TURCOT DEMOLITION MISSION
Removing the old, protecting the new
The next time you’re stuck in traffic in the Turcot Interchange, take a moment to appreciate the scenery, because in the next few months it’s going to be changing dramatically.
The $3.7-billion Turcot project is as much a demolition project as one to rebuild the junctions between Highways 15, 20 and the Ville-Marie Interchange in the centre of the city. Between now and next summer, crews will be demolishing roughly 150,000 cubic metres of concrete, from the roughly 300,000 cubic metres that make up the original spaghetti network of elevated highways. By June, Turcot planners say only three per cent of the original structures will remain — located in the Lachine Canal and Angrignon Blvd. area.
“That’s going to change the view a lot,” Olivier Beaulieu, the deputy project director for KPH-Turcot, told reporters during a Friday morning tour of the work site, standing on the future lanes for Highway 15 South, leading from the Décarie Expressway to the Champlain Bridge. “Now, as you can see, we dismantled part of Highway 15 North, so we can now see the (MUHC) superhospital, Mount Royal and downtown Montreal.”
But taking down the tangled mess of highways is no easy matter. Take the work to demolish the 25-metre-high section of Highway 15 North leading to the Décarie Expressway from the Champlain Bridge. No longer in use since traffic was diverted to the new permanent structure earlier this month, crews will have to close three sections of the highway from Nov. 9 to 12 to demolish a section of the old highway without damaging the new one directly underneath it.
To do that, crews are already building a temporary steel bridge to protect CN’s newly diverted tracks, on which trains are scheduled to run throughout the demolition. A steel deflector will be mounted on a trailer on the closed lanes for Highway 20 West to keep rock from falling onto the new structure.
“It’s the most complex dismantling work we’re going to be doing,” Beaulieu said, adding that simulation models have predicted the work will cause roughly eight kilometres of traffic congestion, possibly affecting the Metropolitain Expressway, Highway 13 and the Jacques Cartier Bridge.
On Thursday night, Nov. 8, Highway 20 West will be closed from the westbound Ville-Marie to the Montreal West Interchange. On Friday night, Highway 15 North will be closed just south of where it meets the Décarie Expressway, and traffic will be diverted to the Ville Marie or Highway 20 West. Also Friday, eastbound Highway 20 will be closed where it meets the Ville-Marie, but motorists will be permitted to head south to the Champlain Bridge. All the lanes will be reopened by the morning rush hour on Tuesday, Nov. 13.
Transport Quebec announced Friday it will be adding 14 more departures during off-peak hours to the Vaudreuil-Hudson train line and a free shuttle bus between the Châteauguay terminus and the Ste-Catherine station during the morning and evening crunches. Get full details at turcot.gouv.qc.ca.
Beaulieu said Montrealers should prepare for several more weekends of major closures in the next months, but when most of the demolition work is done in June, there will likely be fewer disruptions.
He said crews are expected to meet the promised delivery date for late 2020, despite the fact the project has been affected by the same labour disputes (crane operator strike and engineers’ strike) that befell the Champlain Bridge project, whose builders Thursday announced would be delayed at least six months.
Beaulieu would not comment on why the bridge is delayed, but said the Turcot project has required crews to meet several deadlines a year to move from one phase to another.
“There’s no option of missing a deadline for a phase change, because it could have a domino effect,” he said. “If we see we’re falling behind, we add more teams.”
About 700 are working 24 hours a day on the Turcot Interchange, which, at 300,000 motorists daily, is the province’s busiest stretch of roads.