Business community worried about congestion
Prolonged closings may strain economy of entire region
Welcome to the new normal.
Over the next few weeks and months, there will likely be more closings of lanes on the Champlain Bridge, as crews work to reinforce it before its eventual replacement.
On Friday, a second southbound lane was closed after a worrisome crack that forced the closing of one lane of the bridge had worsened.
The traffic nightmares are expected to continue through December, as crews must reduce the span to just one lane in each direction for a period of two days while the structure is shored up. More lane closings are foreseen in the next year as engineers work to reinforce other parts of the bridge.
“We are certain what we have seen today isn’t coming out of nowhere and will be repeated until the bridge is replaced,” said Jacques Olivier Jr., the president of the Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie de la Rive-Sud.
Olivier is a member of Champlain en Chantier: Quand?, a coalition of South Shore citizens that formed in March 2011, calling for the bridge to be replaced. The federal government had planned to have the bridge replaced by 2021, but in light of a recent engineering report, the Transport Department said this month it will accelerate that timetable.
On Friday after noon, Quebec Transport Minister Sylvain Gaudreault said the province is preparing for several years of traffic headaches, and the possibility the bridge will be completely closed on a temporary or permanent basis.
“I have asked my sub-ministers to work to have a plan in case there is a complete closure of the bridge,” Gaudreault said. “We will work to be ready for such a scenario.”
He said he is anxiously awaiting an announcement, expected by the end of the year from federal Transport Minister Denis Lebel, on when the bridge will be rebuilt.
Olivier said prolonged closings and constant traffic on Canada’s busiest bridge will have an economic effect on everyone in the region.
“It’s the bridge with the most affluence in Canada, and it’s a direct link with the American market,” Olivier said. “It’s undeniable there will be a bill passed on to consumers down the road.”
Olivier’s counterpart in Montreal, Michel Leblanc, explained that the cost of congestion is already high, and as closings become more frequent, the prices of goods and services will continue to increase.
“If companies decide, for example, that they want deliveries at night, then they have to pay for employees to be there,” said Leblanc, president of the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal.
Marc Cadieux, the president and general manager of the Association du camionnage du Québec, said the new closings will mean headaches for now. But if there are prolonged closings, it will hurt his industry.
He said if engineers determine the structure can’t support trucks, detouring would take hours and be costly to operators, who would have to pass on that cost to customers.
”There’s no choice, we can’t carry for the same price (if the bridge is closed to trucks),” he said.
As a way of easing congestion, Gaudreault announced several new public transit initiatives this week. Extra cars were added to the métro’s Yellow Line, and an extra car was added to each rush-hour departure of the two commuter train lines serving the South Shore — Candiac and Mont-St-Hilaire.
As of Friday, commuter rail lines began accepting tickets for South Shore bus services from the Réseau de transport de Longueuil and several CIT bus services in surrounding areas.
The reserved lane for buses has been suspended in the area of the bridge where lanes are closed, a move public transit lobby groups have denounced. However, there are still reserved lanes on either side of the bridge.
Normand Parisien, executive director of the lobby group Transport 2000 Quebec, said the government should consider keeping the lane open as a high-occu- pancy vehicle lane, for buses, taxis and carpoolers.
“We have to discourage by all means possible the solo (driver in a) car during rush
hours,” he said.