Champlain Bridge, Montreal

There appears to be a misunderstanding by Canadians outside the Province of Quebec as to who owns, operates and is ultimately responsible for the Champlain Bridge.

Here is the story on the construction of the bridge......

The Champlain Bridge (French: Pont Champlain) is a steel truss cantilever bridge with approach viaducts constructed of prestressed concrete beams supporting a prestressed concrete deck paved with asphalt. The bridge crosses the Saint Lawrence River and Saint Lawrence Seaway, connecting the Montreal boroughs of Verdun and Le Sud-Ouest to Brossard on the South Shore.

The bridge, with approaches, is approximately 6 km (3.7 mi) long. When the project began, it was designated as the "Nuns' Island Bridge" because it crosses over Nuns' Island. In 1958, it was officially named the Champlain Bridge in honour of the explorer Samuel de Champlain, who founded Quebec City in 1608.

Together with the Jacques Cartier Bridge, it is administered by the Jacques Cartier and Champlain Bridges Incorporated (JCCBI), a federal agency which is a fully owned subsidiary of the Federal Bridge Corporation Limited.

With nearly 160,000 daily crossings, the Champlain Bridge is the busiest bridge in Canada.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champlain_Bridge,_Montreal

On September 20, 2007, a major French-language Montreal daily, Le Journal de Montréal, published a story about federal government plans to build a new 10-lane span next to Champlain Bridge, rather than face the increasing maintenance cost of the aging structure.^[5] Federal minister Lawrence Cannon confirmed that his ministry is seriously considering the prospect of a new bridge.^[6]

In October 2007, Novaroute, a private firm, revealed a plan to construct a two-story tunnel bridge under the Saint Lawrence River that would also collect tolls based on the time period. In Novaroute's plan, one level would be for buses and trains while the second would be for all other vehicles except tractor-trailers. The tunnel would be built under a public-private partnership and take five years to complete.^[7]

In August 2008, the Transport Canada, the federal ministry of transportation, confirmed that studies and scenarios were ordered to build a new bridge within 10 or 15 years. The new structure would likely be 8 to 10 lanes wide and include a light rail train to connect the South Shore to Montreal.^[8][9]
On January 27, 2009, the Government of Canada announced in its 2009 Economic Action Plan that it would be allocating $212 million to renew the bridge.

On March 18, 2011, the Government of Canada announced $158 million will be spent on a major repair and maintenance program as concerns mount it is at risk of collapse. Montreal's La Presse newspaper cited two leaked engineering reports prepared for a federal bridge agency that suggest sections of the structure are in a severe state of deterioration that will be progress exponentially. The report concludes that a partial or complete collapse of the span should not be ruled out.^[10]

On October 5, 2011, The Honourable Denis Lebel announced that the Canadian Federal Government will proceed with a new bridge across the St. Lawrence River in Montreal.^[11][12]

On December 1, 2013, Federal Transportation Minister Denis Lebel announced that the replacement Champlain Bridge would be finished by 2018.^[13] The rapid development precluded a call for an international design competition, and the designer, Poul Ove Jensen, had already been selected by the government.