Your quasi-permanent cones | The Press

After the revelations of The Press on the presence of cones for at least 16 years along the entrances to the Ville-Marie tunnel¹, in downtown Montreal, many of you have told us about other similar situations. Here are some of these quasi-permanent cones, still documented thanks to Google Street View.

Six years of cones on the banks of the Richelieu

In 2017, a risk of subsidence was discovered on chemin des Patriotes, in Richelieu, on the South Shore of Montreal. Since then, a series of orange cones have been placed at the edge of the road, awaiting the overdue corrective work. “The asphalt is cracked in two and nothing has been done,” lamented Gisèle Normandeau, who lives nearby. “In winter, the snowplow catches them, they tip over and people run over them. There are debris from cones, overturned cones, standing cones. It’s not very pleasant. »

“A slope stabilization intervention is required over approximately 130 meters and its completion requires more time than expected,” said the spokesperson for the Ministry of Transport Louis-André Bertrand. In the meantime, bollards have been added to the cones, “perhaps out of an abundance of caution,” he wrote. “Following the recent reminder of best practices in relation to the management of cones, it was deemed that the presence of the bollards is sufficient and that the cones will be removed soon. »

A cone in a sump since 2019

On Rue Paul-Pau, in the borough of Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, a cone is in an unfortunate position: embedded, head first, in a broken sump. Google Street View shows that an orange beacon has been there for at least 2019. Stéphane Tonnerre, a local resident, says he called the City several times to ask to proceed with the repair – and therefore the removal of the cone. “I think it’s starting to get dangerous. […] Winter can be treacherous,” he said. “It’s something relatively simple to fix… The cone is now part of the landscape on rue Paul-Pau. The City of Montreal indicated that the situation fell within the jurisdiction of the borough of Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve.

A congested artery for seven years

Avenue du Docteur-Penfield, on Mount Royal, is cluttered with orange cones – in sections – on all images captured by Google Street View since 2016. “They dug, they dug,” said Gérard Szejwach, who settled on this artery in 2014. We are also thinking of moving, because it’s a bit too much. The City of Montreal confirmed that the construction sites had succeeded one another on the avenue, “which explains the presence of cones since 2016”, according to the relationist Hugo Bourgoin. “Let us mention the development work on Promenade Fleuve-Montagne (2016-2017), the redevelopment work on Peel Street between Sherbrooke and des Pins (2018-2019) and the work to upgrade McTavish station ( since 2020), he continued. Aqueduct repair work carried out by the Ville-Marie borough is also underway at this location. Mr. Bourgoin pointed out that the City had thought about the omnipresence of cones during its summit on construction sites, at the end of March, and that it intended to use fewer of them.

Cones on a new structure

The installation of cones often precedes the completion of road improvement works. At the intersection of Valiquette Street and the Highway 13 service road, in Saint-Laurent, the opposite happened: in 2020, a new concrete structure built to bring some order to the movement of heavy goods vehicles was quickly decked out in cones, visibly to limit collisions. “The island, on the ground, is difficult to notice and vehicles have destroyed the signage on numerous occasions since 2018 by passing over the island inadvertently”, explained by email Daniel Godin, who passes by frequently. “Since 2019, temporary orange cones have been installed and maintenance teams replace them regularly, particularly in winter. Cones have indeed been found there in every Google Street View image since September 2019.