Brace yourself: More lane closures on the Turcot interchange are planned for the end of the month.
The four-lane Ville-Marie expressway eastbound will permanently close making way for a two-lane bypass route called the 136.
The new highway will eventually widen to four lanes but not for another two years.
Traffic bottlenecks are expected on Highway 20 as drivers approach the new on ramp for the 136.
Chief engineers on the project and Transport Quebec officials insist congestion problems won’t be as bad as many anticipate.
Eventually the 136 will be widened to four lanes and a new reserved bus lane will be added stretching between Dorval and downtown.
“The current reserved lane that we have from Dorval will continue until the Atwater exit,” Sarah Bensadoun of Transport Quebec told Global News.
Building the new Turcot interchange is a massive engineering and logistical challenge.
Workers are building the state-of-the-art facility in a confined area while 300,000 vehicles whiz by everyday.
“It’s highly technical, we need to have a lot of coordination. It’s highly complex,” Sébastien Marcoux, Turcot project assistant director, told Global News.
Not all of the material being used to build the new interchange is new.
Ninety per cent of the current exchange — concrete and rebar — is being recycled. Much of it is being added to the Turcot’s new foundation.
Thirty per cent of the entire project, costing $3.6 billion, is complete.
It’s scheduled to be delivered by September 2020.
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