This fall, there will be fewer roadworks in the Montreal region than during the summer season, but the Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine bridge-tunnel project is already shaping up to be a nightmare for motorists.
The Montreal region will have 36 roadworks over the next few months, compared to 50 this summer and 44 last fall. Several projects started in the summer season were able to end earlier than expected, but this lull will be short-lived. “The closure of the bridge-tunnel in November will disrupt the travel habits of road users in this sector. We are going to have really significant congestion, ”warned Louis-André Bertrand, spokesperson for Mobilité Montréal, Thursday, during the presentation of the road works that will be carried out in the coming months by the Ministère des Transports du Québec (MTQ) and the City of Montreal in the Montreal region.
As the MTQ announced three weeks ago, a single lane will be maintained towards the South Shore and two towards Montreal in the Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine bridge-tunnel starting in November due to the faster-than-expected deterioration of the infrastructure. These barriers will be maintained at all times until 2025.
The work on the bridge-tunnel is already causing major traffic jams for motorists, as many of them turn to the Jacques-Cartier bridge.
Louis-André Bertrand believes that the first weeks will be particularly difficult, but the congestion could ease over the following weeks, when motorists have adjusted their travel strategy, he argued.
Mobilité Montréal recommends that motorists opt for public transit. Five incentive parking lots are already available to motorists on the South Shore and parking spaces have been added to bring their number to 2,100. Reserved lanes to the approaches to the bridge-tunnel should also reduce travel times for those who will be on the buses. On several lines, access to buses will be free.
For its part, the City of Montreal has taken care not to plan construction sites on arteries leading to the Jacques-Cartier Bridge. “The work on the L.-H.-La Fontaine tunnel is not a surprise. The City of Montreal has been working on the approaches to the Jacques-Cartier Bridge for five years. So, the work that we were able to coordinate, plan and execute, we did it,” said Philippe Sabourin, spokesperson for the City of Montreal, referring to the work carried out by the City on the Papineau Avenue and Sherbrooke and Notre-Dame Streets in recent years.
Among the other projects planned in the plans of the MTQ and the City, let us note those of Autoroute 40, in the area of Boulevard des Galeries-d’Anjou, the Sources interchange, the Saint-Pierre interchange, and the pedestrian tunnel of the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) under construction at the corner of boulevard Pie-IX and rue Jean-Talon Est.