having recorded “1174 requests concerning potholes”. For the same period this year, this number is 1205.
Montreal also received 143 claims for property damage caused by a pothole in January and February 2022. “Of this number, 10 claims were paid for a total amount of $3,338. For January and February 2023, 212 complaints were received. Of this number, 15 were paid, for a total of $2,878,” reveals Hugo Bourgouin.
He points out that the administration “spares no effort to prevent potholes”. The City has planned to invest 880.6 million in its PDI 2023-2032 in leveling-surfacing programs intended to extend the useful life of pavements and avoid the proliferation of potholes.
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PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, THE PRESS
Pothole, rue De La Gauchetière
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PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, THE PRESS
Pothole, Saint-Laurent Boulevard
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PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, THE PRESS
Pothole, Berri Street
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PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, THE PRESS
Pothole, Saint-Laurent Boulevard
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The spokesperson specifies in passing that “the number of complaints received and the number paid are not indicators of the state of the roadway”. “Several factors may explain, over the years, the increase in the number of complaints received, in particular increasingly easier access thanks to online services or the emergence of cars with low profile tires, which are more vulnerable to shocks, but also the weather conditions which vary from year to year,” he notes.
All this comes at a time when Montreal also plans to spend an additional 23 million on its snow removal activities this year, as snow loads have been higher than expected in the city. The funds will be drawn from the City’s snow reserve, set up five years ago to compensate for the unpredictable nature of the winter seasons. Nearly a hundred centimeters had been picked up as of February 20.
News of the week
Major overhaul at the RTL
The Réseau de transport de Longueuil (RTL) announced Thursday a “major” redesign of its bus routes, in view of the arrival of the Réseau express métropolitain (REM) on the South Shore in the spring. Several local lines will be enhanced around future stations and outside of peak periods, while new routes will emerge. This is a first in 30 years for the organization, which sees it as an opportunity to boost traffic after the COVID-19 pandemic. Note: this “reorganization” has been the subject of consultations for five years. Over 1700 residents were consulted in the process. The Press mentions in this text the many changes in sight on the Longueuil network.
Cairo rejects any responsibility
In the midst of a crisis at the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ), the Minister of Cybersecurity and Digital, Éric Caire, broke his silence in the middle of the week. He did so to reject any form of “responsibility” for the imposing queues linked to the transition. In fact, he rather attacks the company’s senior management, whom he accuses of having poorly planned his implementation project from the start. “I want to say that I have a responsibility, but the reality is that this project was authorized in 2017 by the CA of the SAAQ,” he said in an interview. Earlier, his colleague Geneviève Guilbault, Minister of Transport, announced an additional 90-day reprieve for motorists affected by the crisis.
500 million… thanks to parking
Montreal could release more than 500 million per year by pricing all its parking spaces on the street, according to the Regional Council for the Environment of Montreal (CRE-MTL). In its “white paper” on the occupation of the public domain, published Tuesday, the organization proposes to “change the culture” of parking in the metropolis. The group calculates, based on a methodology proposed by the Victoria Transport Policy Institute which takes into account the cost of land and construction costs, that the average annual cost of a parking space is approximately $1,275 per year. for the City of Montreal. By multiplying this number by the number of free parking spaces, i.e. approximately 450,000, we arrive at 573.7 million.