Montreal Traditions
Montreal's legendary mayor Jean Drapeau, thought big and acted the same way. He liked big, showy projects for his city. And would spare no effort, no amount of public money, to achieve those big, showy projects to show Montreal off to the world. He was far less invested in boring, uninteresting projects like sewage control, and for a major North American city Montreal remained for far too long a disgrace in overlooking the need to stop polluting the St.Lawrence with its unsanitary dumping of untreated municipal waste.
He was a long-serving mayor; three years in the mid-50s, and from 1960 to 1986 there was no question of anyone else taking the helm as mayor of oh-so-cosmopolitan Montreal. Mind, the Montreal Metro was a proud success, and the Place des Arts concert hall as well, under his initiatives. And then came Expo 67 and the 1976 Summer Olympics, and major league baseball, along with the Montreal Expos. Little wonder he enjoyed such raving popularity.
Overseeing the facilities being constructed for the Olympic Games was dreadfully costly. Despite which inferior workmanship and materials were used, and the huge, multi-purpose stadium which was eventually covered with a retractable roof, experienced all manner of cost over-runs, and construction problems. It was a concern, in preparation for the Olympics and the costs associated with it, that it would all turn out an expensive white elephant.
But Mayor Drapeau, in his unflappable assurance that all would be well, scoffed at those concerns, claiming that the Olympics "can no more have a deficit than a man can have a baby". Post-Olympics it became abundantly clear that Montreal would be paying for its days of international glory for hosting the Olympics far into the future. That debt took the tax-paying citizens of the city over 30 years to retire.
And the results of the sub-par materials and shoddy workmanship of civic projects that were constructed at the time in preparation to invite the world to Montreal - roads and bridges, and other infrastructure - is now claiming attention, as it all begins to crumble. Montreal's Jean Drapeau was an exemplar of big ideas, big spending, just not on necessities; that trademark has come back to haunt the city.
The latest being the 25-tonne concrete structure that fell over four lanes under a tunnel running through the city, at the Ville-Marie tunnel site. Montreal traffic was more than adequately disturbed by the ongoing construction at various bridge sites, most notably the Champlain Bridge. Emergency repairs there and at the Mercier Bridge resulted from unsafe conditions, with those structures also rapidly deteriorating
"With the rush for Expo '67 and for the Olympics in Montreal, we built highways and bridges as if they were going out of style. We built many, many of these, and unfortunately the quality control wasn't there." Explained Saeed Mirza, professor emeritus of engineering, McGill University. And since then the provincial government cut budgets for inspection and maintenance. "All those problems accumulate, and the result is what we face today."
In 2006, the de la Concorde overpass in Laval collapsed, and five people died, the result of shoddy construction, ineffective maintenance and overlooked failures in maintenance. A 2007 inspection report discovered 46% of the province's bridges in need of repair of replacement within five years. Of course it isn't just Quebec; Ontario's maintenance of its infrastructure is nothing to crow about with 32% needing replacement.
But it's only in Quebec that a parking garage collapsed, killing a man in his car, and a year later a concrete slab falling off a hotel facade killed a woman seated in a restaurant atrium. The Ville-Marie tunnel's condition was reported in 2008; the report claiming the light-shielding structures were in "doubtful" condition, recommending a more detailed analysis.
That no one suffered injury or death at this latest collapse of falling concrete was somewhat of a miracle, given that an estimated 100,000 vehicles use the tunnel on a daily basis. All is well, however, no need to panic, since Premier Jean Charest assures everyone his confidence in the status of the structures is well placed.
Guess he hasn't heard that many Montrealers will go to great lengths, out of their way to avoid using those potentially deadly bridges, fearful of a catastrophic collapse.
He was a long-serving mayor; three years in the mid-50s, and from 1960 to 1986 there was no question of anyone else taking the helm as mayor of oh-so-cosmopolitan Montreal. Mind, the Montreal Metro was a proud success, and the Place des Arts concert hall as well, under his initiatives. And then came Expo 67 and the 1976 Summer Olympics, and major league baseball, along with the Montreal Expos. Little wonder he enjoyed such raving popularity.
Overseeing the facilities being constructed for the Olympic Games was dreadfully costly. Despite which inferior workmanship and materials were used, and the huge, multi-purpose stadium which was eventually covered with a retractable roof, experienced all manner of cost over-runs, and construction problems. It was a concern, in preparation for the Olympics and the costs associated with it, that it would all turn out an expensive white elephant.
But Mayor Drapeau, in his unflappable assurance that all would be well, scoffed at those concerns, claiming that the Olympics "can no more have a deficit than a man can have a baby". Post-Olympics it became abundantly clear that Montreal would be paying for its days of international glory for hosting the Olympics far into the future. That debt took the tax-paying citizens of the city over 30 years to retire.
And the results of the sub-par materials and shoddy workmanship of civic projects that were constructed at the time in preparation to invite the world to Montreal - roads and bridges, and other infrastructure - is now claiming attention, as it all begins to crumble. Montreal's Jean Drapeau was an exemplar of big ideas, big spending, just not on necessities; that trademark has come back to haunt the city.
The latest being the 25-tonne concrete structure that fell over four lanes under a tunnel running through the city, at the Ville-Marie tunnel site. Montreal traffic was more than adequately disturbed by the ongoing construction at various bridge sites, most notably the Champlain Bridge. Emergency repairs there and at the Mercier Bridge resulted from unsafe conditions, with those structures also rapidly deteriorating
"With the rush for Expo '67 and for the Olympics in Montreal, we built highways and bridges as if they were going out of style. We built many, many of these, and unfortunately the quality control wasn't there." Explained Saeed Mirza, professor emeritus of engineering, McGill University. And since then the provincial government cut budgets for inspection and maintenance. "All those problems accumulate, and the result is what we face today."
In 2006, the de la Concorde overpass in Laval collapsed, and five people died, the result of shoddy construction, ineffective maintenance and overlooked failures in maintenance. A 2007 inspection report discovered 46% of the province's bridges in need of repair of replacement within five years. Of course it isn't just Quebec; Ontario's maintenance of its infrastructure is nothing to crow about with 32% needing replacement.
But it's only in Quebec that a parking garage collapsed, killing a man in his car, and a year later a concrete slab falling off a hotel facade killed a woman seated in a restaurant atrium. The Ville-Marie tunnel's condition was reported in 2008; the report claiming the light-shielding structures were in "doubtful" condition, recommending a more detailed analysis.
That no one suffered injury or death at this latest collapse of falling concrete was somewhat of a miracle, given that an estimated 100,000 vehicles use the tunnel on a daily basis. All is well, however, no need to panic, since Premier Jean Charest assures everyone his confidence in the status of the structures is well placed.
Guess he hasn't heard that many Montrealers will go to great lengths, out of their way to avoid using those potentially deadly bridges, fearful of a catastrophic collapse.
Labels: Crisis Politics, Culture, Quebec
posted by Pieface | 6:27 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home