Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Turcot deals going behind closed doors

2 comments:

Les F said...

This photo was taken back in the 60's by Alan Leishman, a photographer for the Montreal Star,in those days & a friend of a few us,...this was an engineering marvel in it's day.

Cheers! HF&RV

Les F said...

Turcot Interchange
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Built between October 1965 and April 1967, the Turcot Interchange is a freeway interchange within the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, that links Autoroutes 15, 20, and 720. It takes its name from the currently-abandoned Turcot rail yards over which it is built.
At this stack interchange west of downtown, the Ville-Marie Expressway, the Décarie Expressway, the Champlain Bridge, and Autoroute 20 all come together.
When originally constructed the interchange was built high above the ground as a dramatic demonstration of Montreal's status as a modern global metropolis and to accommodate ships passing through the Lachine Canal.
More than 300,000 vehicles use the interchange every day, making it busier than the busiest bridge in the world, the George Washington Bridge, in New York City.
Reconstruction plans
In June 2007, the Quebec government announced the demolition and reconstruction of the structure, projected to be complete in 2016. The announcement came four years after a study on the interchange showed the Turcot structure was crumbling, with reports of concrete slabs up to one square metre falling from the overpasses.[1] In addition to a new interchange built lower to the ground, a large segment of Autoroute 20 would be rebuilt more to the north. Reconstruction of the interchange is expected to cost between $1.2 billion and $1.5 billion.[2]
Controversy
Around the time of its announcement, the project created controversy as to how Turcot should be rebuilt. Local residents and community groups have come out against the project as proposed by the government, claiming that it will worsen pollution, increase automobile traffic downtown, and require the demolition of housing including a significant portion of the Village des Tanneries neighborhood.[3][4]

The project's environmental hearings ended June 19, 2009.[5] They revealed new plans for the area by CN,[6] as well as strong public desire to protect existing communities, rethink the modal balance of Montreal's urban transportation, and plan realistically for a future of energy shortages and environmental crisis.

The project itself is currently frozen in the pre-production phase. After conducting several environmental and technical impact researches by MDDEP in early Summer of 2009, construction plans have been furthermore halted because of the 2009 financial crisis, which led Transports Québec to delay the project at least until September 2010, without further notice.