Champlain builders gleaned ideas from Confederation Bridge
Q After travelling to Prince Edward Island this summer, I was wondering if the builders of the Confederation Bridge from New Brunswick to P.E.I. consulted for the new Champlain Bridge? Rick Kiraly, Montreal
The builders and architects of the new Champlain Bridge consulted many experts in coming up with the design, said Daniel Genest, the director of co-ordination for Signature on the Saint Lawrence — the consortium building the bridge. He said the architect that designed the bridge also has lots of experience designing bridges in Europe.
The builders learned quite a bit from the experience of the Confederation Bridge, Genest said, which helped them with their construction plan for this bridge.
“What we learned from the Confederation Bridge, primarily, is how to put in place the foundation for this bridge,” Genest said.
He added the new Champlain Bridge is being built with a modular approach, meaning most of the parts are built off-site, coming from factories in Quebec, the U.S. and Spain, and then assembled on-site. The bridge’s footings, the massive concrete blocks that will support its piers, or pillars, are being built on-site. About half of the blocks are being built with poured concrete on a work site, then loaded onto massive barges and lowered into the water. They are then dropped into holes dug out in the river bed, using precise measurements and GPS trackers to determine they are in the right location.
That idea was directly taken from the Confederation Bridge construction, Genest said. “The fact we went for pre-cast footings built (on-site) is something we essentially borrowed from the Confederation Bridge,” he said.
Genest said one of the reasons the builders elected to build the bridge this way was to save time, since the consortium has a tight deadline of three and a half years to build the bridge for completion on Dec. 1, 2018, and faces stiff penalties if it doesn’t finish on time. If builders were to build the entire bridge on-site, rather than only assemble its parts, it would take much longer. It’s becoming more common to build bridges with a modular approach because tight work deadlines are becoming more common.
He added builders also consulted the Confederation Bridge about the design life, since that bridge is intended to last 100 years. The new Champlain Bridge is supposed to last 125 years.
How does one get the attention of the city of Montreal? Côte-St-Luc Road is an absolute disgrace, particularly west of Décarie. There are potholes at least four inches deep. Is the West End a repair-free zone? Allan Chandler, Côte-St-Luc
Pothole filling is an operation managed by the central city, which hires companies that employ machines that fill the holes with hot asphalt patches. There are also crews employed by the boroughs who go out in trucks and manually fill potholes.
That being said, there will be some repair work this fall on the section of Côte-St-Luc Road west of Décarie to try to improve the road surface, said Philippe Sabourin, a spokesperson for the city. The road surface east of Décarie up to Bonavista Ave. will be replaced next year.
Generally, citizens can alert the city about potholes by calling 311.
Sabourin said the city spends about $500 million per year to maintain, repair and rebuild its road network. Included in that budget is $3.5 million annually for pothole filling on arterial roads. Boroughs have their own budgets for filling potholes on local roads.