West Island drivers mad about bridges
The city has closed two bridges to autoroute 13 from the West Island, and drivers are not happy. The Pitfield bridges developed alarming cracks and have been closed preventively.
The city has closed two bridges to autoroute 13 from the West Island, and drivers are not happy. The Pitfield bridges developed alarming cracks and have been closed preventively.
Nicholas 15:51 on 2024-06-03 Permalink
I first felt sympathetic, given the REM took out the Two Mountains line and then is still delayed, and that the direct replacement bus, the 968, uses those bridges, but everyone is so over the top! The bridges are inspected on a regular schedule, they found potentially dangerous cracks and they shut the bridges down so no one would die, something that’s happened a few times in recent memory. Should we reopen bridges that are dangerous? Did people want us to leave it open for a week so the Pierrefonds and DDO mayors could get notice? Why is their area transportation network so fragile that shutting this small section causes chaos? Why didn’t they have contingency plans? If a bus route gets blocked the STM usually has a detour out within an hour, and has temporary bus stop signs out shortly after if it’s going to be more than a few hours. Maybe they could put in some bus lanes on Sources (six lanes!) to increase capacity, and remove the parking lanes on Sunnybrooke. If this is all it takes to shut down the upper West Island and infuriate everyone, maybe they need some better leaders.
walkerp 20:46 on 2024-06-03 Permalink
The word “outrage” is doing a lot of work in that article.