Companies selected to set stage for Champlain Bridge replacement

The Canadian government has selected a consortium led by PricewaterhouseCoopers to produce a business case for the construction of a new bridge across the St. Lawrence River in Montreal.

The consortium will provide engineering, technical and financial services. It includes the firms Arup Canada, Morrison Hershfield, Groupe SM and SDG.

The consortium’s first job is to produce a business case for the preferred method for procurement and construction of the bridge. They have to develop traffic and revenue forecasts, as well as preliminary engineering work to identify the possible options and costs. This phase is expected to take up to 18 months.

The new bridge corridor is to replace the existing Champlain Bridge which is aging and deteriorating. It connects the Island of Montreal to the South Shore and is the busiest crossing in Canada for cars, trucks and buses, carrying an estimated $20-billion in international trade.

The new crossing, as outlined by Transport Canada in August, will be downstream from the existing bridge. It will begin at Nuns’ Island (Montreal’s Verdun borough), cross the St. Lawrence River and St. Lawrence Seaway, and will end in the City of Brossard on the South Shore. One sugestion is that it might have three lanes in each direction and possibly a fourth lane each way for public transit.

Besides building the bridge, the project will include the realignment of Autoroute 10, a new bridge on Nun’s Island, the reconstruction of parts of Autoroute 15, and the demolition of the existing bridge.

In 2011 the Consortium BCDE, consisting of BPR, CIMA, Dessau and Egis produced a pre-feasibility study for replacing the Champlain Bridge. Written for Transport Quebec and Les Ponts Jacques Cartier et Champlain inc, the study examined options for a bridge versus a tunnel as well as the other options.

To view Transport Canada’s site on the project, click here.