Mayor Tremblay: “Don’t panic!”
La Presse has video of Mayor Tremblay telling us not to panic about the collapse of a 20×20 meter chunk of concrete in the Ville-Marie tunnel today. Transport minister Sam Hamad wants answers; after summarizing these, Radio-Canada also has Richard Bergeron denouncing the under-funding of infrastructure maintenance and also has some video.
Bill Binns 08:48 on 2011/08/01 Permalink
Just off the top of my head I can remember a highway overpass collapse that killed an entire family, a large chunk of concrete falling off a building on peel street and killing a woman in a restaurant below and a parking garage collapse that resulted in death. All in Montreal in the last few years. How many people would have been killed by this tunnel collapse if it happened at 9:00 am Monday rather than Sunday?
Although these are not all transport related it does seem that Montreal has a greater frequency of deadly engineering failures than any other city in North America. It seems that it is just a matter of time before the area sees a major disaster that results in hundreds of deaths.
Kate 11:46 on 2011/08/01 Permalink
Two of those were private, not infrastructure, although after them I saw a flurry of discussion about how seldom privately owned buildings are given engineering inspections. I have no idea whether changes have been made in the rules about that, or if they have been, whether anyone makes sure the new rules are followed.