Two weeks ago, Transport Quebec chipped off pieces of concrete* from five different Turcot Exchange lanes and four different Saint Pierre Exchange bridges, all in the LaSalle area.
“We took some pieces off that could have fallen off,” said Jacques Nadeau, a communications spokesperson with Transport Quebec. “Some parts were as small as a cellphone so it’s not that dangerous, but we don’t take any chances.”
The four bridges were among 605 bridges in the province that are of a similar design to the one on Highway 40 that dropped a chunk of concrete on a car on January 13. No one was killed in that accident, but several people had minor injuries and extreme scares.
The bridges are:
- 13802A Angrignon, which is the bridge going over Highway 20 (circa 1966);
- 03810P Lafleur, which is the 69.95 metre link between Airlie and Lafleur and Highway 138 (circa-1963);
- 03810J Ave.138, which is the Highway 138 bridge over Clément (circa 1963); and
- 03810F A20, which is the Highway 20 bridge over St. Jacques (circa 1965). This one was structurally-supported in 2009-2010 and is due to be replaced in the Saint-Pierre reconstruction project.
To see the reports for these bridges, go to:
http://www.mtq.gouv.qc.ca/portal/page/portal/Librairie/Information_citoyens/03/0381/03810P
and
Transport Quebec’s emergency operation last week took five to six days including completing all 47 interventions, said Nadeau. “They found some interventions that will need to be done in the next couple of weeks.”
Nadeau says that since the accident the Transport Ministry has changed their inspection protocol. “When there’s an exceptional meteorological event, we’ll do new inspections to secure the structures,” he said. “If we have sudden climate change—say rain on one day and minus 35 two days later, we’ll do mandatory inspections.”
Nadeau says that changing weather patterns cause problems with older structures. “The metal rods that are inside the concrete are more efficient now and they resist better now than 60 years ago,” he said. “When the water gets icy, it takes more space and that’s what affects the concrete.”
*Note: An earlier edition of this article called concrete cement. I apologize for the error.
