Despite the inevitable congestion, traffic remained relatively fluid around the Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine tunnel on Wednesday, the third day of the partial closure of the infrastructure, when three lanes will be closed until 2025. Several other sectors of the However, the city’s road network remained congested from the start of rush hour.
Posted at 9:18 a.m.
In the morning, it took less than 20 minutes to cross the 22 kilometers separating Beloeil and the island, via the La Fontaine tunnel. It was however heavier in reverse at the same time.
Motorists trying to leave the island took just over 30 minutes to travel the five kilometers between the Anjou interchange and the entrance to the tunnel. By car, The Press took 22 minutes to cross the tunnel to the South Shore from Montreal, but only when approaching Souligny Avenue.
To return to the island of Montreal, we took the Samuel-De Champlain bridge, which was also relatively fluid, with a travel time of about 15 minutes. However, the approach to the Samuel-De Champlain bridge was heavier than those to the Jacques-Cartier and Victoria bridges.
So far, the “real test” of congestion has not yet occurred. However, we will have to watch the return home on Wednesday. The day before, the spokesperson for the Ministère des Transports (MTQ), Louis-André Bertrand, affirmed that “Wednesday, the afternoon peak is our biggest peak of the week, followed closely by that of Thursday afternoon “.
“I think we will have a more reliable picture in the coming weeks, but we expect that tomorrow, with the pedagogical days and Halloween behind us, people will perhaps take the road more”, he had mentioned. In recent days, experts have also called for caution in The Pressexplaining that the effect of congestion may take time to appear.
A portrait on the rest of the island
Like the day before, traffic nevertheless remained heavy in the rest of the island of Montreal. As usual, Highway 40 was completely paralyzed westbound for the 17 kilometers separating the Anjou interchange and the Décarie highway. Autoroute 15 itself was congested northbound, from the Samuel-De Champlain bridge exit to the A40.
In the north of the island, highways 13 and 15 were also well congested in a southerly direction to access Montreal.
It should be noted that accidents involving several vehicles occurred early in the day on the Turcot interchange and Highway 40, eastbound, forcing in both cases the cutting of a lane to tow the damaged cars, reported the MTQ. The Sûreté du Québec (SQ), however, did not report any major incident.
So far, barely a thousand people have taken the improved MTQ bus lines using reserved lanes, while park-and-ride lots remain unpopular. A daily report must be published at least until November 18, after which it will be “made available according to the evolution of the situation”.
With Pierre-André Normandin