Arm yourself with patience: if the end of the closure of three out of six lanes of the Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine tunnel is now planned for the fall of 2026, obstacles are likely to continue until 2027 in this critical infrastructure linking Longueuil and Montreal.
This was confirmed on Friday by the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility (MTMD), in reaction to the revelations of The Press, Earlier in the day. As we have reported, the government will not be able to carry out work on the second tube this summer, as planned.
Everything will have to wait until spring 2025. The entire project, including the two tubes, must be postponed for almost a year. The lifting of road obstacles, in other words the closure of three out of six lanes, will not take place before the fall of 2026, although this was promised in November 2025.
In a press release, the MTMD specifies, however, that “completion work requiring partial closures” will “then be carried out until 2027”. “The repair of the slabs of Highway 25 and the Souligny interchange is on schedule and should be completed in the fall of 2025,” adds the ministry.
The latter cites several factors to justify these postponements, most of which have already been revealed in our pages, including ventilation towers “more damaged than expected”. “The covering must be completely redone, which notably includes the design, manufacturing and installation of 128 mobile panels and 32 parts making up the windbreaks,” we can read.
Several works will also have to be done on the structures of the towers, and everything “must be completed to transfer traffic to the other tube, ventilation having to be operational for safety reasons”, persists the government.
Major impacts
In the southbound tube, “the delay in execution would result more precisely from “the breakdown of equipment used to concrete the tunnel vault, which required the adjustment of all the formwork tools in a preventive manner”. The scarcity of labor and the mold discovered in a service corridor a few months ago add, as mentioned, to all these factors.
Quebec says it is “aware that the prolonged duration of the obstructions will have significant repercussions on citizens, road users and businesses in the metropolitan region.” “The work is, however, essential to preserve this critical transport link,” we offer by way of justification.
For the rest, the mitigation measures in public transport – mainly the special shuttles set up – will be maintained for the duration of the major obstacles. From November 2022 to April 2024, there were 1.05 million trips aboard these shuttles.
As of May 2024, just over 61,000 vehicles circulated in the Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine tunnel on a daily basis. This is half as much as in July 2020, before the start of the major renovation, when some 120,000 cars used it.