Autoroute 15 is a

highway A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It includes not just major roads, but also other public roads and rights of way. In the United States, it is also used as an equivalent term to controlled-access highway, or ...

in western

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

, Canada. It is also called the Décarie Expressway (English) or (French) between the Turcot and Décarie Interchanges in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

and the Laurentian Autoroute (English) or (French) north of Autoroute 40. It was, until the extension of Autoroute 25 was opened in 2011, the only constructed north-south autoroute to go out of Montreal on both sides. A-15 begins at the end of Interstate 87 at the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

border at Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle and extends via Montreal to

Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts () is a town in the province of Quebec, Canada, in the regional county municipality of Les Laurentides in the administrative region of Laurentides, also known as the "Laurentians" or the Laurentian Mountains (in English) ...

with an eventual continuation beyond

Mont-Tremblant Mont-Tremblant () is a List of cities in Canada, city in the Laurentian Mountains of Quebec, Canada, approximately northwest of Montreal and northeast of Ottawa, Ontario. The current municipality with city status was formed in 2000. Mont-Tremb ...

. The total length of A-15 is , including a short concurrency () with Autoroute 40 (Boulevard/Autoroute Métropolitan) that connects the two main sections. It is one of the few autoroutes in Quebec that does not have any spinoff highways.

Road description

Southern section

The southern section of A-15 connects the south shore suburbs of

and is also the primary trade corridor route between Montreal and

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

linking Quebec Autoroute 15 to Interstate 87 at the Canada-United States border at the Champlain-St. Bernard de Lacolle Border Crossing. This was the former Route 9, and connected with US 9 on the western shore of

Lake Champlain Lake Champlain ( ; , ) is a natural freshwater lake in North America. It mostly lies between the U.S. states of New York (state), New York and Vermont, but also extends north into the Canadian province of Quebec. The cities of Burlington, Ve ...

. In

Brossard Brossard ( , , ) is a municipality in the Montérégie region of Quebec, Canada and is part of the Greater Montreal, Greater Montreal area. According to the Canada 2021 Census, 2021 census, Brossard's population was 91,525. It shares powers with ...

, it joins up with

A-10 The Fairchild Republic A-10 , also infamously known under the nickname , is a single-seat, twin-turbofan, straight-wing, subsonic attack aircraft developed by Fairchild Republic for the United States Air Force (USAF). In service since 19 ...

and A-20 across the Champlain Bridge into Montreal. The A-10 splits off almost immediately after crossing the bridge to head into downtown Montreal at the Bonaventure Expressway and the A-20 splits off shortly after at the

Turcot Interchange The Turcot Interchange is a three-level four-way freeway interchange within the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Located southwest of downtown, the interchange links Autoroutes 15 (Décarie and Décarie South Expressways) and 20 (Remembrance ...

(''échangeur Turcot''), leaving the A-15 to continue northward as Autoroute Décarie until the Décarie Interchange (''échangeur Décarie'') with the A-40 at the point where it turns from the Trans-Canada into the Metropolitan Expressway. The route is also connected to Autoroute 30 in Candiac which was completed to Autoroute 20 in 2012 providing quick access to the south shore of Montreal, to southern communities located alongside Autoroute 15 and to the Canada–US border in Lacolle. It will also give quicker access from there to areas west of Montreal and also

Ottawa Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

and

Gatineau Gatineau ( ; ) is a city in southwestern Quebec, Canada. It is located on the northern bank of the Ottawa River, directly across from Ottawa, Ontario. Gatineau is the largest city in the Outaouais administrative region of Quebec and is also p ...

Décarie Autoroute

The Décarie Autoroute is a sunken highway between the northbound and southbound lanes of Decarie Boulevard from the Metropolitan Autoroute at its northern end to Monkland Avenue and the Villa Maria Metro station at its southern end. It was built on a wide expanse of vacant land, donated to the city by the Décarie estate on the condition that a streetcar line would be established. The decommissioning of the streetcar system in 1959 left the right-of-way as an obvious choice for a highway and so the Décarie Autoroute was dug there. South of Queen Mary Road, however, a significant number of houses were demolished. To avoid demolishing Notre-Dame-de-Grâce Church, the highway makes a slight westerly jog below Côte-Saint-Luc Road and runs through a short

tunnel A tunnel is an underground or undersea passageway. It is dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, or laid under water, and is usually completely enclosed except for the two portals common at each end, though there may be access and ve ...

, before emerging between Addington and Botrel Streets and running down to

Sherbrooke Street Sherbrooke Street (officially in ) is a major east–west artery and at in length, is the second longest street on the Island of Montreal, Canada. The street begins in the town of Montreal West, Quebec, Montreal West and ends on the extreme ...

and

Saint Jacques Street Saint Jacques Street (, ), or St. James Street, is a major street in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, running from Old Montreal westward to Lachine. In 1818 the Bank of Montreal built its headquarters on St James, which began the development of the ...

, where it spectacularly goes from being below the ground to well above the ground as it intersects with Autoroute 20 and Route 136 in the infamous

(dubbed " Spaghetti Junction" by train crews operating the former CN Rail Turcot Yard). Following the conversion from streetcar line to the highway, the Décarie estate sued the city but was unable to prevail because it did not document its case well enough for the nevertheless sympathetic court.

Décarie Boulevard

Décarie Boulevard itself continues; from Monkland Avenue south to Saint Jacques Street past the

McGill University Health Centre The McGill University Health Centre (MUHC; ) is one of two major healthcare networks in the city of Montreal, Montreal, Quebec. It is affiliated with McGill University and one of the largest medical complexes in Montreal. It is the largest hospita ...

Glen Campus superhospital; and from Autoroute 40 north into

past Du College Station and

Côte-Vertu Station Côte-Vertu station is a Montreal Metro station in the borough of Saint-Laurent in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is operated by the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) and serves the Orange Line. It opened on November 3, 1986 and has been ...

Norgate shopping centre This is a list of small shopping centres (mostly neighbourhood shopping centres) in the island of Montreal. *A neighbourhood shopping centre is an industry term in North America for a shopping centre with of gross leasable area, typically ancho ...

to Poirier Street. Between Monkland Avenue and A 40, Décarie Boulevard serves as sort of a service road on both sides of the autoroute.

Northern section

After its concurrency with A-40, the northern section of A-15 is the main highway route to the

Laurentian Mountains The Laurentian Mountains, also known as the Laurentians or Laurentides, are a mountain range in Canada. The range is long and ranges in height from with peaks over . The Laurentian Mountains extend across Labrador and Quebec within the Laurent ...

Laurentides The Laurentides (, ) is a region of Quebec. While it is often called the Laurentians in English, the region includes only part of the Laurentian Mountains. It has a total land area of and its population was 589,400 inhabitants as of the 2016 C ...

, until it downgrades to Route 117. It also links up to the northern suburbs of Montreal, as well as provides a connection to the A-440, A-640 and the A-50 in Mirabel. The first section from A-40 to

Saint-Jérôme Saint-Jérôme () ( 2021 population 80,213) is a suburban city located about northwest of Montreal on the Rivière du Nord. It is part of the North Shore sector of Greater Montreal. It is a gateway to the Laurentian Mountains and its reso ...

was opened on August 29, 1959 (source Montreal Star Aug. 29, 1959, page 3) as a toll road, although the tolls were removed in 1985. This section was also the first to be designed as an autoroute in the province. It was named Autoroute Montréal-Laurentides during the 1960s. Over the next years, it was extended north to Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts as a new connection to touristic and skiing destinations in the Laurentides including in Saint-Sauveur, Sainte-Adèle and Estérel. In the future, it is possible that the A-15 may continue even farther north, past

, as Route 117 is already an at-grade expressway with a freeway bypass of Mont-Tremblant completed, and the name ''Autoroute des Laurentides'' is also recognized on the freeway bypass (and exit numbers continue). This section is numbered separately from the southern section as if it were a different route. The northern route is also part of the

Trans-Canada Highway The Trans-Canada Highway (Canadian French, French: ; abbreviated as the TCH or T-Can) is a transcontinental federal–provincial highway system that travels through all ten provinces of Canada, from the Pacific Ocean on the west coast to the A ...

Exit list

Exit numbering resets at the two interchanges with Autoroute 40 in

Montréal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

Rest Areas

Disasters

On February 19, 2020, white-out conditions caused a pile-up involving more than 200 vehicles in La Prairie, a suburb of

. Two people died and more than 70 were injured. On June 18, 2000, the southern portion of the Boulevard du Souvenir overpass in Laval (which crosses over Quebec Autoroute 15), under reconstruction, collapsed into the roadway, killing one and injuring two when cars were crushed underneath the structure. Sixteen beams weighing about each fell. The contractor was faulted for shoddy work. The arched

concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of aggregate bound together with a fluid cement that cures to a solid over time. It is the second-most-used substance (after water), the most–widely used building material, and the most-manufactur ...

beams were unsecured and tipped over like

dominoes Dominoes is a family of tile-based games played with gaming pieces. Each domino is a rectangular tile, usually with a line dividing its face into two square ''ends''. Each end is marked with a number of spots (also called ''Pip (counting), pips ...

, many of them breaking into pieces. The expressway has also seen flooding. On July 14, 1987, a sudden torrential downpour caused by an HP

supercell A supercell is a thunderstorm characterized by the presence of a mesocyclone, a deep, persistently rotating updraft. Due to this, these storms are sometimes referred to as rotating thunderstorms. Of the four classifications of thunderstorms (su ...

thunderstorm A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm or a lightning storm, is a storm characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustics, acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere, known as thunder. Relatively weak thunderstorm ...

dumped over of rain in just over one hour across the city. The Décarie Expressway, which is below-grade, was heavily flooded and became a river. At some locations, the water reached a maximum of in depth on the roadway. Over 300 vehicles were abandoned when they were submerged. Two people were killed by the storm. One 80-year-old man on the Expressway drowned and another one was killed by electrical wires (

electrocuted Electrocution is death or severe injury caused by electric shock from electric current passing through the body. The word is derived from "electro" and "execution", but it is also used for accidental death. The term "electrocution" was coined ...

). On July 5, 2005, another torrential downpour flooded portions of the Expressway after several manhole covers blew open from the storm sewers below them being overloaded.Canoe – Infos – Québec-Canada: 30 millimètres d’eau en deux minutes sur l’autoroute Décarie
/ref>

Notes

References

External links

A-15 at motorways-exits.com

A-15 at Quebec Autoroutes

Steve Anderson's MontrealRoads.com: Decarie Autoroute (A-15)

Steve Anderson's MontrealRoads.com: Laurentian Autoroute (A-15)

Transports Quebec Map
{{Streets in Montreal 15 Quebec 015 Roads in Laval, Quebec Roads in Montreal Verdun, Quebec Transport in Brossard Former toll roads in Canada