Road construction sites will not let up for the Thanksgiving long weekend in Greater Montreal. A blitz of work in the Saint-Pierre interchange will notably force the complete closure of Highway 20 eastbound, towards the city center.
This was indicated on Monday by the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility (MTMD). Highway 20-East will first be completely blocked between exit 63 for the Honoré-Mercier bridge and the following entrance between 10 p.m. Friday and 5 a.m. Tuesday.
A detour will be set up via Route 138 West. To access the city center, motorists will have to first take Clément Street, then return to Route 138-East and finally Highway 20-East. For trucks, it will also be possible to take exit 62 to reach Montreal-Toronto Boulevard.
To this will be added a occasional obstruction on Highway 20 West, which will be closed at night from Friday 10:30 p.m. to Saturday 8 a.m. Only one lane will therefore be available to travel to Dorval and Trudeau airport.
But that’s not all. The ramp leading from Route 138 East to Highway 20 West will have to be closed for the entire long weekend. You will therefore have to go around with Highway 20-East, then turn around at the Angrignon interchange. One lane will also be closed in the Saint-Pierre interchange from Friday to Saturday morning, heading west. Read here: Traveling to the airport could also be complicated.
Rue Saint-Jacques will also be closed throughout the long weekend, under Highway 20. Traffic will be redirected towards 1D Avenue or even Avenue Saint-Pierre.
Less worse than in May?
All this “risks causing severe congestion”, warns the government. Quebec therefore recommends to road users coming from the west of Montreal “to favor Highway 40 for their trips east, and to allow more time to get to their destination”.
“Going through the Saint-Pierre interchange area at the end of the week will not be a good idea,” summarizes MTMD spokesperson Louis-André Bertrand.
However, he maintains that the congestion is likely to be “less worse” than in May, when hundreds of passengers missed their flights after waiting for hours in a traffic jam caused by the closure of the A20 westbound.
“We do not expect such a situation, since to the East, people will be able to take Highway 13 or even 520. Towards the West this spring, the detour route was to take Highway 15 -North, which is already in high demand, so people were really stuck in the way,” specifies Mr. Bertrand.
Mitigation measures will be put in place throughout the sector. The rest of the daytime obstructions will be limited and obstruction announcements will be made on variable message signs (PMV) throughout the island and its outskirts. An “increased police presence” is also planned around the interchange.
Further east of Montreal, the Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine tunnel will be closed in both directions overnight from Saturday to Sunday, in order to carry out inspection and concreting work. Avenue Souligny-est will also be closed for the same period of time between Rue Dickson and Rue Honoré-Beaugrand.
Three big weekends in Trois-Rivières
In Mauricie, three intensive weekends of work are also planned starting October 13 on the Laviolette Bridge, as part of the project to replace the central slab of the infrastructure. Only one lane per direction will be available for the last three weekends of October, from Friday evening to Monday morning. Night interventions are also planned during the week, between these periods. Here too, a lot of congestion will therefore be expected. Another phase of work, but only at night, will then last until November.