montreal in a time crunch to repave camillien-houde way

montreal has known for five years that it will host an elite international road racing championship this fall, but the union representing municipal engineers says the city is in a crunch to repave camillien-houde way and other arteries this summer.mayor soraya martinez ferrada announced in mid-april that plans were in place to repair any problem roads before the uci road world championships sept. 20-27.however, the association des scientifiques et ingénieurs de montréal says the administration launched a late call for tenders — on may 14 — to award a paving contract for a 1.8-kilometre stretch of camillien-houde and sections of notre-dame st. e. and berri st., which are all part of the race circuit.the contract has the hallmarks of being awarded “in a panic,” union president gisella gesuale said.the contract should have gone to tenders in early spring for execution in may, before the summer tourist season, she said.the call for tenders document says camillien-houde will be completely closed, except to emergency vehicles, during the roadwork. it says the winning firm can move the concrete barriers that divide the road into the parking lot of the camillien-houde lookout during roadwork.although the arteries included in the contract are under city jurisdiction and will be paid for by the central city, it delegated responsibility to do the roadwork to the ville-marie borough in early march.the borough hasn’t left itself wiggle room if bids are non-compliant or come in well above the internal estimate, gesuale said. the bid deadline is june 2 and the public tender document says the contract must be awarded by the ville-marie borough council at its june 9 meeting.martinez ferrada is also the borough mayor of ville-marie. her ensemble montréal party holds five of the six borough council seats.may-june tends to be the most expensive time of year to hold a call for tenders for roadwork because construction firms are booked for the summer, gesuale said.“why are we waking up now?” she said. “when you act in an emergency, you pay more.”the union pointed to four calls for tender that were launched by the city’s central road infrastructure department between nov. 28 and april 2 to carry out the same type of surface road repaving work on arterial roads in several boroughs, including ville-marie. the union says the city could have included camillien-houde, berri and notre-dame.the mayor’s office did not respond to questions from the gazette.the city’s corporate communications office said the timing isn’t unusual.“this type of call for tenders is launched around the same time every year,” spokesperson camille bégin said in a written response. she added that it’s common for the city to delegate paving work to a borough on arterial roads on its territory.

“a single call for tenders, taking into account winter damage, is issued for completion in the same year.”the city is confident the work will be completed in time, she added.bégin said the work on camillien-houde should last about one week.“this year, due to the uci competitions, more streets need to be resurfaced,” she wrote.“the ville-marie borough is therefore calling on external contractors. if none meet the criteria, the work can be carried out by its own teams.”the city describes the uci championships as the most important international sporting event it has hosted since the 1976 summer olympic games. it learned in 2021 that it had been awarded the 2026 championships by the union cycliste internationale.montreal’s street craters made international headlines in september when a poorly patched pothole on camillien-houde caused dutch cyclist pascal eenkhoorn to fall during the annual grand prix cycliste. eenkhoorn had to abandon the race.the contract calls for 50 millimetres of asphalt to be removed and new asphalt of that thickness to be laid on the roads.the union contends it is a “one-size-fits-all” approach that likely won’t last more than a few years. gesuale said that drilling for soil samples is normally done to check the condition of the road base before deciding what intervention is needed.however, bégin said milling and resurfacing 50 millimetres, including roughening the base for better adherence of the new asphalt, is “sufficient to bring the roadway up to standard.”“this work,” she added, “complies with the city’s official road maintenance program.”the tender document says roadwork must begin by june 29, and must start with camillien-houde. all work on the three roads must be completed before aug. 17. lgyulai@postmedia.com