the sky is falling

imagine this: you're driving along, minding your own business when a large chunk of an overpass falls in front of you, narrowly missing your car. fact- this happened. more then once. fact- it doesn't always miss your car.

in 2006, the Laval overpass collapsed, killing 5 people. clearly this is a tragedy. how can roads get bad enough that they can collapse? apparently some structural engineers were wondering the same thing and launched an inquiry into the overpass collapse. they then thought "hmm. well if one overpass is crumbling, maybe we should look at all of the overpasses and bridges in the area?". clever engineers.

as it turns out, all of them are in a state of disrepair. the 2006 incident was the first of many similar occurrences (and let's be honest, one is too many in this case)  - the most recent happened a few weeks ago on the Ville-Marie tunnel. but it's not just the overpasses. it's also the bridges. and this, my friends, is a major concern when the city of montreal happens to be an island and the only way on/off is via bridge.

the pont champlain is canada's busiest bridge, which was news to me. it is all but crumbling. on weekends it's down to one lane in only one direction at a time so workers can do their job and try to repair it. but the other bridges heading to the south island aren't much better, filled with potholes and riddled with a patchwork of pavement which makes you feel like you're driving on cobblestone, which isn't very comforting when you're suspended over a large body of water.

but it's not only pieces falling from the top that are concerning.

not more then 2 weeks ago, i saw a photo (on the cbc) of a city bus stuck in hole on the street. turns out, the street just gave way and the bus sank (honestly). no one was hurt (except montreal's pride i suppose). the same day i saw a photo of a cement truck in the same situation. 2 vehicles sinking into the streets because of the crappy infrastructure underneath them not being taken care of for years?! mind boggling. do i feel confident that these will be the last? no. no i do not. i have visions of montreal becoming the lost city of atlantis. i really do.

what astounds me more then anything is that montreal just doesn't seem to get it. they've just built a new toll bridge to laval, estimating that a few thousand people would sign up to use it regularly. before it had even opened, the numbers were near 35 000 drivers. who did the surveying before they build the bridge and how did they get the numbers so wrong? way to look towards the future boys.

they have road crews out all summer (except during their 2 week "mandatory holiday". don't even get me started...) but they never seem to do anything (do they ever?). the entire city has been crumbling for years and they're only now starting to worry about it. a report showed that there's been poor maintenance for the past 70 years (70 years!). which frankly seems amazing because quebec taxes the shit out of you, so you'd like to expect better roads (or better public transport to have less people driving all the time, but i digress). montreal tries to blame the drastic weather changes and intensity of winter here, but then i think montreal forgets that it's in canada and that the argument isn't valid. all canadian cities deal with winter climate, salt and ice. and yet, as far as i know, most canadian cities have roads that you can drive on without risk of sinking...

but instead of actually fixing the roads properly, they just cover the holes and move on. apparently they will be spending some 3.9 billion dollars on the roads this year, fixing some 2000km and 875 structures. i don't know about you, but i don't find these numbers reassuring. they just remind me of how crappy the roads are here. they remind me why i try not to drive (not that my bike is any safer).

and, quite frankly, they're pushing me to invest in a boat.
xo