Champlain Bridge set to open by end of year, says SNC-Lavalin

The replacement Champlain Bridge in Montreal will open on schedule at the end of the year, according to the SNC-Lavalin-led consortium heading the project. Cost of the entire corridor project is set at US$3.3 billion of which around $1.8 billion is for construction of the bridge, approach roads and highway adjustments. Failure to open the bridge to vehicular traffic on time means the consortium faces stiff fines, according to media reports: around $77,500 a day for the first seven days followed by $31
March 6, 2018 Read time: 2 mins
Montreal’s Champlain Bridge: on schedule, so far, with 65% complete and opening set for December (photo courtesy Signature sur le Saint-Laurent Construction S.E.N.C.)
The replacement Champlain Bridge in Montreal will open on schedule at the end of the year, according to the SNC-Lavalin-led consortium heading the project.


Cost of the entire corridor project is set at US$3.3 billion of which around $1.8 billion is for construction of the bridge, approach roads and highway adjustments.

Failure to open the bridge to vehicular traffic on time means the consortium faces stiff fines, according to media reports: around $77,500 a day for the first seven days followed by $310,000 per day.

The federal Canadian government signed a public-private partnership deal with the SNC-Lavalin consortium Signature on the Saint-Laurent Group in mid-2015 for the group to design, build, finance and maintain the New Champlain Bridge Corridor project. SNC-Lavalin is a 50% partner in SSL which will operate and maintain the bridge until October 2049. Other SSL partners are 981 Hochtief, 2758 Flatiron, 4761 Dragados Canada and Grupo 917 ACS.

Meanwhile, SSL entered into a date-certain, fixed-priced contract with a construction joint venture of which SNC-Lavalin is again a 50% partner.

The new bridge, part of a six-lane 6km corridor including roads, is being built alongside the original bridge over the Saint Lawrence River and Seaway canal system. The new bridge, 3.4km long, will have the six vehicle lanes plus two lanes running in the middle of the bridge for electric public transit trains. The bridge runs from the île des Soeurs to Brossard, immediately downstream from the existing Champlain Bridge.
 
The new composite girder bridge across the river and Seaway consists of a 170m-high twin-tower cable stay bridge with a front span of around 240m and a back span of 120m.

Construction of the existing steel truss cantilever bridge, as well as accompanying approaches and the Bonaventure Expressway, started in 1957 and finished in 1962. Of the old 14.5km-long complex, the bridge is 7.4km. Every year, around 50 million vehicles cross the old bridge, Canada’s most heavily travelled bridge and a major route for traffic to and from the US.

Road Structures

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Environmentally friendly demolition of famous US Bay Bridge to take years
    March 18, 2013
    While the new eastern span of northern California’s Bay Bridge between San Francisco and Oakland will open to traffic this September, the task of taking down the old eastern bridge span roadway is likely to take years. Speaking to a local TV station Brad McCrea, regulatory director of the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, the state agency that oversees protection of the Bay Area, said: “Taking the old Bay Bridge [eastern span roadway] down is as practically as big a project as putting the new one
    Read More
  • New Tisza River bypass bridge to be built at Szolnok, Hungary
    June 28, 2019
    Hungary will soon tender for a new bypass bridge over the Tisza River near Szolnok at a cost of around €77 million. Laszlo Mosoczi, state secretary of the Ministry of Innovation and Technology, said a tender for the planning works is to be called in the autumn with a winner announced in early 2020. The entire project could take five or six years. Szolnok, a town of 72,000 in the Great Hungarian Central Plain 100km east-southeast of the capital Budapest, already has a continuous beam St. Stephen's Brid
    Read More
  • India plans major infrastucture investment
    February 10, 2012
    India says it turned its Commonwealth Games into a world-class success, and now it aims to do the same with its infrastructure. Patrick Smith reports. On October, 2010 India put itself on the world stage, and disaster appeared to loom as a catalogue of problems dogged its biggest ever sporting event. Costing nearly US$2 billion to stage, the most expensive Commonwealth Games ever were, according to some, in doubt.
    Read More
  • UK’s M6 tolled motorway for sale
    June 21, 2016
    For sale: one UK toll motorway along with operating business. Well maintained. Price negotiable. David Arminas looks at what is on offer As if right on cue, a French articulated truck starts to back up along the hard shoulder at an exit area of M6toll. The manoeuvring is watched from an office inside the nearby M6toll headquarters. Inside, Andy Pearson, chief executive of M6toll, glances over his shoulder and interrupts his presentation to World Highways. “He’s probably missed the dedicated wide-load
    Read More

Highlighted Content