Champlain Bridge Replacement

[unimaginative2]

The report is out recommending replacement. This has the potential to be Montreal's signature landmark. It would really be worth it for them to splurge on the architectural design here. It's Canada's busiest bridge and it's right at the heart of the city.

Link to the report

 

[marcus_a_j]

Thanks for the link to the report. For some reason I always get nervous driving on this Bridge (there's an odd echo in my suspension system everytime I go over the joints for the bridge deck, or whatever they are called). I have not gone through the report so I wonder if it discusses the expected traffic volumes on the bridge before and after the A30 extension is completed. People heading to and from the Eastern Townships may wish to avoid driving on the island (City of Montreal) when driving from/to Ontario.

On a sidenote, I thought the 401 bridge over Hogg's Hollow was the busiest bridge in Canada.

 

[unimaginative2]

I guess they're treating that as more of an overpass, but you do have a point.

They seem to want to keep the bridge as six traffic lanes while adding a permanent pair of HOV lanes. I understand the principle of not increasing capacity for cars, but the Champlain Bridge is insanely busy. I've been stuck in traffic on that thing late at night or in the middle of a Sunday. It might be worthwhile to add a pair of extra lanes if we're going through the trouble of building a whole new bridge. You have two whole expressways on each side feeding into one six-lane bridge. It's quite a choke point.

Unfortunately it looks like they're just letting the engineers design this one. We're getting the usual choice of standard cable-stayed as the "signature" option.

 

[adma]

and it's right at the heart of the city.

That's debatable--Victoria and Jacques Cartier have stronger "right at the heart of the city" claims. It'd be like calling Humber Bay "right at the heart of the city" relative to Toronto...

 

[unimaginative2]

That's debatable--Victoria and Jacques Cartier have stronger "right at the heart of the city" claims. It'd be like calling Humber Bay "right at the heart of the city" relative to Toronto...

Not really, at least in the case of Jacques Cartier. The centre of gravity of downtown has shifted more to the west, like in Toronto, and Champlain and Jacques Cartier bridges are roughly the same distance from University and Ste-Catherine. The latter just seems closer because you don't have to go through Nuns' Island.

 

[adma]

Not really, at least in the case of Jacques Cartier. The centre of gravity of downtown has shifted more to the west, like in Toronto, and Champlain and Jacques Cartier bridges are roughly the same distance from University and Ste-Catherine. The latter just seems closer because you don't have to go through Nuns' Island.

Or on top of that, the fact that pre-amalgamation, Nun's Island wasn't part of Montreal: it was part of the municipality of Verdun. Whereas Vic and JC were always aggressively "Montreal" bridges--partly by date and partly by location and planning, Champlain always seemed more of a heavy-capacity suburbanish-commuterish affair: spiritually speaking, the Lewiston-Queenston to Victoria's Whirlpool Rapids or Jacques Cartier's Rainbow (in the latter case, I suppose one can qualify the Expo/La Ronde proximity as a Niagara Falls-proximity equivalent.)

So, geographically, *serving* the heart of the city and *being at* the heart of the city are two different things, entirely.

 

[jsgrise]

Very cool report!

 

[ShonTron]

I guess they're treating that as more of an overpass, but you do have a point.

They seem to want to keep the bridge as six traffic lanes while adding a permanent pair of HOV lanes. I understand the principle of not increasing capacity for cars, but the Champlain Bridge is insanely busy. I've been stuck in traffic on that thing late at night or in the middle of a Sunday. It might be worthwhile to add a pair of extra lanes if we're going through the trouble of building a whole new bridge. You have two whole expressways on each side feeding into one six-lane bridge. It's quite a choke point.

I never felt that the bridge itself was the choke point, but the substandard highways on the Montreal side, particularly the Bonaventure towards where it feels into the infamous Turcot Interchange. I have no problem with adding the permanent bus lanes (and they had better be bus lanes, rather than HOV lanes) as it will feed into the little busway on the Brossard side of A-10 and eliminate the set-up and take-down of the contraflow lanes that the RTL (South Shore transit agency) has each weekday AM and PM.

What's that status of the "Ice Bridge" LRT?