Province, city to pay for consultations on pedestrian bridge over new Turcot Interchange

Quebec and Montreal have agreed to split the cost of public consultations on a proposal to build a green walkway over the Turcot Interchange.

Those consultations will begin in the fall, and according to Transport Minister André Fortin, work on the overhead park should start in 2020.

"What you are hearing from both parts is that we are willing and committed partners, and we are going to move along on this," Fortin said.

Luc Ferrandez, the Montreal executive committee member responsible for large parks, said the whole area surrounding the project will change.

"St-Jacques will change. The land besides St-Jacques will change. The bike paths will change. Everything will change," Ferrandez said. 

The overpass was part of a plan presented in 2010 for the new highway, but under the tenure of six different transport ministers in the intervening years, the idea disappeared, reappeared and then vanished again.

The project's rocky road

The walkway, known as the Dalle-Parc, would connect the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, Ville-Émard and LaSalle neighbourhoods.

It was conceived as a way to provide residents with a way to cross the highway, and also to address their concerns about traffic and pollution.

When the project was last excluded from the blueprints, some residents said they felt as though they had been duped — that the bridge was only included so they would support the project and then was taken out of the contract after their support had been won.