Montreal’s worst kept secret: 22% of downtown construction cones are ‘useless’

A new report by Montreal’s chamber of commerce says about one in five of the ubiquitous orange construction cones in the city’s downtown appears to serve no purpose.

The Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal found that 22 per cent of downtown cones have been abandoned or are “useless” — down from 27 per cent in fall 2022.

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Montreal’s seemingly endless lines of traffic cones have long been a running joke, to the point where miniature versions are sold in souvenir shops as an emblem of the city.

The administration and the province have committed to making the cones less visible downtown, including reducing their size and forcing companies to remove them more quickly after work concludes.

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And while there are slightly fewer cones, the chamber of commerce says there’s been little success in reducing the number of construction sites blocking access to downtown.

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The report says that 93 per cent of downtown streets were fully or partly blocked at some point in the last year.