Construction noise has been a daily routine for those who live near the site of the new MUHC, but since July 18 nights too have become a little less tranquil for some residents.

That’s due to construction work that the city has begun on Decarie Blvd. and the railway overpass that crosses it near de Maisonneuve. For safety reasons, the work can only be carried out at night, when the commuter trains from the Vendome metro station to the suburbs aren’t running. The work should be finished some time in late October or November.

Residents learned the details at an information session, held July 14 at the Crowley Arts Centre.

“So we can expect that for Christmas we get to sleep?” one woman in the audience asked the panel, which included representatives from the MUHC, the city, the construction company, the AMT and Canadian Pacific.
Decarie will be expanded to five lanes, which means that the portion of the street running under the bridge also has to be widened. In order to do that, the existing overpass must be demolished, and a new bridge, with a higher clearance and sidewalks on both sides, will be built.

The panel noted that the construction team is making efforts to keep the noise down; for instance, instead of hammering steel piles into the earth, workers will use a quieter construction method.

Some audience members, though, used the opportunity to complain that the work being carried out by the MUHC on the main construction site is starting earlier and going on later than it’s supposed to, an allegation denied by those on the panel.

[ Anja Karadeglija ]