Redevelopment of Sainte-Catherine / Peel Street in Montreal

Traffic Maintenance and Impact Management: Knowing How to Adapt to the Specifics of a Project

As part of this mandate, our traffic maintenance and impact management team has been working with the contractor to ensure user mobility and safety. Intervia is responsible for approving the signage and pedestrian path plans provided by the contractor and designing site plans to maintain access to businesses and institutions during the project.

The particularity of this project, located in a major commercial artery in the heart of downtown, lies in the diversity of the plans issued to ensure motor vehicle detours, pedestrian detours, and access to businesses and institutions while ensuring overall safety. This requires good coordination with the various stakeholders, agility, and adaptability from our team. Although signage plans do not require frequent revision, the same cannot be said of pedestrian route plans that are constantly evolving as the work progresses. In collaboration with the contractor, our team must therefore ensure that paths are passable, consistent, and safe at all times, in all phases of the project.

Access to shops must satisfy the merchants and pedestrians who use them. It is also essential to maintain continuity of deliveries and garbage collections without hindering construction work or pedestrian traffic.

Challenges and Issues of a Large-scale Project in the City Centre

The project context as described in the previous paragraph, inevitably brings its share of challenges and issues that must be considered and resolved to ensure the smooth evolution of the work and fluid mobility in a safe environment. The societal and economic impacts of such a project must be minimized as much as possible so as not to hinder the dynamism of this emblematic downtown sector. Indeed, as major commercial arteries, Sainte-Catherine and Peel streets require optimal accessibility even during construction periods so as not to hinder local businesses. This required ingenuity to establish delivery zones that were compatible with the site's rights-of-way and met the needs of merchants.

Pedestrian paths had to be adapted to the evolution of the work while remaining safe and practical. Our team, in collaboration with the contractor, ensures that pedestrian movement is maintained at all times and that facilities on the ground are compliant. The team must therefore demonstrate adaptability and responsiveness to minimize the impact on users and other stakeholders. The field liaison officer is also essential in ensuring smooth operations. In fact, knowing the needs of merchants in their daily lives as well as maintaining accessibility and ensuring the movement of citizens, ensure harmonious cohabitation between the construction site and residents, hence good progress of the work, while maintaining the activities of this major commercial artery. The coordination done by the liaison officer promotes collaboration among the various stakeholders and leads to better social acceptability of the project.