Major traffic on Highway 20 caused by road work leads to hours of waiting, people missing flights
Posted May 23, 2023 11:40 am.
Last Updated May 23, 2023 6:49 pm.
Massive traffic delays caused by a shut-down on Highway 20 Westbound due to construction work lead motorists to waiting in traffic for hours over the long weekend – with some even missing their flights.
“It was a nightmare,” said Rick Leckner, traffic commentator. “To be fair, people were warned. I don’t think people realized just how bad it was. The problem with Transport Quebec, is there’s no accountability. Yes, there’s work that has to be done. There’s no question about it. Can it be better planned? Yes. And, definitely they should have had a better mitigation plan to ensure that things weren’t as bad as they were on the weekend. It was totally unacceptable.”
“It was a major closer that needed to be done this weekend. We needed to do major work to make sure that the ramp of the Highway 138 to the Highway 20 West is safe and we don’t have to wait to do a new emergency integration in the future. It was planned work that was done this weekend,” explained Martin Girard, spokesperson for the Ministry of Transport in an interview with CityNews.
The work caused a huge traffic jam from downtown to the airport. Drivers could even be seen getting out of their cars and trying to reach their destination by foot.
“It was a long holiday weekend. People are traveling. There’s people coming into the city for tourism. Sometimes Transports Quebec just does not get it. And, you think they care, but it doesn’t appear they do. They should have had better signage, better warnings, a helicopter up monitoring of the situation to adjust as required,” added Leckner.
Fo Niemi told CityNews he was among those who missed a flight due to spending two hours on a bus in traffic to get to the airport. “It was mayhem,” he said, adding he’s “never seen anything like that.”
“A lot of people on the bus, including myself, we didn’t know about problems with the massive traffic jam. We didn’t know that the part of the highway was closed. So we got on the bus, to get there at least 2 hours ahead of time.”
“We wish, that the bus could have put out an advisory, the kind of flash on the screen or the driver would have told us beforehand because we weren’t told at all. The driver was very patient, kind, professional, but a lot of us missed our flight. It’s about keeping people informed and reassuring people so that they know what to expect at least,” Niemi added.
Transport Quebec says work on Highway 20 Westbound will continue every weekend throughout the summer, but not as extensively as during the long weekend. Another major closure is planned for Labour Day weekend – this time on Highway 20 Eastbound.
“The issue is there aren’t that many options, if you’re trying to get to the airport, for example, unless you want to head through the streets of Lachine, Lasalle,” said Leckner. “It was a very difficult situation, but hopefully they’ll do a debrief and see how to make it better.”
Transport Quebec says they will do that.
“We will meet and we’ll discuss what happened and see what we can do better next time. A closure will always have impact on traffic, but to make sure that it’s less impact than last Saturday,” explained Girard.
He added that road work season has officially begun and “it’s very important for people to plan their trip before they leave every weekend.” You can do so by consulting Quebec 511.
With files from Alyssia Rubertucci
