The Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine Bridge–Tunnel () is a highway bridge–tunnel running over and beneath the

Saint Lawrence River The St. Lawrence River (, ) is a large international river in the middle latitudes of North America connecting the Great Lakes to the North Atlantic Ocean. Its waters flow in a northeasterly direction from Lake Ontario to the Gulf of St. Lawrenc ...

. It connects the

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 ...

borough of

Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve () is a borough of Montreal, Quebec, Canada located in the southeastern end of the island. History ''See Mercier and Hochelaga-Maisonneuve articles for a more detailed histories of respective areas'' Hochelaga w ...

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, Montérégie administrative region and the central city of the urban agglomeration of Longueuil. It sits on the South Shore (Montreal), south shore o ...

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, ...

. Named after

Lower Canada The Province of Lower Canada () was a British colonization of the Americas, British colony on the lower Saint Lawrence River and the shores of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence established in 1791 and abolished in 1841. It covered the southern portion o ...

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 governme ...

, the Lafontaine Tunnel is an

immersed tube An immersed tube (or immersed tunnel) is a kind of undersea tunnel composed of segments, Modular construction, constructed elsewhere and floated to the tunnel site to be sunk into place and then linked together. They are commonly used for road an ...

structure, measuring long. It carries the Autoroute 25 expressway and passes beneath the main

shipping channel In physical geography and hydrology, a channel is a landform on which a relatively narrow body of water is situated, such as a river, river delta or strait. While ''channel'' typically refers to a natural formation, the cognate term ''canal'' de ...

in the Saint Lawrence River, immediately downstream from the

Saint Lawrence Seaway The St. Lawrence Seaway () is a system of rivers, locks, canals and channels in Eastern Canada and Northern United States that permits oceangoing vessels to travel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes of North America, as far inland ...

. It surfaces on Île Charron ( Îles de Boucherville at Exit 1 of Autoroute 25), then continues by

bridge A bridge is a structure built to Span (engineering), span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or railway) without blocking the path underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, whi ...

to Longueuil. The bridge-tunnel sees about 120,000 daily crossings, of which 13% are trucks. Construction began in 1963, and opening day was March 11, 1967.

History

In 1960, the construction 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 ...

(TCH) through

from the

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

border to

Rivière-du-Loup Rivière-du-Loup (; 2021 population 20,118) is a small city (Quebec), 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 districts of Quebec ...

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 digging, excavation or depression in the ground that is generally deeper than it is wide (as opposed to a swale (landform), swale or a bar ditch), and narrow compared with its length (as opposed to a simple hole or trapping ...

under the

river bed A streambed or stream bed is the bottom of a stream or river and is confined within a channel or the banks of the waterway. Usually, the bed does not contain terrestrial (land) vegetation and instead supports different types of aquatic vegeta ...

and buried the tunnel sections to under the river bed. The church in

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-Tu ...

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 28 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 s ...

. Construction cost $75 million. A major four-year refurbishment of the tunnel began in 2020 was originally planned to be completed 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 and that at its completion in 2025, it will have a total cost of $2.1 billion.

Specifications

Each of the seven tunnel sections weighs and is long, wide, and is high. 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 (Compression (physics), compressed) during production, in a manner that strengthens it against tensile forces which will exist when in service. Post-t ...

structures in the world and is the longest bridge-tunnel in Canada.

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 Bridges completed in 1967 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

History

Specifications

See also

References

External links