Transport Quebec warns motorists: stay away from Turcot Interchange this weekend

It was built below specs and has been poorly maintained.  Saving on maintenance costs in the first 3 decades created  full time maintenance contracts that has cost, and will cost taxpayer’s, over 100′s of  million of dollars to maintain a structure that is scheduled to be torn down.  Somebody has done alright with that. But not you and me.

By Billy Shields Global News

MONTREAL – Transport Quebec announced a series of closures this weekend as it ramps up badly needed work on the Turcot Interchange.

Starting at 10 p.m. Friday until 5 a.m. Monday, the A-720 West ramp to the A-15 South and the A-20 East ramp toward the A-15 South will be closed.

The A-15 South within the interchange and the A-15 South ramp to the A-720 will be closed in the evening Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

South Shore motorists are advised to take either the Victoria or Jacques-Cartier bridges, or to use the Autoroute Bonaventure.

Officials are also telling drivers to avoid the interchange entirely — small comfort if you’re a West Island driver needing to get to the downtown core.

“It’s hard when you have to drive to Montreal, I avoid it at all costs,” one driver said coming off the Turcot.

This work is the precursor to the major overhaul of the interchange, one that now has a sticker price of $3.7 billion, and that won’t be done till 2020.

Renovations are expected to continue through August, although the province wants to get much of the work done as early as possible to avoid butting up against Montreal’s summer construction blitz.

Civil engineer Saeed Mirza said that the Turcot overhaul — which was put off for years by successive administrations — represents a failure in management.

Unfortunately our present philosophy is design, build, and forget. and leave the maintenance to somebody else,” he said.

When the Turcot was built in the 1960s, it was a crucial transit cog in the city’s infrastructure, now routine maintenance costs tens of millions of dollars a year.

Story here.

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Goverment Talking Corruption Free Turcot

To say I am behind the times on Turcot would be an understatement.  Seems I have drifted into focusing a lot of my online attention into relaying the ongoing tragedy that is our federal government under Stephen Harper via Facebook and occasionally Twitter in recent years. Of course it is all interconnected when you  follow the dots.

A non corrupt Turcot? It sure is an interesting concept, pretty much a fantasy actually. But all of us in Quebec owe the Charbonneau Commission a big tip ‘o the hat for showing us how corrupt the City of Montreal has been. Of course it was never a surprise to someone like yours truly who knew Olympic Stadium concrete was being poured as foundations for new housing developments on the South Shore and elsewhere, as just one odious example.

While a few weeks old this article is something of an update.

Quebec’s integrity test turns Montreal interchange into a symbol of clean dealings

INGRID PERITZ and RHÉAL SÉGUIN

Montreal and Quebec City — The Globe and Mail

Published Monday, Mar. 25 2013, 1:44 PM EDT

Companies hoping to snag a piece of the biggest roadwork contract in Quebec history will first have to prove they’re corruption-free, a major test for the province as it aims to fix its failing infrastructure while tackling graft in the construction industry.

Premier Pauline Marois’s government has set a $3.7-billion ceiling on the cost of rebuilding Montreal’s Turcot interchange, a critical and decrepit spaghetti interchange in the heart of the city that moves 300,000 vehicles daily. Soon, the roadway could stand as a symbolic challenge to Quebec’s promise to carry on business while holding the construction world to account.

Pushing forward with badly needed roadwork without benefiting firms tarred by corruption allegations has become a new dilemma for elected officials in Quebec – a problem sure to recur as the federal government pours billions into infrastructure spending across the country. Last week, Montreal Mayor Michael Applebaum asked Montrealers whether they wanted their city’s potholes plugged by some asphalting companies named before the Charbonneau commission into corruption and collusion.

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Danielle Plamondon at Cafe Victoria in Verdun

Danielle Plamondon is one of the most respected, admired, and loved urban explorers on the planet. From the abandoned factories of Montreal and the rooftops of Europe, through the sewer systems of London and Paris,  she has photographed these locations with a passionate eye and a creative energy that radiates throughout her images.

Her night photographs bring us to the scene as we have never experienced it before, such as this image that shows the Turcot Interchange (obviously a personal favorite of mine).

Below street level is a second home to her as she documents the drains and tunnels she explores using “light painting” techniques to bring out the details while creating an intense sensuality to the forms and materials of our underground infrastructure.

A pile of paint cans in an old long abandoned factory becomes a unique moment recalling the architecture and mysteries  of great cathedrals.

This is the one photography exhibition in Montreal you cannot afford to miss!

Danielle Plamondon – a girl in the dark with a flashlight,  continues until March 31st.

Cafe Victoria

4559 Wellington

Verdun, Metro de l’Eglise, Galt exit

(514) 564-8088

 

 

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Montreal’s Natural Speed Bumps

Why spend all that money pretending to repair them? And if one of our bridges falls down we can always call it, “optimizing alternate routes!”

From Aislin at The Gazette.

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Turcot Rendezvous On Tuesday at 6

Pierre Brisset, architecte et directeur du Groupe de Recherche en Urbaine d’Hochelaga-Maisonneuve (GRUHM) est l’invité de la prochaine assemblée de Mobilisation Turcot. Son analyse de la situation nous permet de continuer à croire qu’un meilleur Turcot est possible.

Mardi, 18 janvier à 18h00 au CEDA, 2515, Delisle, Métro Lionel-Groulx.

http://www.mobilisation-turcot.info/

A la demande de l’Arrondissement du Sud-Ouest, le MTQ devrait organiser une séance d’information sur leur projet. Une occasion de leur démontrer une fois de plus que cela ne fait pas notre affaire…Cela pourrait être le lundi 31 janvier. Date à confirmer, on s’en reparle.

Pour rappel, alternatives et principes par lesquels nous revendiquons depuis 3 ans un meilleur Turcot :

Richard Bergeron, urbaniste et chef de Projet Montréal proposait à la veille des fêtes Turcot 50-50. Les 3 milliards de dépenses annoncés par le ministre des transports ne sont pas justifiés. Tant qu’à dépenser autant, 1.5 milliard dans le transport collectif permettrait d’accueillir 35 000 habitants dans la cour Turcot et dans l’est de Lachine, limitant ainsi entre autre l’étalement urbain et ses impacts environnementaux. http://www.projetmontreal.org/article/93

Une nouvelle vidéo de 9mn rappelle les principes par lesquels Pierre Gauthier et Pierre Brisset proposent depuis le printemps 2010 la reconstruction de l’échangeur (Turcot 375).

http://www.mobilisation-turcot.info/alternatives.html

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Quebec Will Reconfigure Decarie Circle

Réaménagement de la partie nord de l’échangeur Décarie – DES TRAVAUX POUR RÉPONDRE AUX BESOINS D’AUJOURD’HUI ET DE DEMAIN : Portail Québec : site officiel du gouvernement du Québec.

Sounds like a bargain at 110 million. And remember that the Decarie Circle was rebuilt during 2000-2003 at a cost of plus 33 million. More evidence of the lack of a coordinated vision here that is constantly forcing us to re-spend a fortune  forcing older work to conform to new plans that are outdated/inadequate when the shovel hits the ground.

Just add that to your traffic nightmare list of places to avoid driving in the coming years.

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Traffic Nightmares Only Beginning

Thanks to Kate for posting this Gazoo article about traffic issues in Montreal. Seems cab drivers are particularly fed up with traffic disruptions caused by various construction projects in and around downtown. Well, get ready, folks, cause this is only a preview of traffic nightmares to come.
It may be a few years before any work at Turcot actually infects traffic on the 20, Decarie, and the Ville Marie, but soon construction of a Super Hospital in NDG, a mere stone’s throw from Turcot, will strangle the area. A few questionable projects starting up in Griffintown are going to inevitably cause much delay going to the Victoria and Champlain bridges. And there is plenty more from small to large infrastructure projects to come. Montreal is going to be a construction zone and it ‘s going to last a few years at least. so prepare for the worst, because experience tells you that whatever they tell you, it’s going be a lot worse and last a lot longer.
We have become a city that is so incompetent at basic work, such as replacing water infrastructure on a commercial street, that you can safely predict that the lengthy delays will cause some businesses to go bankrupt. That is actually beyond incompetent, but I will let you insert your own word for it.
Can you imagine how screwed up these major planned projects are going to become?
One of the biggest reasons for this (apparent) decline is that the people of Montreal keep voting for an administration that is unable to get work done properly or put together a cohesive plan for the city. And there is zero motivation for them to change the way things are done when they have your support – it’s like saying, “Gee, only 12 businesses closed during the sidewalk replacement, that’s not too bad.” We accept this because we choose to not get involved, we become powerless, and so make choices along outdated issues that the politicians suck up like gravy. Putting Gerald Tremblay and Union Montreal back in power a year ago was a huge mistake, and the fallout is only at the beginning stages. Still, we have what we asked for.

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4 Years Ago Today Concorde Overpass Fell

Sorry, but I didnt get this till late…

Dear fans of Sexy béton,

Today is the 4th anniversary of the collapse of the de la Concorde overpass. On this day, at around 12 noon, a section of the overpass fell onto Highway 19 in Laval and killed Mathieu Goyette and his pregnant girlfriend Véronique Binette, Jean-Pierre Hamel and his wife Sylive Beaudet, and his brother Gilles Hamel. 6 other people were badly injured in the incident: Mohammed Ashraff Umerthambi, Louise Bédard, Paul Cousineau, Robert Hotte, Anne Leblanc, and Claude Bastien.

As far as I can see, not one major newspaper in Montreal, nor the English CBC has mentioned this important anniversary today. Sept 30th will therefore pass Montreal by without a moment of reflection about de la Concorde.

If you receive this message today, I ask that you take a moment yourself to pause around 12 noon to remember de la Concorde: to mourn the people who lost their lives, to recognize those whose lives were forever changed, and to ask yourself if anything has REALLY changed over the past 4 years in Quebec to prevent another bridge from collapsing on our heads again.

Yours,

Annabel Soutar

Sexy Beton

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Bergeron Heading Up New Turcot Plan

Projet Montreal leader, and Executive Council member, Richard Bergeron says the city is developing an alternative plan for the Turcot rebuild that would avoid expropriations. Excellent news if Quebec is paying attention at all. The one thing that is very obvious in this whole rebuilding infrastructure debate is that in order to avoid just shooting ourselves in both feet, we need to start doing it differently. Automobile drivers are not going to like changing their habits any more than smokers wanted to go outside, but smokers, perhaps begrudgingly, adapted and so will the automobile drivers. Also important to remember that we still have choices. But if we make the wrong choices there just won’t be options in 10 years!

Story here.

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Lesson # 1: How To Not Build A City

Although I missed it myself a friend told me that one of the representatives of the Societe du Havre de Montreal group behind all the Bonaventure redevelopments (which includes the Dalhousie Corridor) said, when asked about the new Windsor Station project, something like, “We are not paying attention to that, it’s out of our scope, we have focused only on Bonaventure.” And this was at a public consultation event.

The Windsor Station project is centered around building a “transportation hub” and the Bonaventure project contains a significant bus corridor as well as a new urban boulevard to replace the old elevated freeway. These locations are about a 2 and a half minute walk from each other.

Now maybe I have missed something big time here, but it just makes sense to me that these two projects cannot possibly proceed without each having an acute awareness of what the other is planning to do. And there is a history here of extreme short sightedness when it comes to planning for transportation (see Bell Centre). The left hand and the right not only need to know what each other is doing, it’s also a good idea that they be attached to the same body.

It’s hard to believe we may be building transportation infrastructure without demanding that it fit an overall plan for the city, but that is what appears to be happening.

And that is no way to build a city.

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Turcot Model On Public Display

Got this from the CJAD web site.

Turcot model open for public viewing
Tue, 2009-06-09 04:48.
David Cohen

You can now see what the new ‘n improved Turcot interchange is going to look like, if and when it’s built.

A scaled-down model has been put up in a community center in St Henri, so you take it in, and get an idea of the massive roadwork we’re in for over the next seven years.

You can see the model at the Centre Saint-Zotique community centre, at 75 Sir George Etienne-Cartier Square, at the corner of St Ambroise.

Environmental hearings on the project continue next week.

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-AX-

And you can catch -AX-’s Flickr pages here.

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Taxpayers’ Money Went Up In Smoke

Viewpoints article in the Gazette by David B. Hanna, former president of Heritage Montreal.

The fire at the former CN shop buildings in Point St. Charles last weekend appears to have destroyed the enormous 1928 locomotive repair facility with a loss to the Montreal economy that reaches well beyond the destruction of an important heritage building. In fact, this was no simple paper warehouse as reported by much of the media, but a crucial building whose loss will have an economic impact of epic proportions.

The city of Montreal as well as Quebec’s ministry of transport are both at fault.

The Point St. Charles shop complex was the last available facility for repairing and maintaining trains. Incredibly, CN sold it for $1 a few years ago when no one in the Quebec government had the vision to see the crying need for a major repair facility as commuter trains were returning to the rails in increasing numbers.

The current owner-developer had since treated the property as a junk facility, ever hopeful that he might eventually be permitted to tear buildings down. The city of Montreal aided and abetted this “small think” by granting a permit to allow 50 garbage trucks to rumble through the nearby residential neighbourhood daily, allowing delivery of huge quantities of paper into insecure storage in the main shop building that housed a gantry crane worth millions of dollars.

In September, faced with a surging demand for commuter trains and a need to consolidate maintenance for all five commuter lines, the Quebec government belatedly slapped a reserve on the property, with an eye to acquiring the shop complex for all AMT trains.

Note that this is the same facility that taxpayers could have bought for the bargain price of $1 a few years ago.

Now the Point St. Charles site will cost taxpayers many dollars more. How much? Depending on the extent of the damage, a new shop complex could cost taxpayers as much as $500 million. Taxpayers’ money literally went up in flames last weekend!

David B. Hanna

Past President of Heritage Montréal

The article shows once again how our politicians are hopelessly out of touch with current realities. In this case they acted like slumlords, as if in cahoots with the actual landowner, just waiting for a property to deteriorate to the point where any one of their absurd ideas concerning “development” would have seemed reasonable. Did they completely forget that trains need maintenance? Were they thinking that it could all be done underground somewhere?  Well, we can’t sue politicians for being stupid or lacking vision, though perhaps that is an option worth looking at, but we can vote them out! This  situation should cause a certain amount of outrage in the sensibilities of all citizens, because, yes, this actually did happen in your back yard.

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Dorval Cirlce Update

Article in today’s Gazette says that the workon Dorval Circle will go until 2013. The print version also mentions that this project will “allow” for a high speed train from the airport to downtown without actually mentioning any specific plan or route for such a rail line. Yet wouldn’t that make for a very strong commitment to something specific? It s always a slippery slope when you committ millions of dollars on theoretical possibilities. And given that the Turcot redo is scheduled to go to 2015, not to mention Bonaventure and the Ville Marie, we are going to see some intense freeway infrastructure building on the island over at least the next 7 years and it will be happening while many, many, highway overpasses are being replaced around Quebec.

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Doney Spur (7)

And so the journey ends. This last leg has no track but it’s quite easy to follow where it went. This whole adventure was a lot of fun, though it was waaay too hot on a few days. It makes a lot of sense to reuse the Doney as part of a commuter rail system, but you see developers have their hands in every niche and corner on the island. If you make a movie about a developer who simply builds the project, despite some local protest, you have something that will satisfy no one. If you make a movie about those locals stopping the developer, well, now you are going towards what is often called inspirational. Too bad most of us choose to let the developer have his way in real life.

And here is a map of the last leg.

Coming up to Alston.

The space between industrial and residential zones on the west island.

Nature always reclaims.

Trailer in the middle of the way.

Balance? or the battlefield?

Looking back.

For Sale?

Looking back from the west side of Stillview.

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