Various things to do with roads
Via Andy Riga on Twitter, the Quebec government list (PDF) of major roadworks planned in the Montreal area this year. La Presse looks at Quebec’s roadwork plans and the billions being poured into the effort.
More short-term: this weekend’s road closures (lovely aerial photo of the Mercier Bridge).
Also from the Journal, a bit on how a small number of construction firms still gets most of the city’s road and sidewalk contracts. But it leaves open a question: how many construction companies in Montreal have the equipment and competence to do this scale of work but are not getting the contracts?
Ian 12:59 on 2012/02/24 Permalink
I’ve often wondered that, too – if these companies get all the work, they have a budget for equipment that many other companies don’t so they not only have newer equipment, increasing their own productivity, but have access to specialized equipment their competitors don’t. It’s a catch-22 situation that could only be resolved by things like forcing contract rotation, or breaking up large projects into smaller contracts.
Robert J 13:21 on 2012/02/24 Permalink
Is 8 companies competing for roadwork that few? We’d have to compare the situation to other similar sized cities to know. (Toronto for starters)
Ian 14:55 on 2012/02/24 Permalink
Toronto’s public work contracts are structured very different legally from how things are done in Montreal (no real surprise there) and it’s not a comparable sized city – it’s twice as big.
Robert J 14:59 on 2012/02/24 Permalink
Yeah, I just figured the stats would be easy to compare per capita because its the other big Canadian city, but I guess if the legal structure’s different than it doesn’t work.
JaneyB 10:08 on 2012/02/26 Permalink
Ian – could you elaborate on the different legal structure of Toronto’s public works contracts? I’ve lived in both cities and though Toronto is intractably messed up in other ways, it does get road repairs done quickly and well. What is their secret?