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With traffic jams now a daily occurrence at the junction of autoroutes 15 and 640 on the North Shore at Boisbriand, ADQ MNA for Groulx Linda Lapointe is denouncing the inability of Quebec's Ministry of Transport to complete a major road reconstruction project at the intersection within a reasonable amount of time, largely because of a construction cost underestimate.
2011 completion date
Work on the project, which is taking place in four phases, started last summer, and was projected to end in 2011, although there is uncertainty now because of the delay. There's been relatively no activity on the site since the end of phase one last April 30, and work is not scheduled to resume until later this month. The way Lapointe sees it, four months-and-a-half are being wasted at the expense of local residents, and businesses in the Faubourg Boisbriand power centre located just off the 640 are experiencing a significant drop in customer traffic.
"The main factor is money," Lapointe said during a briefing on the issue staged near the construction site earlier this week for local media. "It was supposed to be at a lower cost. That's why they stopped." This past spring, according to Lapointe, Liberal Transport Minister Julie Boulet was asked whether there would be any delays in the project, and Boulet supposedly said no. Now, however, it seems the government is reopening the bidding process before it can award new contracts.
Phased project at fault
Part or the problem, Lapointe maintains, is that the government decided to carry out the work in four separate steps. As a result, the cost of raw materials has increased with each phase. "The costs of the raw material rose — the steel and the gravel increased and the government said 'no problem' — and there were new bids. The new bid was too high. They should have taken the whole project into account and not redo a bit every time there's a new phase … It's just money … the Ministère des Transports says the contractors asked too much … It's something wrong with the Ministère des Transports."
While residents and businesses nearby are directly impacted by the situation, the 640/15 interchange is also the busiest autoroute intersection on Montreal's North Shore. As early as 6 a.m., according to Lapointe, it's jammed with automobiles making their way to work. At the Faubourg Boisbriand power centre, which is still under development on the site of the former General Motors assembly plant, access from both autoroutes is also unneccessarily difficult, given the confusion of half-completed exit ramps and detours that send motorists out of their way.
MNA is 'appalled'
"They seem to have forgotten the interests of citizens in all this," Lapointe says. "For the time being, as the person responsible for the riding, I find this appalling. It's right in the middle of my riding. People are being delayed. There's also a safety issue, the traffic and congestion that are being caused by this … You have to come here to see how bad it is." According to Claude Morneau, the manager of the Metro Desjardins supermarket in the nearby Carrefour Boisbriand, business has fallen about five per cent, a drop that is regarded as considerable among food retailers.
"People are waiting in the traffic to be able to get across to here," he says. "It was supposed to be easy to come to the Carrefour Boisbriand, but that's not at all how it is. There are people who aren't coming to shop here anymore because it's total chaos." Morneau said the situation is so bad that there may be layoffs at his store because of the poor state of business.
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