Trucks keep crashing into this overpass. Montreal finally has a solution

An overpass in the city of Westmount will finally get some protection after years of heavy trucks slamming into it, causing train delays and congestion on surrounding roads.

The Greene Avenue overpass will have two metal crash beams installed on either side of it. The idea is that if a truck is too tall to fit underneath it, it will hit the beam instead of the structure.

Located between St-Antoine and Ste-Catherine streets, the overpass is used as a way to access the Ville-Marie Highway and has an Exo commuter-train track that runs over it.

Whenever a truck crashes into the structure, service on the Vaudreuil/Hudson, Saint-Jérôme and Candiac train lines grinds to a complete halt.

In 2022 alone, Exo, which is charge of the crash-beam project, had to delay its trains 190 times due to trucks striking the overpass, said spokesperson Jean-Maxime St-Hilaire.

St-Hilaire said two inspections must be conducted following every crash: one of the railway and one of the structure itself.

"These inspections vary in time but on average, it's about 35 minutes every time," he said.

This results in delays for many of the trains because "it's one of the busiest places on the network, with the three biggest train lines, with the biggest ridership," St-Hilaire said.

The project should improve the reliability and punctuality of trains, he added.

Traffic on surrounding roads also backs up into the Saint-Henri neighbourhood toward Lionel-Groulx Metro and all the way up Atwater Avenue into downtown when Greene is closed in the event of a collision.

'Sort of a joke at this point,' resident says

Sophie Cram, a Westmount resident who grew up near the tracks, said trucks seem to crash into the overpass almost every week.

"Public security, when I phoned them, would basically answer and say, 'Oh, we have a live one' because it happened so often," she said.

Cram said the crashes grew so common that she and other residents were often able to help drivers get their trucks unwedged from underneath the overpass before emergency crew even got to the scene.

"We've gone out and told the truck drivers to take the air out of their tires because that's what [police] tell them," she said.

"We all know how to deal with it now."

Sophie Cram grew up near the overpass. She says it wasn't uncommon for a truck to crash into it on a weekly basis. (Leta Polson/CBC)

In response to the new protection measures, Cram says anything that's actually going to improve the situation is beneficial.

"I mean they installed the little blinking lights below, that didn't do anything, there's the hanging bar that trucks would crash into, that didn't really seem to stop anything either, so it's sort of a joke at this point," she said of previous measures intended to curb the crashes.

Exo said the crash beams are a last resort. Normally, officials would work to lower the road, like they're planning to do for another train overpass on Guy Street in downtown Montreal, where trucks also often get stuck.

But the situation on Greene Avenue is a different story due to its steep hill.

"The elevation is really high so you can't really make road work to improve that," St-Hilaire said, adding the beams were "really the final solution."

New warning system

Exo said the horseshoe-shaped crash beams, which will blend into the environment, aren't the only measures being implemented.

A new warning system using an infrared sensor will also be installed.

"Trucks that are too high are going to see a message that says 'imminent impact coming up' so we're preventing, and if the prevention doesn't work, we have the protection system," St-Hilaire said.

Christopher Dunkley, who uses the underpass almost daily, says the new measures coming into play are "overkill."

"The sign is sufficient," he said, referring to a traffic sign indicating the height of the overpass.

For her part, Westmount Mayor Christina Smith says the city is very happy about the new measures.

"When we do have accidents there … it causes an enormous amount of backlog and it kept happening, which is hard for people to understand," she said.

"This is very much a welcome addition and we hope that we don't have those incidents anymore."

Work on the crash beams started last week and is expected to be finished by mid-January. One lane on Greene Avenue will be closed until mid-December and the road will be completely blocked for one weekend in January.