Champlain Bridge is city’s worst traffic structure
Montrealers have no love for their busiest bridge.
In a new poll, 40 per cent of respondents named the Champlain Bridge as their most hated structure.
The Mainstreet/Postmedia poll released this week was the result of interviews with 1,333 people on Montreal Island. It asked their opinion on the worst stretch of road in Montreal.
“The Champlain Bridge continues to be a source of frustration for Montrealers who use it regularly; congestion and lane reductions for maintenance have been raised repeatedly as concerns,” said Quito Maggi, the CEO of Mainstreet, a public research firm.
The multiple-choice question also gave respondents the option of picking the Mercier Bridge, Jacques Cartier Bridge, Victoria Bridge or Louis-Hippolyte-Lafontaine Tunnel.
However, aside from the Champlain Bridge, Montrealers seem divided on which of the structures they hate the most. A full 21 per cent said they were not sure, while 12 per cent said it was not one of the structures listed.
Only nine per cent of respondents said the Jacques Cartier was the worst stretch of road. The Lafontaine tunnel was named by eight per cent of respondents, and the Mercier Bridge by seven per cent. The Victoria Bridge seems to be most loved, as only four per cent of respondents called it the worst stretch of road.
Julie Paquet, the director of communications for The Jacques Cartier and Champlain Bridges Incorporated, the federal corporation that also manages half the Mercier Bridge, said she’s not surprised by the survey results, particularly because the Champlain has many more users than all the other structures, at 60 million trips per year.
The bridge is generally congested during rush hour, but for the last few years there have also been work blitzes that forced the bridge to close or to reduce use of its lanes for several weekends during the year. There are three more weekend work blitzes planned for this fall so crews can install modular trusses to hold up the bridge’s beams.
Paquet said, however, that the majority of the work to reinforce the bridge and keep it standing until a replacement bridge is built by 2018 is being done under the bridge by crews that travel to the structure by boat and barge.
“We’re working closely with our contractors to limit the impact on users,” Paquet said. “Close to 90 per cent of the work we are doing is from the water.”
She added that because of the bridge’s advanced state of deterioration, the corporation is undertaking an “aggressive maintenance schedule while trying to limit the impact on users. It’s a tough balance to find.”
The Mainstreet poll is considered accurate plus or minus 2.68 per cent, 19 times out of 20.