Montreal City Weblog

Kate 07:29 on 2019-01-18 Permalink Reply  

• Ephraim 10:17 on 2019-01-18 Permalink

  Could we even manage to build the section between the two 15s underground? Do we even have the ability to build something so big underground and not have it flood? That section is the only section of the highway that is really a mess. It essentially becomes both the 15 and the 40 at the same time and yet doesn’t expand at all, squeezing the traffic essentially by 50%. Also, why do we have/need service roads? So we can race the highway next to the highway? It definitely needs a lot of rethinking.

• dwgs 10:51 on 2019-01-18 Permalink

  You need service roads so you can safely access and exit the highway. You can’t have cars coming from sidestreets making a full stop, then turning into 70 km/h highway traffic. Also, you can’t safely exit a highway by slowing down enough to turn off directly onto a city street.

• Faiz Imam 11:06 on 2019-01-18 Permalink

  Making sections of the highway underground would be a huge deal. It would be a great way to beautify and and developable land to a central artery of the city.

  Even as an elevated highway, there are ways to greatly improve from the status quo. It means more cost thoigh.

  But we’ve never been shy to spend money on highways, so it might happen.

• Ephraim 11:51 on 2019-01-18 Permalink

  @dwgs – Outside of Quebec, you don’t have service roads. Look at the I-95 in Florida, the 401 in Toronto, the I-5 in Los Angeles.

• mare 12:24 on 2019-01-18 Permalink

  @Epraim Those places have much more room, are less dense and have a more regular grid. Both sides of the 40 have been build up. I’ve never seen service roads in Europe either, there you have exits and (real) entrance ramps but they’re not combined and mostly are 3/4 circles, which has the added benefit to lower the speed. There are also further apart and they’re fed by the normal street grid. If you’d do that here that would make nearby parallel streets like Jarry and Jean-Talon much busier, and to the North there aren’t many roads in the grid because of all the obstacles like the 15, the train tracks, the STM lot, sport fields, etc.

  I’d love to have the Met in a trench or tunnel, and without service roads but that will be extremely expensive and almost impossible to make without massive interruptions. Think Turcot times 10.

  Starting with extending the Decarie to Laval to meet the northern section of the 15 as originally planned would help a lot, but that would mean expropriation of a lot of terrain and buildings. No way politicians would risk reelection by doing that.

  But if they wait 30 years the problem will probably sort itself out when few people can drive anymore because of peak oil and the effects of climate change.

• Ephraim 13:36 on 2019-01-18 Permalink

  @mare – Make some of the service roads into the entrances and exits. Where was the 15 originally supposed to go? The only place I could even see it going now is down Marcel Laurin (Laurentian boulevard) and then over on Henri Bourassa.

  In the world of dreams, might be nice to finish the 640 with a bridge at OKA and connect to the 30 and a second ring road around Montreal to the North, so those trucks on the 40 could skip around Montreal on that side (and then put in a hefty toll into Montreal for trucks that want to use the 40.

• mare 14:22 on 2019-01-18 Permalink

  @Ephraim
  More or less that yeah, according to Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unbuilt_autoroutes_of_Quebec#Autoroute_15

  But [citation needed], although I read about it elsewhere.

• Kevin 19:17 on 2019-01-18 Permalink

  @Ephraims
  I’d argue the 401 has service roads. It is 16 lanes across in some parts.

  @mare
  Fracking and electric cars have killed peak oil.
  Speculators have been talking about $200 a barrel oil for a decade and it’s still nowhere near a reality.
  The idea ofpleak oil done has lead to investments in alternatives.

• qatzelok 11:18 on 2019-01-20 Permalink

  Good idea to keep it elevated for when all the flooding starts…