Traffic will get worse as interchange reconstruction enters next phase, transport minister says

It may seem impossible for Montrealers to imagine, but traffic on the island is about to get worse.

Quebec Transport Minister Laurent Lessard said Friday a new round of downtown highway closings will intensify the rush hour gridlock until at least 2018.

Beginning mid-November, the eastbound Ville Marie Expressway will lose two of four lanes as construction of the new Turcot Interchange inches forward. This is slated to last at least two years. Access to the downtown span from Highway 20 eastbound will be closed for 12 to 15 consecutive weekends.

Meanwhile, motorists heading from westbound Ville Marie to the northbound Décarie Expressway will have to find an alternate route on Thanksgiving weekend, Oct. 7-10, as the ramp is closed. Demolition teams are finalizing work on the St-Jacques St. overpass.

“It’s about to get harder for motorists, there’s no hiding that,” Lessard said. “(The solution), it’s public transit. Honestly, when we say we’re downgrading the road network, there’s not 1,000 things we can do. At some point, you have to just take public transit ... and carpool.

“We need to clear the roads as much as possible for people who absolutely need to use the network.”

The $3-billion Turcot Interchange project will last until at least December 2020, Lessard said. It requires one structure — the old Turcot — to be demolished while the other is assembled.

In the meantime, the province has injected about $220 million in mitigation measures to get people out of their cars and into buses, trains or the métro. Fadi Moubayed, Transport Quebec’s Montreal director, says the ministry is creating parking spaces where the Metropolitan and Décarie expressways meet so motorists can leave their cars on the city’s periphery.

“We’ll have a shuttle bus that will take people to the du Collège métro station,” he said. “If we don’t have enough parking space, we’ll make more. That won’t be a problem. It’s impossible to keep bringing this volume of cars into downtown . ... The traffic grid can’t sustain it.”

To ease congestion from the West Island, Moubayed said there will be at least 10 additional bus trips on 13 circuits daily. Lessard said his department will study traffic patterns to see if the province needs to invest in more commuter trains or other mitigation methods.

“There will be a limit (to mitigation measures). Of course, it won’t be perfect,” Moubayed said.

Friday’s announcement capped off a tough week for the transport minister. Lessard continues to take flak over a Journal de Montréal report alleging his wife’s employer received $12.7 million in government grants between 2009-12 for five social housing projects in the Thetford Mines area, Lessard’s riding. The money was handed out when Lessard was municipal affairs minister in the previous Liberal government.

Opposition MNAs also question the $3-million government subsidy awarded to Lessard’s former employee and friend, Yvon Nadeau, for his green energy business.

“Everywhere friends of the transport minster are present, they obtain government subsidies,” said Coalition Avenir Québec MNA Simon Jolin-Barrette. “This raises serious questions.”

Lessard denies any wrongdoing and insists all his actions were cleared by the National Assembly’s ethics commissioner.