Finish building Highway 15 by digging the Décarie/Laurentian tunnel
Everybody who uses the Montreal highway network knows that traffic on the Décarie and Metropolitan is routinely slowed to a crawl or a standstill that creates delays not only during commuting hours but all throughout the day and into the night. The result is that costs are far greater for delivery companies, people cannot get around as quickly and easily as they should and that the general efficiency of the Montreal economy is kept way below its potential.
However, although a simple solution has long been identified (and would be extremely easy to implement) the provincial government has simply chosen to ignore it preferring instead to confuse us with unworkable alternatives in order to avoid having to do anything at all.
So, from time-to-time federal and provincial governments promise us the completion of a highway 30 ring road, to the south of the island, that would supposedly enable traffic in-transit to avoid Montreal altogether by driving around the island. Of course, with all the political problems related to local opposition and the high costs generated by masive expropriations, this is never likely to happen. Which is precisely what makes the highway 30 ring road project appealling to politicians because they can regularly trot it out as an election promise while not having any real risk of actually having to deliver.
And, when they are not talking about the ring road the politicians come up with other diversions to distract attention from the main issue which is that of unblocking the Metropolitan and Décarie highways and thus getting the traffic flowing smoothly. The proposed Cavendish extension, to re-route Décarie traffic through Côte St-Luc and NDG, is one such red herrring while endless talk of widening Notre-Dame Street East or bridging Highway 25 to Laval can always be guaranteed to create endless debate and distraction.
The real issue, the centre-island Décarie/Metropolitan mess exists simply because the Décarie, Highway 15 does not connect directly with its extension, the Laurentian, Highway 15. This means that huge bottlenecks are created at the top of the Décarie and the bottom of the Laurentian, as traffic tries to get onto the Met. Meanwhile, the intervening three-kilometre stretch of the Metropolitan has to accommodate the entire traffic of two highways (its own and the 15) cannot cope and simply clogs and chokes sending out traffic blockage ripples across much of the island.
Meanwhile, the politicians have long omitted to inform us that the studies are in and that the centre-island Metropolitan/Décarie traffic mess can be cleaned up with one simple, no-muss, no-fuss surgical intervention. Provincial government engineering studies, undertaken in 1993* by the DESSAU - LGL consortium, concluded that the Metropolitan can be unblocked simply by digging a tunnel from the top of the Décarie to a point near Côte-Vertu. This would create a Highway 15 link below St-Laurent to directly connect the Décarie and the Laurentian, meaning thatt north/south, south/north Montreal-Laval traffic would never need to use the Metropolitan. It's so simple that it makes you want to weep. The tunnel itself would run under the St-Laurent railway corridor and create no inconvenience for anyone and require no expropriation or demolition of existing buildings.
Removing the north and south Décarie and Laurentian traffic from the Metropolitan would also unblock the intervening three-kilometre problem stretch on the Met and allow it to function just as smoothly as any other highway anywhere else. Meaning that the entire island traffic network would work better, commuters would get back-and-forth to Laval and Montreal more easily and that those coming to-and-from the west and east would no longer be competing with north and south traffic.
Everybody would benefit and nobody would lose and there would be no cause for dissension about 'more highways or not' because we would simply be completing an existing, unfinished one. In addtition, with the Metropolitan working as a highway should to efficiently funnel traffic back-and-forth we would no longer need to waste time and energy arguing about the costly, unnecessary, and anyway never-to-be-completed, highway 30 ring road.
Digging a highway tunnel would of course be expensive but much less so, for example, than the recent Métro tunnel extension to Laval. This is because the relative distances and engineering challenges are less and also because the infrastructure for a highway tunnel costs less than that for a train tunnel.
What we need in Montreal is to 'get on with it' and tackle meaningful projects that will bring us immediate, tangible results. Freeing up our centre island highway traffic mess and getting everyone around faster and more efficiently certainly comes at the top of my list. Digging the Highway 15 connecting tunnel under St-Laurent is definitely doable and and would bring large immediate benefits to the entire community. People use cars to get to work and to do their work and everything that gets delivered to the stores we shop at comes by road transport. Every hour lost to pointless and unnecessary traffic congestion is a drain our economy and a blow to our public morale.
It's time to square up to the problem and get on with building the Décarie/Laurentian highway connection tunnel. If you agree with me, contact your provincial representative and ask why nothing is being done. Better yet, tell them to get on with it.
Jeremy Searle
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