As with any city surrounded by water, its bridges are both emblematic and problematic at the same time. While the Champlain bridge and the Jacques Cartier both have impressive spans over the St. Lawrence Seaway that most people could instantly identify with Montreal, having to drive over one of these structures during rush hour is an experience Montrealers go to great lengths to avoid. With only so many ways to cross the Seaway into the city, commuting during peak times can be a complete nightmare.
Victoria bridge
The Victoria is the oldest of all of the Montreal spans, and when you are crossing it it’s not hard to tell that it represents a different era of design and engineering. Built in 1859, the Victoria can be downright intimidating to the uninitiated, particularly if it is surrounded by a fog bank. The imposing stone and steel structure is accessed via a narrow, winding entrance, and the bridge is off limits to any form of heavy traffic. Perhaps most intimidating is the fact that large sections of the span are made out of steel mesh, allowing passengers to see clear through to the waters below and generating a loud humming sound from a vehicle’s tires. Combined with fog hiding both extremities of the bridge at night, crossing the Victoria can often seem like a leap of faith. The bridge features a rail crossing along the middle and is frequently closed during the year to save on wear and tear.
Jacques Cartier Bridge
The most visually striking of the bridges that serve the South Shore, the Jacques Cartier carries 5 lanes of traffic from the eastern edge of downtown Montreal across the river to Longeuil. At 2.7 kilometers in length, this impressive cantilever structure is the second busiest bridge in Canada. Construction was begun in 1926 and the first 3 lanes opened for business in 1930. A toll bridge for a short time, 43 million vehicles cross the bridge each year, and traffic is managed by a series of lights which indicate when the direction of traffic is reversed in the middle lane. While the bridge is visually quite striking, there is a dark side to this beautiful structure, as its architecture has become a magnet for jumpers – much in the same way as the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco. In fact, the Jacques Cartier is second only to the Golden Gate in terms of yearly jump attempts.
Champlain bridge
The Champlain bridge was opened in the summer of 1962. It had been built as the answer to the growing traffic issues that had clogged the three other bridges that had been serving the island – the Mercier, the Jacques Cartier and the Victoria. Significantly wider than any of the older crossings, the Champlain offered 6 lanes of traffic across 14.5 kilometers and drastically improved roadway congestion. It is also tall enough to allow any ship traffic to pass underneath it to the busy Port of Montreal and it has a twin structure, at least in terms of span, that runs alongside it in order to control the flow of ice around the larger bridge’s pylons.
There has been some talk of reinstating the tolls that used to be required in order to use the structure, but it has been 18 years since anyone was required to pay to cross the bridge. The Champlain bridge remains the largest and widest crossing into Montreal.
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