MONTREAL – One south shore-bound lane of the Champlain Bridge will be closed to traffic for a month – and Montreal’s mayor is not happy about it.
“The time has come to talk about the real status of the bridge and look at the impact a closure has,” Denis Coderre said at a press conference at City Hall on Wednesday afternoon.
The Jacques-Cartier and Champlain Bridges Corporation made the announcement on Wednesday, after the bridge was closed Tuesday, when a two-millimetre crack was discovered on a girder approximately a third of the way along the bridge between Nuns’ Island and the South Shore.
“This closure will allow us to properly analyze an edge girder following an inspection that enabled us to detect a crack,” the corporation noted in a statement.
It also noted that the girders next to the cracked edge girder show no signs of deterioration.
As such, the three Montreal-bound lanes will be kept open, while the two other lanes that head towards the South Shore will also remain open.
Commuters taking public transport will be affected, as buses will be diverted from their dedicated lane into regular traffic.
Comments