No joy rides this summer as construction scheduled on Montreal’s major bridges

Montrealers will be in for a rough ride this summer as the busy highway travel season begins.

Major roadwork is planned on the Jacques Cartier and Mercier bridges as well as the Bonaventure Expressway.

“Take public transport if you can. That’s going to be much easier to travel,” said Catherine Tremblay, senior director of projects and construction with Jacques Cartier and Champlain Bridges Incorporated.

Almost $275 million has been set aside for repair work, repaving and maintenance on all three major bridges connecting Montreal to the South Shore — the Champlain, Jacques Cartier and Mercier bridges — as well as the Bonaventure Expressway.

Beginning the weekend of May 4, traffic will be reduced to one lane in each direction on the Jacques Cartier Bridge. Lanes will be reduced on seven weekends this summer.

Some of the access ramps leading to and from the Bonaventure Expressway will also be closed during the summer, and night closures on part of Mercier Bridge are also expected.

Officials admit that getting around this summer will be difficult. Their advice to summer vacation travellers is to leave a day early to beat the construction roadwork blitz.

“The closures are going to start on the Saturday so the population will have the possibility to leave on the Friday,” Tremblay said.

Keeping bridges open to the South Shore is considered critical for tourism, trade and daily commutes. Altogether, the three bridges carry 318,000 vehicles a day on average.

The Champlain Bridge is the busiest, with almost 140,000 vehicles a day using the span. It’s estimated that $20 billion worth of trade travels across the bridge every year as it is the main link between Eastern Canada and the northeastern U.S.