Turcot Work Under Way

Photo: Dave Sidaway, The Gazette

And so the sad stupid story of Turcot goes into the next phase – a bad plan that will make some people a pretty good buck.

Transport Quebec gets head start on Turcot project

By Andy Riga, GAZETTE Transportation Reporter

MONTREAL – Call it the bridge to nowhere.

Transport Quebec is currently building an imposing $6.7-million overpass that will not be used for several years.

It’s at the corner of Pullman Ave. and Ste. Anne de Bellevue Blvd., on the border of Notre Dame de Grâce and the Sud Ouest borough.

It’s the first structure to be built as part of the long-awaited $3-billion Turcot Interchange reconstruction project, to run until 2018.

“It’s preparatory work for the new Turcot,” Transport Quebec spokesperson Caroline Larose said of the overpass.

The structure will circumvent Canadian National train tracks that are to be moved as part of the Turcot work, she said. But it’s unclear when the train tracks, currently about 100 meters away, will be relocated.

That move will happen “in the years to come,” she said. And roads in the area will not be connected to the overpass for “several years.”

Simard-Beaudry Construction Inc. won the contract to build the overpass.

Transport Quebec can’t start on many other parts of the Turcot because final plans for the entire project will not be ready until year end, Larose said.

Major Turcot construction contracts will not be signed until after those plans are in place, she added.

But the location of the overpass now under construction had been decided, so Transport Quebec is getting a head start by building it now, Larose said, adding the structure is in an area where construction will not disrupt traffic.

Pullman has been moved slightly to accommodate the construction site, which currently consists of several concrete walls and deep holes. The work has not hampered traffic in the area, which connects LaSalle and N.D.G., and N.D.G. to Highway 20 and the Mercier Bridge.

Transport Quebec has recently opened tenders for other Turcot preparatory work. Those contracts will be for work related to public services such as sewers, water mains and Hydro-Québec; the reorganization of local streets; and preparing sites where work will be done in the future, Larose said.

The Turcot Interchange project will involve rebuilding the Turcot, De La Vérendrye, Angrignon and Montreal West interchanges, as well as stretches of Highways 15, 20 and 720.

ariga@montrealgazette.com

twitter.com/andyriga

From here.

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A Different Turcot Idea

One of the options  Transports Quebec had  on the table with the Turcot Interchange was to simply renovate and strengthen the current interchange. It was estimated that this would cost half of what the current rebuild-it-alltogether plan would cost -  estimation, 1.5 Billion, 6 years work.

I tend to think that renovation is what they should be doing. The current plan assumes that the world will continue to function as it always has, that cars and trucks will come and go, and there will always be young people who will choose to live in the suburbs but will also choose to have a career downtown. It’s as if there is an infinite supply of harmless oil and gasoline to sustain  all possibilities. Many of us know that that dream has never been long term useful and the rest that don’t are beginning to suspect that maybe there is something to all this climate change/peak oil talk.

So they should simply renovate Turcot as part of a 10-15  year transportation plan that will end with Turcot and the Ville Marie Expressway being torn down for good (though I would still like to see some parts of Turcot remain as useful structures). That’s right. No more freeways or interchanges for the city core. The transportation plan could focus on various light rail systems and expanding parking facilities at train stations as well as using the old highways for, among other things, electric bus routes.  We won’t need all that big infrastructure for a dedicated public transportation system.

It may be as soon as 10 years before one will no longer be able to buy a brand new gasoline only automobile in North America. The future is coming towards us faster and faster, perhaps even faster than we are going to be prepared for it. Change is coming. That is the one thing that is absolutely certain. The whole game is going to be different in a generation or two.

It’s time to stop rebuilding the past with soon to be obsolete concepts.

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More Trains, Less Planes, Please

Henry Aubin writes in today’s Gazette about the expansion plans at Trudeau International. He questions whether spending billions to expand the airport is really in everyone’s best interest in this brave new age of Global Warming. It probably isn’t, as in the coming decade we will probably see an international movement towards an agreement to begin to restrict airline usage. Personally, I have long believed that a high speed rail link to Mirabel would have taken care of all of Montreal’s airline needs quite efficiently. Didn’t happen. Won’t.

But the green space still available on the island is indeed getting eaten up with the gradual development of the Golf Dorval lands. The wild and the innocent do not do well living side by side, but here at least, was an opportunity to have a genuine wildlife zone on the island, where something of a compromise may have worked. Below are fox tracks at the gate to a new construction zone on the western edge of the old course.

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Infrastructure Collapsing in Canada?

This is going across the wire today.

Canada’s infrastructure deficit hits $123 billion, report says

OTTAWA – Canada’s water treatment facilities, roads and public infrastructure is on the verge of collapse because of a $123-billion building deficit, a new report warned Tuesday.

The report, released by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, suggests that the cost of fixing crumbling infrastructure has more than doubled over the past four years, and will continue to rise if no new investments are made.

“Across Canada, municipal infrastructure has reached the breaking point,” reads the study written by Dr. Saeed Mirza, a McGill University civil engineering professor in Montreal. “Most was built between the 1950s and 1970s, and much of it is due for replacement. We can see the consequences in every community: potholes and crumbling bridges, water-treatment and transit systems that cannot keep up with demand, traffic gridlock, poor air quality and a lack of affordable housing.”

the deficit into five categories. He estimated that $31 billion would be needed for water and waste water systems, $21.7 billion for transportation, $22.8 billion for transit, $7.7 billion for waste management, and $40.2 billion for community, recreational, cultural and social infrastructure.

“It points to a looming crisis that if unchecked, will reduce our standard of living, our safety and our quality of life as Canadians,” said Gord Steeves, president of the federation, at a news conference. “The report says that Canada’s public infrastructure is at 79 per cent of its service life and that municipal infrastructure has reached its breaking point. It shows that the physical foundation of Canada’s cities and communities are near collapse.”

The federation estimated that municipalities would need to raise property taxes by 40 per cent to cover the estimated infrastructure deficit, so it is calling on the federal government to replace its existing patchwork of ad hoc program’s with a new national program to address all of their concerns.

“It is a wakeup call to everyone who thinks we can ignore our decaying municipal infrastructure or tackle it with half measures,” said Steeves. “We’re not saying that our bridges will begin falling down tomorrow, but we are saying that if serious action is not taken now, our infrastructure is headed for collapse. The problem will simply overtake us.”

mdesouzacanwest.com

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Public Consultation in NDG – November 19, 7pm

Finally, the MTQ people have agreed to hold a public consultation meeting for residents of NDG (for some completely unknown reason they did not originally see NDG as an area that would be directly affected by the new Turcot plan/construction hence the pressure to get a meeting there) on November 19 at 7pm at the Saint Raymond Centre, 5600 Upper Lachine Road.

Of course this leaves citizens with as little time to get organized as possible. Still, there is hope that some of the concerns raised by residents of NDG will be publicly heard.

Here is the blurb from The Green Party.

TRANSPORT QUEBEC HOLDS PUBLIC HEARINGS ON THE TURCOT INTERCHANGE

 IN NDG

   The NDG Green Party of Quebec is pleased to annouce that our
pressure campaign to force Transport Quebec to hold a public hear
-ing in NDG has payed off, and it is scheduled for Monday 
Nov 19th at 7pm at the St-Raymond  center at 5600 Upper 
Lachine road.

 Here are 3 specific important questions about the Turcot 
rebuild that the NDG Green Party would like answered:

1- Will the new electric tram-train link between downtown and 
Dorval  airport, using the CP tracks through Montreal West, NDG 
and Westmount, be  operational before highway 20 lane closings 
occur in 5 years, so that  there is an alternative way for more residents to get downtown or to  the airport before the big 
delays begin? 
 
2- The Turcot planners want to demolish the St-Jacques bridge 
over the  highway in 2010 for several years while they build 
the new highway 15  lanes below.  At the same time, the MUHC 
planners want to close the  deficient Decarie Street underpass 
under the CP tracks in 2010 to rebuild  it as the first, 
necessary step in their controversial traffic plan for  the 
Glen hospital site.  
 CLOSING BOTH THESE KEY ROUTES AT THE SAME TIME WILL ALLOW 
NO WAY FOR TRAFFIC FROM DOWNTOWN TO PROCEED WEST AND NORTH 
INTO NDG.  Please let  the residents of NDG know which will
be first and precisely what  alternative routes will be 
recommended to drivers. 

3- Transport Quebec wants to move Highway 20 and the CN-Via 
tracks  right up against the St-Jacques escarpment to free 
up land near Notre Dame  street for development or a park. 
 We feel that it would make more  sense to leave the highway 
where it is now:
  -if the St-Jacques escarpment eco-territory was fully 
upgraded  into a linear park with a nice bicycle-cross 
country ski trail running  along its length (just such a path 
was started by the RCM in 1994) and  also with several paths 
or stairs running up and down it (one such police  car 
accessible road already exists and comes out on St-Jacques 
near  Cavendish), the residents of NDG and St-Raymond 
(which the city plans to  densify) would have good access 
to this park,
 - at the same time, a new sustainable residential development
 could be encouraged in the Turcot yards because of pedestrian 
and bicycle  access to this park and through it to the retail
 stores that already  exist along St-Jacques at the top of the escarpment.
  -Transport Quebec's plan, on the other hand, would mean 
creating a hard to access from any side strip of park or 
development between heavy industrial Notre Dame St.(with 
the Lachine Canal behind it true, but with even heavier 
industry across the canal there in LaSalle) and the newly moved highway 20.
 

So please come out on Monday Nov 19th at 7pm to the St-Raymond 
center at 5600 Upper Lachine road to hear Transport Quebec's 
answers to these and also your important questions about 
this massive project and its effects on NDG in the years ahead.

Peter McQueen
President of the NDG riding association
Green Party of Quebec
514 678 5515

 

I urge everyone to attend this and see for yourself how democracy is served in this city so Be There!

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Gabor Szilasi

One of the most prolific of Quebec’s well known and widely respected photographers, Gabor Szilasi photographed the building of the Turcot Interchange. Here are some oldies from around 1967 when it was mostly completed.

In this one you can see clearly that the old canal bridge at de L’Eglise was in fact a swivel bridge. The legend has it that it was cut in half – half of the bridge still stands there – in order to allow for the building of the interchange, but this photo shows that wasn’t necessary.They ended up landfilling the south side and half the bridge remained in use for motor vehicles until about 5 years ago when the Monk Boulevard bridge was built. The building on the left side of the bridge is now the Muzo Hotel where your pet can stay while you are away.

There was a road going up to this location.

And here the Ville Marie has yet come to meet Turcot and Glen Yards appears to still be quite active.

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