After twenty years of talk about revamping of an area around the Bonaventure Expressway, the mayor and the head of the port authority say they're finally ready to get the project underway starting with public consultations in the fall.
But, their timing means the project could be going ahead just as the Turcot express way is undergoing its beauty treatment-- meaning driving in Montreal could be significantly stress-inducing for motorists.
The plan
The three-phase plan aims to revitalize a dead zone around the waterfront and encourage pedestrian, leisure and commercial use.
It would level the Bonaventure Expressway to make way for an eight-lane urban express way with four lanes in each direction. The plan has a provision for a street dedicated to busses to encourage people to leave their cars at home.
The first phase is estimated to cost $141 million. The city is aiming to start the public consultation process, which they are legally bound to do, in the fall, post-vacation season.
The plan is to start construction shortly after that, and have the first phase finished by 2013.
Turcot at the same time?
The mayor says that if the Bonaventure project happens at the same time as the Turcot project does, that's just the way the cookie-- or expressway --crumbles.
"Yes there's going to be for inconveniences, but the price to pay for status quo the price to pay for grid lock, the price to pay for greenhouse gas emissions, the price to pay for quality of life, the price to pay for leaving infrastructures that are not technologically viable... and the proof that we can now use these projects to show that public transit is our priority is what we're trying to do," said Mayor Gerald Tremblay.
The Turcot project is supposed to start this fall. It will bring down Quebec's busiest interchange (nearly 280,000 vehicle travel on it daily), cost an estimated $1.5 billion and take about seven years to complete.
