Delayed until 2027: Construction on Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine tunnel
Posted June 7, 2024 10:28 am.
Last Updated June 7, 2024 3:30 pm.
The construction on the Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine tunnel, which connects the island of Montreal to the South Shore, will be delayed until 2027.
The Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility confirmed to La Press on Friday that the closure of three out of six lanes is scheduled to end in fall 2026, instead of Nov. 2025. Due to this, they say that completion work requiring partial closures are likely to continue until 2027.
Adding that the entire construction project — costing around $2.5 billion — must be postponed due to several factors, including the paused work last summer after mould was discovered in a service corridor in the tunnel.
The infrastructure’s ventilation towers also appear to be in a much more degraded state than expected, the say. Additional work would be necessary there — and the overall work turned out to be more complex than anticipated.
The project was originally set to end in 2026.
