MONTREAL – The Ville Marie Expressway’s eastbound tunnel will remain closed indefinitely, Transport Quebec said Thursday afternoon.
The tunnel was closed early Thursday morning because of overflowing underground water basins and a flooded pump room under the tunnel. The closing caused traffic chaos during the morning rush hour.
At 3:30 p.m., Transport Quebec spokesperson Isabelle Monette said the department still isn’t sure where the water came from or why the pumps failed.
“We don’t know when it will reopen,” she said.
She said the tunnel must remain closed for now so trucks can pump out the water.
All eastbound lanes in that portion of the expressway are closed, from the Mountain St. exit to the Bonaventure Expressway on-ramp.
“We had no margin for manoeuvre” after a total pump failure underground, Transport Quebec spokesperson Guillaume Paradis said.
“Even the pump room itself has been flooded,” he added.
As well, he said, one or more water-retention basins under the closed section were filled to overflowing – or nearly so.
He promised capacity details and other information later. None of these had been made available by 11:15 a.m.
The basins are designed to function as something of a buffer, allowing storage and management of groundwater following heavy rains.
The city was hit by a massive rainstorm, close to 70 millimetres in a half-hour, Tuesday evening.
Paradis said he could not immediately specify at what time the pump room was knocked out of commission.
Its role, he explained, is similar to that of a sump pump in a residential basement, to control and periodically remove groundwater.
With the pump room crippled, at least four pumper trucks have been called in to empty the water-retention basin or basins from above ground.
Electronic tunnel control systems also appear to have failed.
“We believe this was caused by water damage,” Paradis said.
The extent of that damage, and other details, remained murky.
The Transport Quebec road-conditions website was first updated at 6:35 a.m. to reflect the shutdown.
That, Paradis said, was about two hours after he was first alerted.
“I can’t give you an exact time” the high-level, sudden-traffic-shutdown decision was made, Paradis responded when asked.
No public advisory was tweeted by any Transport Quebec officials, he said:
“We don’t use Twitter across the general network.”
Transport Quebec has recently started to use Twitter, but only on a very limited basis – for the Turcot Interchange rebuilding project.
Asked to explain Thursday morning’s extended delay in broad public notification, Paradis responded: “I have no explanation.”
Illuminated variable-message signs had been used to alert drivers actually on the roads at that hour, he said.
The shutdown decision was implemented just before the start of the morning rush hour.
Eastbound vehicles were reported to be severely backed up at Mountain, and nearby streets, of course, were clogged by motorists taking the compulsory detour.
Westbound traffic on Ville Marie was unimpeded.
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