JOHN JANTAK
The 1019 Report
With work set to begin to widen the section of Cité des Jeunes Blvd. in Vaudreuil-Dorion in anticipation of the opening of the Vaudreuil-Soulanges Hospital, the city’s mayor is concerned about the lack of action from the provincial Transport Ministry to begin the process to widen artery in St. Lazare.
“Over 3,000 people will be working at the hospital and then there’s the patients and delivery vehicles that will be going in and out 24 hours a day,” said Vaudreuil-Dorion Mayor Guy Pilon in an interview last week with The 1019 Report. “If the province doesn’t proceed now, there will be big problems when the hospital opens,”
But so far, despite repeated calls on Quebec from the town of St. Lazare to widen the two-lane boulevard to handle the anticipated increase in traffic along the route when the hospital opens and the expected development boom along the corridor, Transport Quebec has refused to act.
“The ministry has no plans to expand Cité des Jeunes in our territory,” said St. Lazare Mayor Geneviève Lachance. “And they’ve been very clear on that.”
“It’s been at least five years now, as a councillor and mayor, that I’ve been meeting with them and trying to get them to agree to expand it,” Lachance said, referring to the two-lane boulevard that will serve as one of the main access routes to the hospital that is already experiencing bumper-to-bumper congestion during rush-hour periods.
So far all that Transport Quebec has offered to do is add an extra exit lane at three intersections along Cité des Jeunes in St. Lazare – at Montée Labossiere, St. Louis Avenue and Ste. Angélique Road. That work should be carried out by 2027. The hospital is expected to open at the end of 2026.
“That’s about all they’re planning on doing right now,” Lachance said. “That sector is really going to expand drastically in the next couple of years. They already know that,” she added, referring to Transport Quebec officials. “We gave them our projections and it’s still not making them change their minds.
“We even tried to get them to lower the speed on certain sections of Cité des Jeunes and they’re not willing to do that,” Lachance added. “It’s just totally impossible to get them to budge on this. We have no power at all.”
St. Lazare cannot move to widen the artery because the western stretch of the road falls under provincial authority. The section that cuts through Vaudreuil-Dorion to the east of the hospital site, however, falls under municipal control. And that is why the city of Vaudreuil-Dorion was able to announce last week a $30.7-million plan to widen that section of the road into a four-lane boulevard.
The artery will be widened from the hospital eastward to Des Floralies Street.
Both the mayors of Vaudreuil-Dorion and St. Lazare are also concerned about the current state of the section of Cité des Jeunes that runs above Harwood Blvd. in St. Lazare. The overpass needs to be repaired.
Images of the overpass taken in September 2023 show sections of missing concrete and exposed rusty rebar underneath both sides of the structure.
“We told them about it four years ago,” Pilon said, referring to provincial Transport Quebec officials. “We even presented plans to them. Right now without the hospital, it’s packed and it will be worse if they don’t change the overpass above Highway 342 in St. Lazare,” Pilon said.
“It doesn’t impact our city very much, but for St. Lazare, it’s terrible,” he added.
Pilon said he is willing to work with St. Lazare to try get Transport Quebec officials to move forward with their requests.
“We can assist them on this matter and propose things, but at the end of the day, it’s the Transport Ministry that decides what they want,” he added.