Starting Wednesday, additional departures will be added on the Vaudreuil-Hudson railway to offset the impact of the loss of a third track on the Île-aux-Tourtes bridge. Frequency will also be increased on certain bus routes.
Posted at 5:42 p.m.
The Ministry of Transport confirmed this in a press release on Tuesday. The idea has already been mentioned in the last few days. Therefore, three departures will be added on train line 11: one from Vaudreuil at 7:30 a.m. with train number 16, another from Hudson station at 6:14 a.m. with train number 12 and a final one from Lucien-L’Allier at 4 :40 p.m. on train number 21.
The measure will also be “added to around a hundred bus departures on routes 7, 10, 35 and 40, managed by Exo in financial cooperation with the government,” it said.
Since Monday, the Île-aux-Tourtes bridge has lost a third lane due to a new crack. The infrastructure was also completely closed this weekend to implement the new track configuration, which authorities estimate will likely be in effect for another year.
In short, out of six lanes, only three will remain as two others were already closed. Quebec aims to “reduce the loads on the structure until reinforcement work is completed, in order to ensure the integrity and safety of the infrastructure while avoiding complete closure,” it says.
This new configuration will “have a significant impact on the travel times of road users,” the ministry affirmed on Tuesday, recommending that they give preference to public transport and use the Chrono application to better plan their trips.
The Île-aux-Tourtes Bridge, inaugurated in 1965, is now reaching the end of its useful life. It has had structural problems for several years and is currently undergoing extensive renovation. Partial commissioning is planned for the end of 2026. In April, La Presse reported that the bill for rebuilding this bridge in the west of the metropolis would be almost a billion more than expected, an increase of 65%. The total bill for replacing this two-kilometer bridge would be 2.3 billion.