Managing Montreal’s Turcot Interchange Project and Providing Post-Construction Inspection

Challenge

The Turcot Interchange Project reconstructed four interchanges and three highway segments and relocated tracks of the Canadian National Railway—all in Canada’s busiest corridor, with more than 300,000 vehicles commuting daily. The project covered 21 square kilometers in a dense metropolitan area and involved many stakeholders. It was completed in 2021 as the largest project carried out by the ministère des Transports et de la Mobilité durable du Québec and its first carbon-neutral road infrastructure project. The main challenges were rebuilding the infrastructure in restricted spaces, limiting closures to avoid spillover into neighborhoods, and harmoniously integrating the project into the environment of the neighborhoods it crosses.

Solution

Our integrated team employed a strategy of two project delivery modes: 35 work packages delivered in traditional mode starting in 2011, and the main contract in alternative design-build mode. We demonstrated the efficiency of the alternative mode, which is more commonly applied in project management today. We formulated the technical contractual requirements to maintain road and rail mobility through 35 temporary structures while fostering contractor creativity.

The project supported the sustainable integration of infrastructure into neighborhoods through architectural elements, three signature bridges, safe solutions for public and active transportation, and air and sound quality measurement systems. We developed and introduced into the main contract a methodology for calculating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions produced by on-site activities and off-site transportation. The environmental quality team monitored the impact of construction 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Following project completion, our inspection team provided inventory and quality control for the 110 structures of the Turcot project.