If you think your westbound commute is bad now, it'll get a whole lot worse in about a month or so.
In six weeks, the St. Jacques St. exit from the westbound Ville-Marie Expressway will shut down completely, and so will the ramp connecting to Highway 15 south.
At around the same time, the Fort St. and the Lucien L'Allier St. entrances to the Ville-Marie west will also shut down.
Get more details here from CTV Montreal's Derek Conlon:
These are just some of the highlights of what Transport Quebec is calling the "most disruptive stage" of the Turcot interchange rebuilding job — a stage which will involve the tearing down of the old westbound portion of the expressway, and which is expected to last through 2019.
When the demolition gets underway, westbound drivers coming out of the Ville-Marie tunnel will be shifted to the south as they drive onto the yet-to-be-completed lanes of the Hwy. 136, which will replace the elevated portion of the Ville-Marie west.
To make up for the loss of the Fort St. and Lucien L'Allier entrances, a new one will open up at Rose-de-Lima street in St. Henri.
Meanwhile, West Island-bound drivers coming off the Decarie Expressway will have to make their way east on a yet-to-be-built ramp that will head to streets located below the MUHC's Glen hospital, and then make their way west along Pullman St. before they can meet up with Hwy. 20.
This is to allow for the reconstruction of the ramp connecting Hwy. 15 south to the Hwy. 20 west.
Also, an existing ramp from Hwy. 20 east to the Decarie north is set to be demolished, forcing drivers to exit the highway and take Pullman St. to an area near the MUHC hospital, then connect to a new ramp leading to the Decarie Expressway.
Sylvie Gervais with the contractor KPMG Turcot says that while about half of the mammoth rebuilding job is complete, the worst is yet to come, and if you're used to using your car to get downtown, you might have to consider taking buses or trains for the next little while.
"Road users and motorists will have to rethink their commute," Gervais said at a technical briefing Thursday. "At the moment, public transit is not just an option, but a neccessity for the next 12 months."
Find out what former CJAD 800 traffic reporter Rick Leckner thinks of it all:
Even former CJAD 800 traffic reporter Rick Leckner is warning that this could be a disruption season unlike anything we've ever seen.
"Some of the detours are going to be terribly complicated. I fear that this will be a particularly difficult time," Leckner told CTV Montreal. "We've been through a lot of issues with all this construction, but this may take the cake."
Leckner is also suggesting the execution and planning could have been done much better, particularly with other projects happening at the same time, including the building of the new Champlain Bridge and the rebuilding of the Bonaventure Expressway.
Some more details of Thursday's technical briefing — and maps of the affected areas: can be found below.