Don't be fooled by skinnier cones, Montreal will be orange again this summer
There will be fewer orange cones on the roads than usual this summer, but there will be just as many construction sites.
The city of Montreal and Transport Quebec held their annual briefing on summer roadwork Wednesday, and despite record investments in roads, sewers and bridges in the last few years, the pace of construction season has remained unchanged.
'We have reduced by half the number of cones that we put on roads where the speed limit is 40 kilometres per hour,' said Philippe Sabourin, city of Montreal spokesperson. 'That's major.'
Sabourin was referring to the city's updated Charter of Roadwork, which lists norms and best practices the city expects construction companies to follow.
He added the city is also insisting that companies use more 'svelte' cones in certain cases so that the cones themselves take up less room.
About 1,000 streets will have closures over the course of the summer within the local network, and there will be another 44 construction sites on highways.
Within the city, the major roadwork will be on:
St-Jacques St. between de la Cathédrale St. and Lucien L'Allier St.
The city is also wrapping up construction on Ste-Catherine St. W., between Peel and Mansfield Sts., which will be closed until the fall, while the north-south streets of Peel and Metcalfe will remain open.
There will be major work done on the Ville-Marie Expressway, which will require night and weekend closures.
St-Urbain St. will be closed from Viger St. to St-Antoine St.
Roads and sewers around the CHUM superhospital will be replaced, requiring some streets to be closed or at least narrowed.
Further afield, there will be 15 weekend blitzes on the Mercier Bridge, which will force the closing of all but one lane of traffic in each direction. Getting to Trudeau airport will be tricky as well, as there are already three construction sites on the Côte-de-Liesse Expressway.
The eastbound Metropolitan Expressway is also due to be closed this long weekend, weather permitting, and on another weekend in June so crews car repave that stretch of roadway. Transport Québec determined that the quality of asphalt did not meet the standards stated in the contract, so the work will have to be redone, spokesperson Sarah Bensadoun said.
While the city and province are urging people to take transit to get around, that will be difficult for a large number of commuters because the REM — the newest light-rail network linking Brossard to the downtown core — will be completely shut down for a period of six weeks. The shutdown is needed so workers can run tests throughout the network before opening up the Anse-a-l'Orme and Deux-Montagnes branches, expected for October of this year.
Spokesperson Francis Labbé said the tests are going well so far, and the REM trains have begun running at their top speed of about 100 km/h through the Mount Royal Tunnel.
However, Labbé said the timeline on the commissioning of the next two branches of the network will depend on how well the tests go during the network's closure in July.
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