Simply lowering the road deck of the Quebec bridge would no longer allow heavy trucks to circulate there, says the Quebec Ministry of Transport (MTQ).
• Read also: Lowering the deck of the Quebec bridge: studies exist, assures Minister Jean-Yves Duclos
• Read also: Quebec Bridge Deck: The Trucking Association doubts the solution put forward by Duclos
By officially committing to building a third bridge to the east on Thursday, Prime Minister François Legault wondered where federal Minister Jean-Yves Duclos knew that the solution to securing the transport of goods could go through the Quebec Bridge.
In fact, the federal MP for Quebec argued on Wednesday that to allow heavy trucks to use the bridge that Ottawa has just bought from CN, it would be enough to lower the road deck by four feet that Quebec is preparing to redo.
However, “lowering the deck would not significantly increase the vertical clearance under the structure. Consequently, the passage of heavy trucks could no longer be permitted,” according to MTQ spokesperson Nicolas Vigneault.
Banned for 30 years
However, truck traffic has long been possible on the Quebec Bridge, which until 1970 was the only road link with Lévis.
This was the case alternating with the first road deck, from 1929 to the 1950s, and even more easily thereafter with the second, wider road deck, which Quebec plans to replace soon. Trucks stopped circulating there around thirty years ago.
“Truck traffic on the Quebec Bridge has been prohibited since the start of work to implement the 3-lane configuration in 1992,” confirms Mr. Vigneault.
A third central vehicle lane was inaugurated the following year, in March 1993. Since then, “as the bridge does not have a shoulder, there is not enough space for three trucks wide to circulate on it” specified the MTQ publicist.
With this three-lane configuration, “the vertical clearance between the roadway and the superstructure on the east side lane, as well as the width of the traffic lanes, do not allow the passage of trucks”.
“To allow trucks to pass safely, one of the three lanes of the bridge would have to be permanently removed,” explains Mr. Vigneault.
And even if we returned to a two-lane configuration, as of today, “it is impossible to guarantee that the overload generated by truck traffic could be absorbed by the road deck of the bridge,” points out the spokesperson.
However, it is common knowledge that in 2015, a study commissioned by his ministry from the Cima+/Tetra Tech consortium confirmed that the carrying capacity of the Quebec bridge could support an SRB (Rapid Bus Service).
One year of closure
The Quebec-Lévis SRB project having been abandoned in 2017, the MTQ in fact did the same in 2020 with the possibility of lowering the road deck of the Quebec bridge, for several reasons: such a project would have caused “the complete closure of the bridge for a period of one year”, in addition to causing “significant delays for the start of work” to replace the road deck, underlines Mr. Vigneault.
This work, which falls under the responsibility of the MTQ as tenant of the road deck, is still “in the planning stage, so the final costs and schedules are not known.”
Minister Geneviève Guilbault, however, suggested Thursday that they could take place in 2026, at the same time as other work on the lines of the Pierre-Laporte bridge. His ministry is seeking to avoid both bridges being closed at the same time during the work.
The latest news was that the reconstruction of the road deck of the Quebec Bridge was estimated at $250 million.
SCREENSHOT
An extract from the opportunity study for the 3rd link project between Quebec and Lévis submitted to the government in 2019 summarizes the history of the road decks of the Quebec bridge.
Do you have any information to share with us about this story?
Write to us at or call us directly at 1 800-63SCOOP.
