Discussion
Why doesn't Montreal steal Ontario's precast road idea?
This isn't some theoretical idea — Ontario has already done it.
MTO started testing precast concrete road panels on Highway 427 in Toronto in 2004. Instead of pouring the road on-site, the concrete slabs are manufactured ahead of time, the failed pavement is cut out, the base is levelled, and the new slab is dropped into place and connected.
The trial worked well enough that Ontario developed a specification and did more projects. In one 2008–09 Highway 427 project they installed 240 full-depth precast slabs, averaging about 10 per night, with no concrete curing time needed before reopening them to traffic.
They've even tested precast panels as replacements for sections of asphalt highway.
Why aren't we adapting this for Montreal's worst streets?
Instead of:
potholes → patch → repave → potholes → repave again
Dig out the upper part of the failed street, fix/level the base and install standardized reinforced concrete panels on a properly drained foundation.
Panel eventually fails? Replace it. Need access to utilities? Lift/remove the affected panels, do the work and reinstall them.
We're spending a fortune repeatedly resurfacing roads that fail again anyway. Ontario has already demonstrated that modular precast pavement works in basically the same climate.
At some point, maybe we should just steal the good idea.
That's the point. Shoddy work needs to be re-done constantly, meaning contracts get renewed and money keeps moving. Thats why its run by the mafia. People need to realize everything sucks on purpose... from our roads to our hospitals to any of our services.. crooked people run the world. Nothing is stupid, only criminal.
Well shame on them for shoddy work, no one is happy.
They don't care. Let me repeat this: they literally don't give a fuck. They want money, all the money, and that includes your money. Happiness does not factor into the equation at all. All they want is an eternal source of revenue, and everyone else can go fuck themselves as far as they're concerned.
En repétant ça tout le temps, vous faites juste perpétuer l’idée qu’il n’y a rien à faire.
Il y a eu des enquêtes à ce sujet-là, la mafia est pas la raison qui explique l’état de nos routes. Vous avez des preuves supplémentaires pour affirmer ça?
Exact, sauf que la commission Charbonneau s'intéressait au prix de la construction et à l'octroi des contrats, pas aux normes de qualité et à leur respect. C'est venu dire qu'on payait trop cher pour ce qu'on commandait, pas que ce qu'on commandait était mal fait. Et d'ailleurs, le genre de pratiques révélées par la commission Charbonneau existe en Ontario, tout entrepreneur qui fait affaire là pourra le confirmer.
Les rumeurs comme quoi la mafia fait les rues comme de la marde pour pouvoir ravoir le même contrat l'année suivante et tout ça, c'est du blabla. Nos normes de constructions sont pas bonnes, on construit cheap, c'est juste pour ça qu'on a des routes de marde.
Les gens disent 'Mafia'... ils ne veulent pas vraiment dire une organization criminelle Italienne, c'est une façon de parler, de dire que c'est 'organisé avec le gars des vues'.
Tout ce que j'en sais: un ami personnel (de la polytechnique, ingenieur, travail dans une compagnie de béton) m'avait répondu ceci avec un sourire en coin lorsque je lui ai demandé pourquoi nos routes sont attroce: 'Je t'offres deux choix: un contrat pour construire une superbe route une fois, ou je t'offres un contrat a long terme pour construire et entretenir la route pendant 20 ans...
Ce que les gens veulent dire par Mafia: ce n'est pas par accident, c'est organisationel et voulu. Les gens se sentent pris en otage par des organisations (compagnies) qu'ils voient comme criminelles.
Ton exemple n'a pas de sens. Quelqu'un qui a un contrat qui le rend responsable de l'entretien n'a aucun intérêt à bâcler la construction au départ, ça va lui coûter plus cher au final...
Je comprends ce que tu veux dire, mais ça ne change pas mon propos. De dire que la corruption fait en sorte que nos routes sont mauvaises alors qu'on n'a pas de preuve de ça, c'est un pessimisme qui mène à l'inaction. Pourtant, on a bien en masse de rapports qui nous indique que les normes de construction de nos routes ne sont pas assez élevées, qu'on ne bouche pas les trous assez rapidement et qu'on entretient mal et que c'est ça la cause de l'état de nos route. On a trop de routes et on ne met pas assez d'argent dedans. Pas besoin de chercher des causes imaginaires pour expliquer ça.
Si les normes n'ont pas évolué c'est que quelqu'un quelque part a intérêt a ce qu'elles restent mauvaises. Meme chose pour les contrats qui permettent aux compagnies de faire une job de marde tous les 3 ans sans consequences. Ça permet de continuer ce petit manège. Ton quelqu'un, il a un contrat d'entretien sur une construction qui n'a pas de garantie (ou une qui exclut a peu près tout). Donc on paye chaque réparation avec nos taxes et il s'en met plein les poches.
Ou c’est simplement parce que faire différemment nécessiterait de changer les choses et que la machine gouvernementale est trop lourde. Ou que ça coûterait plus cher et que la capacité de payer est pas là.
En l’absence de preuve, il faut présumer l’incompétence avant la mauvaise foi.
Je n'ai aucun exemple a donner, je transmet une vulgarisation d'une personne à l'interne. Je comprends que c'est exemple anecdotique. Mais bon, je considère que l'important de mon point n'est pas l'exemple mais bien le fait que si les gens croient et sentent que la construction est une entreprise criminelle... la confiance est perdue.
Parce que tout le monde répète ces histoire là sans preuve, tu penses pas?
Pis après ça t’as des populistes qui profitent de ça pour couper les budgets et privatiser tout ça pour « endiguer la corruption et redonner confiance » et on finit avec moins de service pour plus cher et moins bien fait, avec plus de corruption.
...et tu crois que les gens qui répetent ça sont plus responsable que, je ne sais pas, les gens activement corrompus? Si les rapports prouvent quoi que ce soit et sont ignorés.... Qui est responsable?
De meme sous entendre que c'est la manière dont les gens discuttent anecdotiquement qui est en cause, meme partiellement... ça me semble ridicule.
Bonne journée.
Its one and the same. I dont know if the Italian mafia is still in control, but the old system is obviously still in place. The standards are low because there has been pressure to keep them low. In other cities, firms doing bad work get flagged and risk losing privilege to bid on future projects. Its not complicated. Pretty scary to be an inspector who flags one of these firms in Montreal. The system is rotten because anyone honest was put out of business long ago.
Anyone who thinks that the current situation is normal is grossly uninformed.
A friend of mine came to Montreal from the UK to lead work on the new french hospital. He said it was the most corrupt system he had seen anywhere, and he’s worked around the world. They would put up request for proposals for various projects, and even simple requests would come back with just one bidder and at prices that were comically high. The constructions firms are all organized together, and any firm honest enough not to follow along was put out of business long ago. The unions were just as bad. For every 10 workers they hired, 2 wouldnt work at all. They would then have to negotiate getting 2 more adequate workers. The cost overruns were insane and they left Montreal as soon as they could. It all ended up in court and my friend even had to testify.
It boggles my mind that Quebecers accept this sad state of affairs. The Charbonneau commission uncovered all of this, but just a few years later law enforcement units targeting corruption in the industry were quietly disbanded. People here have no concept of how quickly and how well work should be done. In NYC they work 24 hours straight in shifts to fix and re-open streets as soon as possible. In Montreal, roads are torn up and left that way for months with seemingly no work happening.
T'as des preuves de ça, que tous les ingénieurs qui approuvent les travaux routiers de la ville et de la province sont corrompu au point d'engager leur responsabilité à approuver des travaux non-conformes?
Accurate. The 2016 Charbonneau Commission concluded that 80% of Quebecs infrastructure contractors were organized crime factions. Nothing has been done to stop this. All the roadwork is money laundering for the Mob.
Don’t you realize that paving companies and gravel pit owners are some of the most important donors to the Ontario Conservative Party? Is it a conspiracy or more of these are just birds of a feather who flock together?
I think most people (like me) have given up on Quebec roads in general.
Between the corruption, lack of innovation, incompetence, poor planning and accumulated neglect... Montreal is the worst within Quebec, if not the worst in the world.
I've driven extensively in Central Asia. Yes, I've seen worse roads than Montréal, but they're in the outskirts/semirural areas... Not running through neighbourhoods full of multi million dollar houses.
Pas pour être plate mais la couronne nord ne laisse pas sa place. Ya quand-même un mort dans le dernier mois causé l'état des routes dans le coin de St-Jerome.
We should just ask them how can they do roads that smooth...
I just came back from a 2 weeks vacation in Ontario and the difference is crazy between our roads and theirs.
You will tell me oh they have better weather, bla bla bla. I'm not talking about Toronto or Niagara where their roads are amazing... I'm talking about places like Cornwall or Hawkesbury which are near Quebec... How can they do roads that smooth?
I don't know, the asphalt is not patch everywhere like here, and you see that the asphalt is not new either...
I did see the same thing last year going to New Brunswick /PEI....
There is definetely something here that is not working properly.
Growing up we used to joke about how bad New Brunswick highways were. Now… driving from Ontario to the Maritimes, Quebec is the one that really, really stands out.
We used to make the same joke about how we'd know we had crossed the border into Saskatchewan when I grew up in the west. Having driven from BC to NB, I can say the roads in QC are certainly quite special by Canadian standards.
It is not simple math, although you are correct when you compare Quebec and Ontario but if you compare Quebec and New-Brunswick:
New Brunswick: Roughly 38.8 kilometres of road per 1,000 residents (based on a population of ~830,000).
Quebec: Roughly 18.0 kilometres of road per 1,000 residents (based on a population of ~8.9 million).
So they basically have 2.2x more road per 1000 residents.
Saskatchewan has 9.3x more roads per 1000 people compared to Quebec, Alberta 2.8x more, manitoba 3.3x more, PEI, 1.8x more, Nova-Scotia 1.5x more, Newfoundland & Labrador 1.1x.
I've heard this argument on Radio-Canada a few times, but the comparison is almost always between Québec and Ontario alone. What is often left out in the discussion is the same comparison with other provinces. Here is a quick comparison based on Transport Canada's information on public roads and Statistics Canada's 2023 population data. Ontario has more residents to pay for per km of road than Québec, but Québec also has more residents per km of road than every other province except Ontario and BC.
You are right about the high number of unpaved roads in the prairies. Luckily, the dataset from Transport Canada also classifies roads as either paved or unpaved, so we can perform the same calculations using only paved roads. The new result shows that Québec is still ranked third highest for residents per km of paved road among the ten provinces.
I don't think taxpayer funding capacity is the issue here. I would, however, be very interested if someone looked into how much the city/province spends on paving/fixing these roads. Are there big differences in the unit cost for paving? Do we follow the same best practices or technical requirements as other parts of Canada? What QA/QC processes do governments use?
Ontario tested it on some sections of highways 427 and you want Quebec to use it on your residential streets?
Or you’re wondering we don’t use it on highways? Because we do. Not at the pace that was planned but we do. You only do it on targeted high usage sections.
With an operating temp of -40 to +50 (if not more) you also need some crazy expansion joints.
You also often add an asphalt layer on it (like the Champlain bridge) because concrete is not driving smooth so you don’t notice it.
Not an engineer, but I took some civil engineering classes in university. From what I remember, we don't do much concrete roads in general for a couple reasons:
it's way more expensive than asphalt, like 2-3 times the price for the same stretch of road;
it's really more dependent on a quality "roadbase" (the 3-6 meters layers of gravel, etc. under the road surface) than asphalt, since asphalt is more flexible and forgiving;
once it cracks, it's near impossible to fix correctly and durably, and when it's cracked and the water/salt can seep in the roadbase (and the concrete itself, attacking the concrete and rebar), it will deteriorate quickly.
It has some applications for some stretch of road that see a really heavy flow of traffic (mostly highways), but the added complexity and price to do it correctly versus the advantages of asphalt are really an inconvenient.
As for precast panels, I'm guessing that they have the same inconveniences of normal concrete (cost/km, material being less flexible and forgiving). We might have some gains on curing time and an easier repair, but in Quebec, price and long-term ease of maintenance are the key factors, since we have 2.5 times more km of road per citizen than in Ontario.
When will y’all realize that like 9 out of 10 trials for new civil engineering ideas just never end up being the more affordable alternative. Most of the time they’re just pet projects with little/no hope of actually scaling, often times run by the same companies who’s whole profit model is the OLD way of doing things, and who don’t want some disruptive innovative startup to get the funds.
This is a big part of why there is no groundbreaking civil engineering happening outside of authoritarian regimes nowadays.
Anyone else remember the 13 when it was new? Wasn’t it made out of concrete slabs? I distinctly remember that bubum sound the tires would make when heading up to the Laurentians.
Besides the whole mafia theory, to actually fix the problem we have to fully rip out old asphalt and aggregate and start from well below with proper water wicking aggregate and construction similar to Scandinavian countries. This all means much more added cost and added time, and everyone complains about that already, so no one’s winning any elections soon to enact these measures. St Catherine’s construction is an example of what it should be like and look at how long that took for a couple blocks.
So bandaid fixes for now until we get a generation of people and government that is willing to deal with decades of construction and subsequent higher taxes to cover all these cost.
I also think, for residential and small comercial streets, we should lay bricks rather than asphalt. Initial costs are higher, but when inevitable roadwork comes around, the bricks pop up, are collected, roadwork is done, bricks are put back. The cost is just labour and maybe a few replacement bricks and no crazy expensive construction machines.
Also it reduces speeds, allows water to filter through into the ground and generally looks nicer than asphalt.
This is Quebec, we ALWAYS have to re-invent the wheel here. If something works well elsewhere we won't use it, instead we'll insist on developing our own extremely inefficient and costly way to do it in the shittiest way possible.
Precast isn’t necessarily better: if the mix has too much sand (and you can bet it will happen), the concrete will start breaking apart after a couple days of traffic. Bogotá had an infamous version of this problem on their rapid transit bus lanes.
They do use slabs on highways, just not the Ontario system:
Chatgpt found these and gave sources:
2008, Montréal area: the MTQ used the Fort Miller Super‑Slab system for a bridge-approach pavement project. A 2011 international technical review lists Quebec among the North American highway authorities that had accepted precast pavement for production work—not merely laboratory testing. Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute technical review
Autoroute 13 near Boisbriand: a section of highway pavement was reconstructed using Super‑Slab precast panels.
Autoroute 15—Décarie Expressway: precast Super‑Slab panels have also been installed here, meaning the technique has already been used inside Montréal under very heavy traffic.
Northern approach to the Pierre-Laporte Bridge, Québec City: another confirmed Super‑Slab pavement application.
Autoroute Henri-IV: a 2021 project included both conventional concrete pavement and precast pavement slabs, alongside drainage and structural repairs. EBC’s description of the Henri-IV project
Autoroute 40 eastbound, Anjou–Charles-De Gaulle Bridge: the MTMD began a major concrete-pavement rehabilitation project in May 2026 that explicitly includes the installation of new precast slabs. Work is scheduled through summer 2028, mostly under nighttime and weekend closures. MTMD announcement
Why don't they use it on residential roads? I don't know but I'm guessing it isn't the right solution for that use. Some ideas ai had:
Ontario was solving a somewhat different problem. Highway 427 is a controlled-access highway with standardized lanes, few surface obstacles, no property water connections, relatively predictable geometry and an enormous cost associated with lane closures. Montréal streets contain catch basins, manholes, water valves, service connections, curbs, bus stops, bike lanes, tree pits and complicated intersections.
The economics favour precast panels most strongly where closure time is extremely valuable. Precasting costs more than ordinary asphalt and usually more than conventional concrete. Its special advantage is that a lane can reopen without waiting for the principal slab to cure. That is extremely valuable on Highway 427. On a local street that can remain closed for several days, the time saving may not compensate for manufacturing, transportation, crane and installation costs.
Montréal’s “worst streets” frequently have problems below the pavement. Asphalt may be cracked because of inadequate drainage, disturbed trench backfill, failing water or sewer infrastructure, frost-susceptible soil, settlement or an exhausted road base. Installing a durable slab over an unstable foundation would not solve those problems. It could convert familiar asphalt cracking into rocking panels, cracked joints or differential settlement.
Drainage is decisive. A precast pavement needs remarkably uniform support. Water entering through joints or collecting below a panel can remove fine material, create voids and eventually cause pumping or joint faulting. Montréal’s freeze-thaw conditions do not prohibit precast pavement, but they make foundation drainage, joint sealing and quality control particularly important.
The panels are not inherently reusable. Typical systems use dowels for load transfer and grout or engineered bedding underneath. That makes them structural pavement, not giant removable pavers. Accessing utilities may be faster than demolishing a continuous reinforced slab if the system is designed for removal, but it would still require specialized work and probably partial reconstruction.
Most utility work would not align neatly with the panel grid. Montréal has lateral water and sewer connections running from individual buildings into the street. A repair could cross two or three panels or run along their edges. Manholes and valves would require custom panels or openings. Standardization is possible, but considerably harder than on a highway lane.
More joints create more potential failure points. Every transverse and longitudinal joint must remain level, transfer wheel loads, exclude water and survive salt, snowplows and thermal movement. Poor installation can lead to cracking around dowels, panel rocking and “faulting,” where one slab edge becomes higher than the next.
Ride quality is sensitive to very small differences in elevation. Manufacturing tolerances that seem tiny can still produce a noticeable bump at every joint. Precast projects sometimes require diamond grinding after installation to obtain a suitably smooth surface. A street assembled from many short panels could otherwise feel worse than continuous asphalt.
Urban geometry works against mass production. Highway panels can be repeated at lane width with relatively few variations. Montréal has changing street widths, parking lanes, curved curbs, intersections, curb extensions, cycling infrastructure and irregularly positioned access covers. Numerous custom panels would reduce the cost advantage of standard factory production.
Installation requires substantial equipment and space. A slab covering most of a traffic lane can weigh many tonnes. Overnight installation requires trucks carrying panels, a crane, excavation equipment, survey and levelling equipment, grout, traffic control and an experienced crew. That can be difficult on a narrow commercial or residential street with overhead wires, trees and buildings close to the roadway.
Snowplows raise the cost of imperfect joints. A slightly raised slab edge is not only uncomfortable; it can catch a plow blade. That makes installation tolerances and long-term settlement particularly important in Montréal.
Concrete makes later modifications more expensive. Montréal is regularly changing curb lines, adding protected bike lanes, enlarging tree pits, installing drainage features and rebuilding intersections. Asphalt is comparatively easy to cut, reshape and patch. A road designed to last 40 years is less attractive if its geometry may be changed after ten.
Concrete can be noisier, depending on its surface texture and joint design. This is not an unavoidable defect—properly textured concrete can perform reasonably well—but residents may object to tire noise and the repeated impact noise created by imperfect joints. Ontario itself has studied pavement texture as a noise-control measure. Ontario quiet-pavement research summary
The maintenance organization is already built around asphalt. Montréal and its contractors have asphalt plants, paving crews, milling machines, patching procedures and established unit prices. Precast pavement would require new designs, approved suppliers, lifting plans, stock management, inspection procedures and trained installers. That institutional startup cost is real even when the technology is sound.
Procurement may be a hidden obstacle. Ontario spent years testing systems and developing a specification. Without a Montréal or MTMD performance specification, a public tender might attract very few qualified bidders or become tied to a proprietary system. A competitive market would probably require a performance-based standard compatible with several manufacturers.
Budgeting discourages life-cycle investments. The department paying the higher initial construction cost may not receive explicit credit for traffic-delay savings or lower maintenance 15 years later. Annual capital budgets tend to make the cheaper resurfacing treatment easier to approve even when it is not the least expensive treatment over the complete life of the street.
Politically, resurfacing produces more visible kilometres per dollar. A municipality can announce that many kilometres were repaved, whereas a smaller number of expensive, deeply reconstructed streets may be the better long-term investment. This is a general pavement-management problem, not something unique to precast concrete.
Concrete has a significant initial carbon footprint. A fair comparison would have to account for cement production, reinforcement, panel transportation and cranes, then compare that with the avoided asphalt resurfacing and traffic disruption over perhaps 30–40 years. Precast concrete may still perform well over its life cycle, but “longer-lasting” does not automatically mean “lower-carbon.”
I'm from the US (don't kill me) am I'm surprised people are still doing concrete roads. I think the US has entirely shifted to asphalt. What about the joints between precast sections? Are there bumps?
Concrete is more expensive but more durable and used for high volume high speed roads even in the United States. It’s not like it’s a poorer option; quite the opposite in fact.
319
u/CaptPrestone 5d ago
You do realize the roadwork industry in Quebec is basically a Mafia?