New bridge has features meant for ice storms

The new bridge will be officially opened Friday morning.

Radio-Canada looks at an innovation on the cables of the new bridge intended to keep ice from building up and becoming a hazard.

TVA says the plan is to keep the cycle path open all year.

La Presse’s Bruno Bisson ponders the old bridge, the idiocy of the chosen design and the fears of government engineers over the last couple of years that it could come unzipped and fall apart. It closes forever at 10 p.m. Friday night, and the outbound lanes of the new bridge open on Monday morning.

Update: It’s been a lovely day for the ceremonial stuff down by the river. La Presse mentions the bridge will even feature a bust of Samuel de Champlain – an achievement, considering no portrait of the explorer is known to exist.

Bridge architect Poul Ove Jensen damns the bridge design with faint praise: “built for performance, not style.”