Five thoughts on the state of the city
La Presse has a big Mario Girard piece Sunday on Montreal in 2021 with thoughts on how the city is doing in various categories. It still puzzles me how all our journalists can go from “waaah! potholes!” to “waaaaaah! orange cones!” without seeming to understand that to fix the former, you have to undergo a period of the latter.
There’s a sidebar with five other opinions on the state of the city. The only person I’m familiar with here is Anie Samson, whose views might be said to still be partisan. Are the streets really in poorer shape now? (She says “dégradé” but doesn’t say since when, although “things have gone downhill since Projet got in” may be implied.)
Kevin 10:20 on 2021-10-03 Permalink
It’s not the construction,it’s the lack of coordination and notification.
For example, Cote St Luc road near Decarie was repaved in September, with no real notice. (People who lived up to one block north of south were sent notices, I discovered after the fact.)
No signs warning that three lanes were going down to one as school was starting (and there are two schools on CSL) and people sort out new commuting routines.
Yes, I am frustrated because I was caught in it, sitting for ten minutes at one light and needing 30 minutes to go 500 metres, but it’s a job that should have been done in July or August, that should have had placards up everywhere people going to that street could have seen them. Alternatives (of which there are few) should have been cleared of construction.
And the worst bit of the street still looks like it was bombed.
DeWolf 11:04 on 2021-10-03 Permalink
I’m sure the engineer strike didn’t help. Dozens of projects that were meant to happen in the early summer were delayed until the fall because of it.
My personal impression is that road quality has gone up over the past four years, although it’s still not great. A number of streets that were absolutely wretched have been repaved (eg St-Jacques in Old Montreal) and, at least until this summer, the city seemed to be getting better at patching up potholes before things got really out of hand.
mare 12:12 on 2021-10-03 Permalink
We had a really good pothole season last year, meaning that not many potholes re-emerged. Only one freeze-thaw cycle, hardly any icy streets that were scraped hard by snow scrapers (which will pop-out the pothole fillings of yesteryear; you should hear my dentist complaining how bad they fill them) and a very light traffic load because of curfew and work-from-home.
That said, too many road construction sites are started, cones and detours are set up, a little work is done and then crews don’t show up for weeks on end.
I read somewhere that this might be due to the way road contracts are paid: a third when work starts, a third after a certain amount of time (halfway the projected time?), and the last third when the job is completed. So starting many projects and then shuffling crews around will get construction companies funds, and having a lot of projects going on at the same time but letting them drag on, means they need less heavy equipment and crew, and later on, can combine certain operations like concrete pouring and asphalting which will result in cost savings. The lowest bidder rule doesn’t help either. Speed can be achieved but it costs money. Work on major arteries should be done with two crews in slightly overlapping shifts per day, say from 7:00 to 10:00, or even 24h in areas where there are less noise issues.
The city needs tighter contracts with penalties or bonuses related to completion in time, and more inspectors to check for quality and efficiency. They however fish in the same pond for hiring engineers, and can’t pay as much as private firms.
(I’m sure the situation is far more complicated than armchair commenters can imagine. Standardized contracts, unions rules, lack of experienced and qualified crews and foremen, etc etc)