The weekend promises to be difficult again on the roads of Montreal, where several obstacles will disrupt traffic. The ramp leading to Highway 20 West from Route 138, the closure of which caused a huge traffic jam last weekend, will be blocked again.
This was confirmed Thursday afternoon by Mobility Montreal in a press release. From Friday midnight until Monday 5 a.m., the ramp from Route 138 to Highway 20 West will be closed. This time however, the section of Highway 20 that passes under the ramp will not be closed.
It had been blocked last weekend due to the risk of falling concrete, but the work will take place this weekend in another area of the ramp, which allows traffic to be maintained on Highway 20. Still, trips to the airport and the west of the island could still be complicated by this closure. Montreal-Toronto Boulevard will also be closed westbound, between Saint-Jacques and des Érables streets, from Saturday 2 a.m. to Sunday 9 a.m.
Last Saturday and Sunday, hundreds of passengers had waited for hours in a monster traffic jam caused, among other things, by the closure of the access ramp from Route 138 to the A20. A group of 29 college students and four adults notably missed their flight to Athens on Saturday due to heavy congestion near the airport.
Added to this are several new impediments. As of Saturday, Highway 40 East will be closed for the entire summer between the Morgan Boulevard sector in Baie-D’Urfé and the Saint-Charles Boulevard sector in Kirkland. Three lanes will be open in the direction of the peak and two lanes in the opposite direction. The artery’s concrete pavement must be rebuilt in this sector of the highway, where 110,000 vehicles pass through every day.
Barriers per ton
In the city center, the Ville-Marie Expressway will be closed in both directions from Friday 11 p.m. until Monday 5 a.m. – eastbound between exit 4 and the entrance from Atataken Street, then west between rue Panet and the entrance from rue Lucien-l’Allier. Objective: install the steel structure on the central part of the Saint-Laurent Boulevard overpass.
The Turcot interchange ramp between Autoroute 20 as well as Autoroute 15 and Route 136 will also be closed during the same period, eastbound.
But the list does not end there. This weekend, the Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine tunnel will also be closed in both directions overnight from Friday to Saturday, between 9 p.m. and 8 a.m., in order to carry out “maintenance operations”. From Friday to Monday, between 8:30 p.m. and 5 a.m., Souligny Avenue will be closed for concrete work, between Dickson and Honoré-Beaugrand streets.
Further west of the island, only one lane per direction will be open on the Honoré-Mercier Bridge, between 2 a.m. Saturday and 5 a.m. Monday, in order to repair slabs in the traffic lanes. The entrance ramp leading from Airlie Street to Route 138 will also be closed, as will the reserved lane from Airlie Street for that matter.
Exit 8 of the A10 West, which leads in particular to Taschereau Boulevard, will be closed for a long time from this Friday at 10 p.m. until June 5 at 5 a.m. From Friday to Monday, motorists will also not be able to take exit 53 between Highway 20 West and Boulevard des Sources, on the interchange of the same name. Work must be held to repair several beams. A detour will be organized via Saint-Jean Boulevard for the duration of the closure, between Friday 11 p.m. and Monday 5 a.m.
Montreal is not the only one affected. In Trois-Rivières, two lanes out of four on the Laviolette bridge will be closed from Friday 8 p.m. to Sunday 11 a.m. Intensive work to replace the central slab will continue throughout the spring.
Parking will go through AMD
In Montreal, the Sustainable Mobility Agency (AMD) also announced Thursday that it will now “gradually” welcome citizen requests concerning the application of parking regulations. A “new customer relations center” will be created to intervene in potential cases of “obstruction of reserved or cycle lanes”. Until now, this responsibility fell rather to the 911 central of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM). You will now have to dial 514 868-3737 for immediate assistance. This new service will be in effect 24 hours a day, seven days a week, assures the City. “The idea may seem good on paper, but in reality, it is a false solution from the administration knowing that the Sustainable Mobility Agency does not have the directive to process these calls as a priority. The telephone waiting time during busy periods can be an obstacle to denunciation”, nevertheless retorted Thursday the critic in transport of the opposition, Alba Zuniga Ramos.