A-20 échangeur Dorval

[Né entre les rapides]

Il m'arrive de penser que le sujet n'intéresse pas la Ville de Montréal, parce que ce n'est pas sur son territoire.  Ce serait bien sûr ridicule (pour des raisons évidentes que je n'ai pas besoin de citer).  Mais je ne me souviens pas d'avoir entendu un élu montréalais en parler. Imaginez un instant la réaction du maire de Québec Régis Labeaume si un tronçon de l'A-73 dans le secteur du Parc-Chaudière à Lévis restait fermé sur une longue période!  Même chose pour une fermeture de l'A-40 à Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures.  Le MTQ en entendrait parler!

(dans le paragraphe suivant, je me permets une courte sortie hors-sujet, mais qui je pense va bien avec le sujet du fil)

Je trouve cela bien dommage que la Ville de Montréal persiste à identifier ses problèmes (par exemple la pénurie de logements à prix abordables) et à privilégier des (avenues de) solutions, dans les limites étroites de son territoire; ces limites s'apparentent à des oeillères, qui ont naturellement pour effet de restreindre l'horizon des solutions optimales.  (Il faudrait créer un nouveau sujet pour en discuter plus amplement).

   

[bad_monday]

20 ouest maintenant ouverte au rond-point sans aucune entrave. (3 voies ouvertes)

[jesseps]

On 2021-04-28 at 4:11 AM, bad_monday said:

20 ouest maintenant ouverte au rond-point sans aucune entrave. (3 voies ouvertes)

 I thought Google Maps was crazy 😆 when it showed me it was open yesterday.

[go_habs_go]

21 minutes ago, jesseps said:

 I thought Google Maps was crazy 😆 when it showed me it was open yesterday.

I drove on it yesterday. Horrible job as always when it comes to our highway repairs. Repaved sections are not smooth. The parts of the wall that were demolished to allow for repairs have been replaced with those temporary cement barriers. I wouldn't be surprised if they stay there for years. The usual shoddy work we've all come to expect from MTQ and contractors. 

I know I sound extremely negative but sooo frustrating to see the horrible quality of work on our highways.

[jesseps]

2 hours ago, go_habs_go said:

I drove on it yesterday. Horrible job as always when it comes to our highway repairs. Repaved sections are not smooth. The parts of the wall that were demolished to allow for repairs have been replaced with those temporary cement barriers. I wouldn't be surprised if they stay there for years. The usual shoddy work we've all come to expect from MTQ and contractors. 

I know I sound extremely negative but sooo frustrating to see the horrible quality of work on our highways.

That is Quebec for you 😆 Pay through the nose and get something that wont even pass 3rd world standards.

[Né entre les rapides]

Il y a 2 heures, go_habs_go a dit :

I drove on it yesterday. Horrible job as always when it comes to our highway repairs. Repaved sections are not smooth. The parts of the wall that were demolished to allow for repairs have been replaced with those temporary cement barriers. I wouldn't be surprised if they stay there for years. The usual shoddy work we've all come to expect from MTQ and contractors. 

I know I sound extremely negative but sooo frustrating to see the horrible quality of work on our highways.

 

il y a 31 minutes, jesseps a dit :

That is Quebec for you 😆 Pay through the nose and get something that wont even pass 3rd world standards.

Often true for Montreal and Western Quebec.  Much better for Quebec City and Eastern Quebec, in terms of design, execution and maintenance.  Note that the MTQ has two "Directions générales" (or divisions): one for the south-west and one for the rest.  

I mention design  because I cannot fail to see the difference when it comes, inter alia, to major interchanges which, in the Montreal area, are all too often primitive cloverleaves totally inadequate to handle heavy traffic volumes -- e.g. A-15/A-440, A-40/A-640, A-13/A-440,  A-20/A-30 (eastern junction), A-10/A-30, as well as the still convoluted ones  that had been originally designed to collect tolls from both directions (A-40/A-31 and A-10/A-35).   Merging is often problemaric , e.g. A-13 south to A-40 west and A-40 east to A-13 north, and relies on service roads instead of direct connections (compare with the 401 in Toronto).  It's not only the length of the newtork that matters, but also the quality (or lack thereof) of the connections. 

It's a mixed bag outside Quebec.  Toronto remains congested, but there is much more traffic to handle.  In the USA they have good and not-so-good roadways, it depends where, as many roads are in a poor conditions as well; the northen parts of New York State, Vermont and New Hampshire, where many Quebeckers travel frequently, are not representative.  Germany is fine in the comparatively less densely populated areas in the former East Germany, where new highways have been recently built; but in the West, several key highways are in a serious state of disrepair, reconstruction is overdue, road work proceeds slowly (think of the A-30 by-passing Bad Oeyenhausen, or the short extension of A-100 in east-central Berlin); congestion is widespread, including in rural areas where 2x2 Autobahnen are filled with lorries (trucks) occupying whole stretches of the right lane; amazingly, new interchanges are still initially built as cloverleaves (e.g. A-11/A-20, A-14/A-24).  Tightly populated England is congested, but all cloverleaf juctions have been replaced with more efficient configurations; M25 (London Orbital Motorway) is impressive, and obviously busy, but it falls far short of Toronto's 401 in terms of annual average daily traffic (200,000 vs over 400,000).  And the "Third World" encompasses far too many cases to begin a description of the conditions over there; suffice to say that there are some fine examples of well-designed road infrastructures.

Back to the Montreal area: on a map, the road network looks impressive.  In reality, it's not so functional.  There is too much reliance on autoroutes, notably because the secondary network is disjointed and generally in poor condition.  This is mainly an issue for the areas surrounding the Island of Montreal, and less the central city proper.  As a final point, let us not forget that its position within and beyond an archipelago with broad rivers/bodies of water entails vastly superior costs; few other big cities in the world face a similar challenge, New York City being one.  Expanding mass public transit is being viewed as a solution, which it is, partially. The perception of reality differs vastly, depending whether you live in central or outlying areas; this is reflected in the opposing views expressed in this forum or more broadly in the public discourse.  

 

[go_habs_go]

13 minutes ago, Né entre les rapides said:

 

Often true for Montreal and Western Quebec.  Much better for Quebec City and Eastern Quebec, in terms of design, execution and maintenance.  Note that the MTQ has two "Directions générales" (or divisions): one for the south-west and one for the rest.  

I mention design  because I cannot fail to see the difference when it comes, inter alia, to major interchanges which, in the Montreal area, are all too often primitive cloverleaves totally inadequate to handle heavy traffic volumes -- e.g. A-15/A-440, A-40/A-640, A-13/A-440,  A-20/A-30 (eastern junction), A-10/A-30, as well as the still convoluted ones  that had been originally designed to collect tolls from both directions (A-40/A-31 and A-10/A-35).   Merging is often problemaric , e.g. A-13 south to A-40 west and A-40 east to A-13 north, and relies on service roads instead of direct connections (compare with the 401 in Toronto).  It's not only the length of the newtork that matters, but also the quality (or lack thereof) of the connections. 

It's a mixed bag outside Quebec.  Toronto remains congested, but there is much more traffic to handle.  In the USA they have good and not-so-good roadways, it depends where, as many roads are in a poor conditions as well; the northen parts of New York State, Vermont and New Hampshire, where many Quebeckers travel frequently, are not representative.  Germany is fine in the comparatively less densely populated areas in the former East Germany, where new highways have been recently built; but in the West, several key highways are in a serious state of disrepair, reconstruction is overdue, road work proceeds slowly (think of the A-30 by-passing Bad Oeyenhausen, or the short extension of A-100 in east-central Berlin); congestion is widespread, including in rural areas where 2x2 Autobahnen are filled with lorries (trucks) occupying whole stretches of the right lane; amazingly, new interchanges are still initially built as cloverleaves (e.g. A-11/A-20, A-14/A-24).  Tightly populated England is congested, but all cloverleaf juctions have been replaced with more efficient configurations; M25 (London Orbital Motorway) is impressive, and obviously busy, but it falls far short of Toronto's 401 in terms of annual average daily traffic (200,000 vs over 400,000).  And the "Third World" encompasses far too many cases to begin a description of the conditions over there; suffice to say that there are some fine examples of well-designed road infrastructures.

Back to the Montreal area: on a map, the road network looks impressive.  In reality, it's not so functional.  There is too much reliance on autoroutes, notably because the secondary network is disjointed and generally in poor condition.  This is mainly an issue for the areas surrounding the Island of Montreal, and less the central city proper.  As a final point, let us not forget that its position within and beyond an archipelago with broad rivers/bodies of water entails vastly superior costs; few other big cities in the world face a similar challenge, New York City being one.  Expanding mass public transit is being viewed as a solution, which it is, partially. The perception of reality differs vastly, depending whether you live in central or outlying areas; this is reflected in the opposing views expressed in this forum or more broadly in the public discourse.  

 

Excellent and measured analysis as always!! Merci

[Rantanplan]

Always keep in mind these investments numbers per km: 

NY : 30k$ per Km

Ont : 16k$ per Km

Qc : 7k$ per Km

Ont has twice less km of roads compared to Qc.

We should consider having tolls. 

[Charlemagne]

Il y a 3 heures, Rantanplan a dit :

We should consider having tolls

Ouais, faites payer les travailleurs de construction qui bâtissent votre ville.

[Né entre les rapides]

Il y a 2 heures, Rantanplan a dit :

Always keep in mind these investments numbers per km: 

NY : 30k$ per Km

Ont : 16k$ per Km

Qc : 7k$ per Km

Ont has twice less km of roads compared to Qc.

We should consider having tolls. 

In a previous post, I explained the difference between the road network of the MTQ  and the one by its Ontatio counterpart, where counties pay for local roads.   

More importantly, tolls can only make sense in a few limited cases and even then, they can have counterproductive effects.  It is not for nothing that Montreal fought so hard to avoid tolls on the new Samuel-de-Champlain bridge.  Interestingly, those countries in Europe that have toll roads have them on intercity/interregional/international segments, but not within metropolitan areas  -- see Paris, Warsaw etc.  In Spain, toll roads originally funded by the private sector are gradually turning into freeways when the contracts expire.  In the USA, toll roads mostly preceded the advent of Eisenhower's Interstate System; they include New York State Thruway, Pennsylvania Turnpike, Ohio Turnpike etc.  In Canada there used to be a number of toll highways and bridges, some of them pretty small, like the Pont de Terrebonne.  In the Province of Québec, the Office des Autoroutes was charged with building radial motorways from Montreal, which "gave" us the Autoroute des Laurentides, the Autoroute des Cantons de l'Est and l'Autoroute de la Rive-Nord., all charging tolls  -- which were subsequently suppressed, gradually, commencing with the areas further away from Montreal.  More recently, a new "generation" of toll roads have appeared on the map, e.g. the bridge of A-25 over the rivière des Prairies and the bridge of the A-30 over the St.Lawrence River, as well as the 407 ETR north and west of Toronto (the more recent eastern extension is also a toll road, altough it is owned by the provincial government).  I must say that I question the wisdom of charging tolls on highways which serve to attenuate congestion on freeways such as the 401.  If tolls are found to be desirable, they shoud instead be set to discourage entrace into the core of the cities, as they do in London UK.  

Regardless, back to the issue of the Dorval interchange (on which I commented a couple of times previously), I can only add that I am disappointed that improving access from the west and the north appears to have been overlooked, despite the fact that many companies have chosen this location because of the proximité of the airport.