City of Montreal voices concern over rebuilding Turcot interchange

The City of Montreal asked Transport Quebec on Tuesday to go back to the drawing board with its plan to rebuild the Turcot interchange.

The $1.5-billion plan would see much of the elevated interchange brought to ground level, but the city said it doesn't do enough to encourage public transit.

The Turcot interchange, which links the Dcarie Expressway,Highway 20 and the Ville-Marie Expressway west of downtown Montreal,is crumbling and needs to be replaced, officials say. About 280,000 vehicles use the interchange every day, making it the busiest in Quebec. Transport Quebec has said its rebuilding plan will permit 25,000 more cars to pass through the area each day.

But city Coun. Andr Lavalle, who oversees transportation issues for Montreal, said that's the wrong approach.

"We have to decrease the number of cars that have to cross through the exchange," Lavallesaid Tuesday evening, during the second night of public consultationsby the province's environmental assessment board.

The project includes the possibility of a reserved lane for buses, but Lavalle said it needs to go much further to include taxis andemergency vehicles and should also allow for carpooling commuters.

Lavalle said the province should also speed up construction of a rail link between Trudeau airport and downtown, adding that the public-private formula for rebuilding the interchange is slowing things down.

Environmental hearings into the project were slated to continue on Wednesday. The new Turcot interchange isn't scheduled to open until 2015.