Finally, some good news about Turcot traffic
On time and on budget, project set to reopen ramps by end of the year
Here’s something new: an update on the Turcot Interchange reconstruction that won’t make you want to cry.
For the first time since the $3.7-billion project began in 2015, there will be no major year-end highway closings in the network that links Highway 15, Highway 20 and the Ville-Marie and Décarie Expressways, used by 300,000 motorists daily.
In fact, Turcot builders are reopening long-closed highway entrances and exits. Another surprise: the project is on time and on budget, at 83-per-cent complete with roughly one year of construction left to go.
“People will see a lot of changes in the next weeks before the end of the year; they’ll be driving on new structures,” said Transport Quebec spokesperson Martin Girard.
HIGHWAY 15
It will become easier to access the Décarie Expressway from the western part of the island as of Monday morning. That’s when the long and convoluted detour to get to Décarie from Highway 20 East becomes a thing of the past, as the new permanent entrance will be opened.
The entrance is just one of several new ramps in the area that will open in the coming weeks. There’s also a new entrance to the northbound Décarie opening from St-Jacques St., near the superhospital, that can be accessed by motorists going both east and west along St-Jacques. Farther south, the southbound Highway 15 exit for De La Vérendrye Blvd. will be also reopened by the end of the year.
VILLE-MARIE EXPRESSWAY
The Ville-Marie, in the heart of downtown, will start to take on its permanent configuration by the end of the year, but it’s still hampered by one closed lane as crews complete work on the structures. Still, three out of four lanes is an improvement over the current situation, where there are three eastbound lanes and two westbound ones.
The entrances to the westbound expressway at Lucien L’Allier St. and Fort St. will be reopened by the end of the year. The Rose-de-Lima St. entrance to the westbound Ville-Marie will become an exit for the eastbound expressway. By the end of the project, that exit will be used exclusively by buses and taxis heading to the Lionel- Groulx métro station.
HIGHWAY 20
Work to rebuild the Angrignon Blvd. overpass has gone better than expected. Girard said the bridge over Highway 20, closed last January, will be open by the end of year, at least a month ahead of schedule.
“We thought it would be reopened in the beginning of 2020, but they were able to speed up the work quite a bit,” Girard said.
The reopening of that street will come as a relief to many commuters between LaSalle and Notre-DamedeGrâce, Montreal West, Lachine and other nearby communities.
However, the Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue Blvd. overpass will remain closed until roughly the end of the project, Girard said. The same goes for the section of Highway 20 in that sector. That means the area of Notre-Dame St., west of Angrignon Blvd., will remain a difficult spot as the temporary Angrignon Blvd. exit will be unchanged.
With the project approaching 90-per-cent completion, Girard said much of the work left is to connect the local road network to the interchange, to build bike paths and to plant trees. Bike paths will connect Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue Blvd. and Notre-Dame St. in the western sector to the Lachine Canal path. A multi-functional bike path will also run along the Falaise St-Jacques and lead nearly to the MUHC superhospital.
GRAFFITI CLEANUP
Workers will also have to clean up graffiti that has cropped up on a retaining wall on the south side of St-Jacques St., which is visible from the area where the westbound Ville-Marie merges with the Décarie.
Girard said builders remove graffiti fairly regularly during the warmer months, but when the project is complete, KPH-Turcot, the consortium hired to build the new structures, must deliver them in an impeccable state.
“Once the project is delivered at the end of the year, it has to be free of graffiti,” Girard said. “The new structures will be made with a coating that makes it easier to remove the graffiti, but it won’t make them graffiti-proof.”