Traffic jams tied up drivers in NDG beginning at rush hour Friday, as construction at Cote St. Luc Rd. at Decarie Blvd. took angry drivers by surprise.
The city is replacing sewer lines; work on water mains has been planned for over a month.
Many residents were frustrated, saying they weren’t made aware of the construction and would have avoided the area if they had known.
"At least give us advanced warning and tell us what the different steps are going to be," said one driver.
After being made aware of the tie-up Friday afternoon, CTV Montreal contacted the Cote-des-Neiges-NDG Borough, and was only provided an alert on the matter Saturday morning.
“Clearly the city did not do enough to adequately advise residents,” admitted Borough Mayor Russell Copeman.
Copeman said the borough learned about the work a week ago and said communication between different levels of government and citizens needs improvement.
“It's a major water main that serves tens of thousands of homes. It has to be done. It's painful, it's frustrating, we can do better and we will do better in terms of communication,” he said, adding that he would also like to see signs placed further away from the work sites to give drivers more warning, as well as have more information distributed through the media.
“We all want it to be planned better of course,” he said.
The high-volume intersection is compounding congestion, said traffic consultant Rick Leckner.
“This is definitely a problematic intersection because not only has there been work by the City of Montreal, in that area, but also it's a major way of detouring around the Turcot Interchange, so it gets a lot of traffic, more so than it can handle,” he said.
The sewer work on Cote-Saint-Luc Rd. is expected to be completed by Monday afternoon, but traffic headaches in the area are far from over.
Decarie Blvd. south will be down to one lane between Cote-Saint-Luc Rd. and Monkland Ave. starting Tuesday for a 10-day period.
