Just installed, already removed. A 12.5 km stretch of the Metropolitan Highway has to be ripped out of asphalt. Work on the western section of the road axis must be “100% resumed” because the bitumen used by contractor Roxboro Excavation was “not of good quality”. Cost overruns borne by the private sector could reach more than 10 million. But Quebec will inevitably bear “indirect costs,” says one expert.
Posted 3:16pm Updated 9:00pm
Henri Ouellette-Vézina La Presse
“From the Chemin Canora to the Chemin de la Côte-de-Liesse, the work carried out in 2021 must be resumed at 100%. All asphalt must be ripped out and relaid with a new layer according to the ministry’s specifications,” said MTQ Metropolitan Montreal General Manager Fadi Moubayed on Thursday. He insists that such a misunderstanding is “a first” for the ministry, especially as it occurs on a “large” site.
PHOTO ROBERT SKINNER, THE PRESS
Fadi Moubayed, Director General of the Montreal Metropolitan Region of the Quebec Department of Transportation, and Michel Paradis, Director of the Department of Infrastructure Materials
As early as last summer, the government noted that there was “a little bleeding” on the highway’s surface. This phenomenon, usually associated with too much bitumen in the asphalt, actually causes the bitumen to rise to the top. The road therefore “gives the impression of being wet”, raising safety issues, Mr Moubayed said.
Laboratory tests then confirmed that the bitumen used was “not of good quality” and that some of its composition was of “lower grade” compared to what was requested. “We risked a faster deterioration of the road surface,” emphasized the ministry official. The latter then struck an agreement with Roxboro Excavation and Groupe Bauval, who were involved in designing the asphalt in 2021, to ensure work could resume “at no cost” to taxpayers.
“Indirect” costs for Quebec?
For University of Montreal transportation planning expert Pierre Barrieau, it is incorrect to say that this work is being done for the government for free.
“It will likely cost millions in surveillance costs to ensure it is done right, not to mention the very high cost of congestion, closures and communications around the site. All of this has a price that the government has to pay,” he explains.
In times of shortages of materials, labor and heavy machinery, there is a risk that all of the ministry’s other projects will also come under inflationary pressures, which could cost more or be downright delayed.
Pierre Barrieau, specialist in traffic planning at the University of Montreal
The fact that MTQ did not recognize the situation before the asphalt was laid was, in his view, “surprising, to say the least”. “In most projects, we can identify such problems much more quickly. The mechanisms are there precisely to prevent human error. There was clearly a problem with monitoring,” he says, recalling that the environmental impact will also be significant. “Bitumen is still a petroleum product,” he says.
At the Professional Association of Government Engineers of Quebec (APIGQ), President Marc-André Martin regrets that the situation illustrates the weakness of existing processes. “Anything that has to do with the control of asphalt and bitumen is subject to contractor self-control and that is a decision of the MTQ. For more than 20 years it has been said that this is horrible,” he criticizes.
“We cannot blindly trust what all entrepreneurs will tell us. The reality is that the MTQ doesn’t want to be responsible. The government has completely absolved itself of responsibility,” claims the president of APIGQ, whose members have been on strike for four weeks. “Our job is just that: to identify this type of problem. We’re here to prevent that,” he said.
Concentrate on upcoming work
In the west, the asphalt will be completely renewed in a flash in the coming weeks, with the major repairs scheduled to take at least five years. In the east, where most of the work could start within five years, between the Provencher and Saint-Laurent axes, the asphalt is not being replaced, at least for the moment. In this segment, the contractor has undertaken to give a “five-year durability guarantee” on his bitumen. If this does not meet expectations, the work will also have to be redone.
For example, if we get 40% in the eastern sector, we could be talking about a sum of around $10 million that the contractor has to insure.
Fadi Moubayed, Director General of the Montreal Metropolitan Area of MTQ
The director of the Directorate of Infrastructure Materials at the MTQ, Michel Paradis, assured that the samples were nevertheless subjected to “random checks”. Especially in “production”, when the ministry no longer carried out strict monitoring, the addition of bitumen would have posed a problem.
PHOTO SARAH MONGEAU-BIRKETT, THE PRESS
The bitumen used in carrying out the work “was not of good quality”, according to laboratory tests.
“We are talking about a production problem. It was a contractor error,” he said, blaming Roxboro Excavation directly. The company said Thursday it could not comment on the situation due to the nature of its contract with the MTQ. According to our sources, it was a “human” error committed by factory workers.
Fadi Moubayed, he went there with a culinary analogy. “When we bake a cake, we check the quality of the flour and eggs before we bake the cake, but once we mix, we will no longer check the quality of the eggs and flour. We’d rather look at the cake, its texture, color, taste, etc., he said, vowing the ministry would “learn lessons” from the case. “We are in a continuous improvement process. Every year we review things,” qualified Mr. Paradis, who hopes to develop a “Quebec standard” for asphalt mixing plants by 2023. Quebec uses an American standard for the time being.
In addition to considering significant cost overruns, Roxboro Excavation must also pay an “unconditional” monetary compensation of $820,000 to the Quebec government for “trouble and annoyance.”
The overall project
According to documents released in early 2020, almost all the structural elements of this highway, inaugurated in 1960, will be rebuilt or replaced: the pillars that support the structures will be repaired, the concrete slab will be rebuilt and a waterproof membrane will be added.
Learn more
200,000 It is estimated that an average of almost 200,000 motorists use the elevated portion of the Metropolitan Autoroute every day, of which 13% are heavy-duty drivers. The major repair work on this axle was announced in January 2020.
SOURCE: Quebec Department of Transportation