Reconstruction of Montreal’s Turcot Interchange and its Impacts
The Turcot Interchange is a major highway junction in Montreal, connecting the north-south Autoroute 15 and the east-west Autoroute 20/720. The elevated interchange accommodates about 280,000 vehicles a day. It is located near several working-class neighbourhoods, and is next to a rail-yard as well as the Saint-Jacques Escarpment. Hastily constructed in 1966-67 in time for Expo 1967, it is now disintegrating badly and is in urgent need of reconstruction and better engineering.
The Quebec Ministry of Transportation (MTQ in French) presented a plan in 2007 to reconstruct the Turcot Interchange, in a way that would minimize traffic disruptions. This project, estimated to cost $1.5 billion and to take several years to complete, would involve (among other things):
● Putting much of the interchange on embankments to reduce maintenance costs;
● Widening Autoroute 720;
● Shifting Autoroute 20 northward, to the very foot of the escarpment.
The MTQ’s plan has aroused opposition from local residents and from urban planners for several reasons:
● The embankments would increase air pollution for local residents, and would block access between neighbourhoods;
● Over 160 residential units in the Village des Tanneries would be expropriated due to proximity to eastbound Autoroute 720;
● The shift of Autoroute 20 to the north would imperil the escarpment’s ecological integrity;
● There are no provisions for reduced automobile use.
An alternative and sustainable plan (costing much less than the MTQ’s plan) by a coalition of urban planners, environmentalists, and university researchers, has suggested:
● Making room for public transit on the new interchange (i.e. reserved lanes) and investing in new transit projects, leading to a 20% reduction in automobile traffic;
● An immediate rebuilding or renovation of parts of the existing interchange.
In 2010, responding to the above complaints, the MTQ made public a new plan which has called for:
● A linear park between the highway and the escarpment;
● Almost no expropriations in the Village des Tanneries;
● A reserved bus lane along Autoroute 20/720.
Do you think the MTQ’s new plan has gone far enough to meet the objections to its original proposal?
Credits: Images and documents linked to source.
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on Monday, December 5th, 2011 at 8:04 am and is filed under Community/Economic Development, Engineering, Environment, Environmental Design, Environmental Non-Profit, Government/Politics, History/Preservation, Housing, Infrastructure, Land Use, Social/Demographics, Transportation, Urban Development/Real Estate, Urban Planning and Design.
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May 14th, 2013 at 9:44 am
[...] December 2011, a former Grid blogger, Yosef Robinson, wrote a piece about the reconstruction of the Turcot Interchange, a major highway junction in Montreal, Canada. [...]