cars line up to merge eastbound onto the metropolitan expressway from the décarie expressway in montreal in may 2022.dave sidaway
/
montreal gazette
commuters can expect detours and delays this weekend as a contractor that botched the repaving of the metropolitan expressway returns to complete its redo of the western portion of the highway.transport quebec has announced that the eastbound lanes of highway 40, known as the met, will be completely closed in the west end from 11:30 p.m. friday to monday at 5 a.m. the closure will be between exit 65 (trudeau airport/highway 520/route 117/côte-de-liesse/marcel-laurin blvd.) and highway 15 at the laurentian interchange.the met is the busiest highway in the province, carrying 186,000 vehicles daily within the section that's to be closed.the disruption is due to a contractor's botched paving job going back five years. transport quebec awarded the $29-million resurfacing contract to roxboro excavation in 2019. the work on nearly 11 kilometres of the met, from provencher blvd. in the east end of the island to highway 520/cavendish blvd. in the west end, was carried out in 2021.roxboro excavation was the sole bidder on the contract.in 2022, the ministry announced that it had discovered the company had used an incorrect paving mix combining high-quality and inferior-quality bitumen from its supplier, bauval. in the west sector of the met, the deficient asphalt could potentially affect road safety, transport quebec said at the time, so it ordered that section to be completely redone.the ministry came to an agreement with roxboro excavation to have the entrepreneur completely redo the west sector of the met at its own cost and to provide extended performance guarantees on its work in the centre sector and east sector of the highway. this weekend will be the fourth time in two years that part of the west sector of the met will be closed to allow roxboro excavation to redo its paving job. the westbound lanes in that sector were redone in may and september 2024, and a first phase of repaving of the eastbound lanes was carried out in june 2025."following a thorough analysis, the ministry chose the most efficient and advantageous option for maintaining the infrastructure and ensuring user safety," the ministry said in an email of its agreement with roxboro excavation.under the agreement, roxboro excavation provided a five-year performance guarantee for the east sector of the met, from provencher to st-laurent blvd. the guarantee was effective from the initial laying of the asphalt and required the firm to carry out corrective work at its own expense in case of such deficiencies as asphalt "bleeding" and rutting of a certain size. transport quebec did not exercise its guarantee for the east sector, ministry spokesperson sarah bensadoun said tuesday.roxboro excavation provided a four-year performance guarantee on the centre sector of the met, from st-laurent to canora rd., and carried out corrective work in 2024, the ministry said.meanwhile, the epically long repaving of the met is a temporary fix pending an overhaul of the highway. the met is part of the trans-canada highway, and it's the busiest stretch of the highway in the country.while it was built to handle 89,000 vehicles per day, the met was well above that number four years after its first elevated section opened in 1960.during this weekend's closure, eastbound traffic from the met will be diverted onto the service road, côte-de-liesse rd.alternative routes suggested by the ministry are northbound highway 13 (chomedey), eastbound highway 440 (jean-noël-lavoie) and southbound highway 15 (laurentian). the following default closures will begin a half-hour earlier than the closing of the met, from 11 p.m. friday to 5 a.m. monday:
highway 40 (metropolitan) east entrance from cavendish blvd.
ramp from highway 520 east to highway 40 (metropolitan) east
highway 40 (metropolitan) east on-ramp from marcel-laurin blvd.
highway 40 (metropolitan) east ramp to highway 15 (décarie expressway) south
highway 15 (décarie expressway) north ramp to highway 40 (metropolitan)
entrance to highway 40 (metropolitan) east at ste-croix ave.
exit 68 (stinson st./rockland rd./acadie blvd.) from highway 40 (metropolitan) east
highway 40 (metropolitan) east ramp to highway 15 (laurentian) north
exit 71 (route 335/st-laurent blvd./st-denis st.) from highway 40 (metropolitan) east
linda gyulai has covered municipal affairs for different media in montreal for 29 years. recognitions include the 2009 michener award for meritorious public service journalism.
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