Hindrances in Montreal | Quebec wants to end the reign of useless cones

No more abandoned cones? The Minister of Transport, Geneviève Guilbault, wants to believe so. Quebec will now pick up orange cones after 72 hours of inactivity on a construction site, she announced Monday. From December, the government will also install “metal slides” rather than colored cylinders in the work zone.

72 hours… rather than 24

“If there are at least 72 hours of inactivity, we will remove the cones and put them back for the rest of the work. I think we have a duty to set an example as a government. Already with that, we will set the tone, ”explained M^me Guilbault as a curtain raiser for the Strategic Forum on Transportation of the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal (CCMM). This announcement comes nearly a month after the Summit on construction sites of the City of Montreal, which had mentioned a “maximum delay of 24 hours” for the installation and dismantling of construction site signage. The elected official responsible for transport and mobility on the executive committee, Sophie Mauzerolle, welcomed the minister’s announcement on Monday, speaking of a “collective desire to review our ways of doing things”. “Whether it’s 12, 24 or 72 hours, it’s still a marked improvement over what we had before. One way or another, I think it’s going to be very positive,” she said on the sidelines of the event.

More small cones

More generally, Quebec says it wants to “tighten” the ways of managing the work, especially downtown. Thus, by June, the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility will also modify its signage standards to “further encourage the use of small cones when possible”. It was also a request from the administration of Valérie Plante. M^me Guilbault also says he would like “construction site coverings more in tune with the styles of each district”, referring in particular to “opaque fences, for example”. His ministry also promises “technical modifications” in the coming months, which will affect the barriers installed near the sidewalks, which will become smaller in order to have “more fluidity”. It is also planned to create a clearer pictogram for blocked sidewalks. Finally, a third horizontal board will be added to the barriers blocking the sidewalks, in order to improve detection by blind people.

100
In the wake of the revelations of The Press on the presence of cones for at least 16 years along the entrances to the Ville-Marie tunnel, Minister Geneviève Guilbault said Monday that a hundred cones had been picked up in Montreal in recent weeks. “We did spring cleaning for everyone,” she joked.

In December, hello slides

In December, Quebec will take another step by seeking at all costs to “install metal barriers rather than orange cones to make the necessary separation framing the construction sites,” said the minister. “It may be less aggressive, always in this search for this balance between visual cleaning, fluidity, but always the security aspect”, she explained. “It will make a difference for the citizen, for the perception of the city, and also on a kind of frustration to the effect that there are always cones”, reacted the president of the CCMM, Michel Leblanc, in talking about what he sees as a real “organizational culture change”.

New signaling standards

By the summer, the Ministry also plans to change its signage standards in downtown Montreal, in “densely populated areas with speed limits between 30 and 40 km/h”. In particular, a speed category below 60 km/h will be added; signage should be less cumbersome than on the highways, among other things. “We want it to be less wall-to-wall,” said the Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, citing as priorities “encroachment on public space” as well as access to businesses and parking. .

Connected software?

Quebec is committed to creating an “innovation unit” which will work to make a “census of best practices” in the management of public works. One of its mandates will be to work on a possible “connection” of the various technological platforms such as the Obstacle Management System (SGE) of the Ministère des Transports and the Assistant à la gestion des interventions en la rue (AGIR) of the City of Montreal. Both systems essentially accomplish the same task, that is to map the construction sites on the territory. “We are well equipped to be able to do it”, reacted Sophie Mauzerolle, showing herself open to starting this “connection”. “So far, it has to be said that it has often been done at the last minute, even often without coordination”, for his part underlined Michel Leblanc, calling on the authorities to take action quickly.