The Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine Bridge–Tunnel (french: Pont-Tunnel Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine) is a highway
bridge–tunnel
A bridge–tunnel is a persistent, unbroken road or rail connection across water that uses a combination of bridges and tunnels, and sometimes causeways, and does not involve intermittent connections such as drawbridges or ferries.
Bridge–tunne ...
running over and beneath the
Saint Lawrence River
The St. Lawrence River (french: Fleuve Saint-Laurent, ) is a large river in the middle latitudes of North America. Its headwaters begin flowing from Lake Ontario in a (roughly) northeasterly direction, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, connectin ...
. It connects the
Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...
borough of
Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve
Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve is a Montreal borough, borough of Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada located in the southeastern end of the island.
History
''See Mercier, Montreal, Mercier and Hochelaga-Maisonneuve#History, Hochelaga-Maisonneuve ...
with the
south shore of the river at
Longueuil
Longueuil () is a city in the province of Quebec, Canada. It is the seat of the Montérégie administrative region and the central city of the urban agglomeration of Longueuil. It sits on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River directly acr ...
,
Quebec
Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
.
Named after
Lower Canada
The Province of Lower Canada (french: province du Bas-Canada) was a British colony on the lower Saint Lawrence River and the shores of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence (1791–1841). It covered the southern portion of the current Province of Quebec an ...
political reformer
Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine
Sir Louis-Hippolyte Ménard '' dit'' La Fontaine, 1st Baronet, KCMG (October 4, 1807 – February 26, 1864) was a Canadian politician who served as the first Premier of the United Province of Canada and the first head of a responsible governmen ...
, the Lafontaine Tunnel is an
immersed tube
An immersed tube (or immersed tunnel) is a kind of undersea tunnel composed of segments, constructed elsewhere and floated to the tunnel site to be sunk into place and then linked together. They are commonly used for road and rail crossings of r ...
structure, measuring long. It carries the
Autoroute 25 expressway
Expressway may refer to:
* Controlled-access highway, the highest-grade type of highway with access ramps, lane markings, etc., for high-speed traffic.
* Limited-access road, a lower grade of highway or arterial road.
*Expressway, the fictional s ...
and passes beneath the main
shipping channel
In physical geography, a channel is a type of landform consisting of the outline of a path of relatively shallow and narrow body of water or of other fluids (e.g., lava), most commonly the confine of a river, river delta or strait. The word is c ...
in the Saint Lawrence River immediately downstream from the
Saint Lawrence Seaway
The St. Lawrence Seaway (french: la Voie Maritime du Saint-Laurent) is a system of locks, canals, and channels in Canada and the United States that permits oceangoing vessels to travel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes of North Americ ...
. It surfaces on
Île Charron (
Îles de Boucherville at entrance/exit #1 of Autoroute 25), then continues by
bridge
A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...
to Longueuil. The bridge-tunnel sees about 120,000 daily crossings, of which 13% are trucks.
Its construction began in 1963 and it opened on March 11, 1967.
History
In 1960, the construction of the
Trans-Canada Highway
The Trans-Canada Highway ( 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 Atlantic Ocean o ...
(TCH) through Quebec from the
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
border to
Rivière-du-Loup
Rivière-du-Loup (; 2021 population 20,118) is a small city on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River in Quebec. The city is the seat for the Rivière-du-Loup Regional County Municipality and the judicial district of Kamouraska. Its one of ...
was announced. In Montreal, to avoid having to build a huge bridge that would have disfigured the city and destroyed a neighbourhood, engineers opted for the construction of a tunnel located under the Saint Lawrence River and dug a
trench
A trench is a type of excavation or in the ground that is generally deeper than it is wide (as opposed to a wider gully, or ditch), and narrow compared with its length (as opposed to a simple hole or pit).
In geology, trenches result from eros ...
under the
river bed
A stream bed or streambed is the bottom of a stream or river (bathymetry) or the physical confine of the normal water flow (channel). The lateral confines or channel margins are known as the stream banks or river banks, during all but flood st ...
and buried the tunnel sections to under the river bed.
The
Longue-Pointe
Longue-Pointe () was a Montreal List of neighbourhoods in Montreal, neighbourhood now located in the borough of Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. The neighborhood was permanently divided by the construction of the Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine Bridge-T ...
church had to be demolished to make way for the tunnel, and 300 families were expropriated from the village in 1964. The construction was completed in March 1967, just before the opening of
Expo 67
The 1967 International and Universal Exposition, commonly known as Expo 67, was a general exhibition from April 27 to October 29, 1967. It was a category One World's Fair held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is considered to be one of the most su ...
. Construction cost $75 million.
A major four-year refurbishment of the tunnel began in 2020, originally planned to complete in 2024 at a cost of $1.2 billion, but in 2022 it was announced that the project would take a year longer than expected, completing in 2025 at a total cost of $2.1 billion.
Specifications
![Tunnellafontaine](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/Tunnellafontaine.jpg)
Each of the seven tunnel sections weighs ,
is long, wide and rises to a height of . In total, the bridge–tunnel is long.
The tunnel was built with sections prefabricated in
dry dock
A dry dock (sometimes drydock or dry-dock) is a narrow basin or vessel that can be flooded to allow a load to be floated in, then drained to allow that load to come to rest on a dry platform. Dry docks are used for the construction, maintenance, ...
and then sunk in the river,
below the surface of the water.
It is one of the largest
prestressed concrete
Prestressed concrete is a form of concrete used in construction. It is substantially "prestressed" ( compressed) during production, in a manner that strengthens it against tensile forces which will exist when in service. Post-tensioned concreted i ...
structures in the world and is the longest bridge-tunnel in Canada.
See also
*
List of crossings of the Saint Lawrence River
This is a list of bridges, ferries, and other crossings of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Saint Lawrence River, and Great Lakes, by order of south shore terminal running from the Gulf of Saint Lawrence upstream to Lake Superior.
Crossings
Quebec
Lo ...
*
List of bridges in Canada
This is a list of bridges and viaducts in Canada, including those for pedestrians and vehicular traffic.
Historical and architectural interest bridges
There are only a few covered bridges left in Canada compared to all those that were built in t ...
*
List of bridges in Montreal
Like most major cities, Montreal needs easy highway access from its suburbs and surrounding areas. However, because Montreal was built on Island of Montreal, an island surrounded by three rivers, it can be entered by land only on a bridge or throu ...
References
External links
Louis-Hippolyte Bridge–Tunnel (A-25) at Steve Anderson's montrealroads.com*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine Bridge-Tunnel
Bridges in Montreal
Bridge–tunnels in North America
Transport in Longueuil
Bridges over the Saint Lawrence River
Tunnels completed in 1967
Bridges on the Trans-Canada Highway
Tunnels on the Trans-Canada Highway
Buildings and structures in Longueuil
Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve
Road bridges in Quebec
Road tunnels in Quebec
Immersed tube tunnels in Canada
1967 establishments in Quebec