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The
Champlain Bridge and Bonaventure Expressway
The Bridge
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Location
The
Champlain Bridge spans the St. Lawrence River and Seaway, and is located
between the Honoré Mercier and Victoria bridges, some two miles (3.22 km)
upstream from the latter.
On the South Shore, the bridge has direct connections with Highways 132, 10
and 30. Beginning at Nuns' Island, to which it is connected by access and exit
ramps, the bridge separates into three approaches onto the Island of Montreal.
The first connects it to Wellington Street in Verdun, the second links up with
Highway 15, leading to the Atwater Tunnel, the TransCanada Highway (Highway
40) and Highway 20, and the third approach, namely the Bonaventure Expressway,
brings traffic into downtown Montreal and onto the Ville Marie Expressway.
Traffic
The
Champlain Bridge is the busiest bridge in Canada. Since it opened in 1962, the
number of vehicles travelling over it has increased constantly. From an annual
average of 7,300 vehicles in 1963, traffic rose to 33,400 vehicles in 1968 and
109,700 in 1989. In 1999, the daily average was 134,000 vehicles, of which 8%
were trucks.
Today, approximately 57.1 million vehicles cross the Champlain Bridge
annually.
Traffic Lanes
The
Champlain Bridge has six lanes, three in each direction, with a concrete
separator in between.
Since 1982, a reserved bus lane travelling counter to traffic has been
operating on the Champlain Bridge during rush hour. The Agence métropolitaine
de transport, the provincial government agency in charge of public transit for
the Greater Montreal region, manages the lane. Statistics provided by the
agency indicate that some 30,000 public transit users travel in the reserved
lane every day of the week.
Lighting
System
The
lighting system consists of sodium high pressure lamps attached to steel
poles. An electrical sub-station located in the administration building
supplies the power needed to light the bridge and its approaches.
Bridge
Sections
To
facilitate identification, the bridge and its north and south approaches were
divided into 13 sections.
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