Québec Roads - A-15 and 10/15/20

Autoroute 15 and 10/15/20



The only stop sign on the mainline of an Autoroute? Not even close. A-30's disparate pieces and A-955 have more than you could ever want. The Québec-standard signage for a 4-way stop, here just north of New York in the customs area, is pretty neat.


Historical signage after crossing the border, taken by Averill Hecht in August of 1980.


Another Averill Hecht photo from August 1980, this shows that the old directional diagrams found on BGS (or BBS) exit tabs was also found on ground-mounted exit signs. The current gore signs keep the color and shape but only have an arrow under the number.

Slippery when freezing, metric-style.


Distance sign, wrong-style. PlattsburgH has an H.


This bridge style shows up all over Québec, the one used when much of the Autoroute mileage was first constructed. It looks a whole lot better than the boxy American overpasses.


NB on A-15, warning of the upcoming Décarie (construction has long since finished). Courtesy Doug Kerr.


Now this would be very old signage, but back in April 1991 it wasn't quite so old (though not exactly shiny and new either). Notice that A-30 was not yet on this sign; it still stub-ended at A-10 to the northeast in 1991, only later connecting into QC 132. Photo courtesy Averill Hecht.


SB in the same spot, with the same photo taker, but a modern photo. I feel like "New York" would have been sufficient next to the I-87 shield, like in the first photo. At least Plattsburgh is now spelled correctly.


Heading south from the A-30 interchange, there is a lot of new construction a kilometer or so down. This will be the realigned A-30 to go around the south side of St.-Constant. Although QC 132 has been widened along that 7-kilometer corridor, wide enough for a freeway with frontage roads, the pleading of that town and Ste.-Catherine persuaded Québec officials to move the alignment. Apparently the 2-km piece of A-30 orphaned by this move, on the west side of the towns, will be numberless. I recommend 930.


The progress of construction in May 2008, from the northbound perspective (last photo is facing southwest over my shoulder). Assuming the interchange will be a cloverleaf (they are still often used in Canada), the ramps you see here are probably temporary construction ramps. The eastern half of A-30 has much less work to go than the western half - including far more than just this one bridge abutment.


One old NB sign, one weird one. The sign on the right is Québec's way of signing "Exit Only". Beats language-specific signage, but confusing to the average American.


Southbound in August 1980, courtesy Averill Hecht.


Artistic pedestrian overpass.


The same dot that's on signage on A-35 to separate destinations and conserve space, and unnecessarily narrow-font shields, showing up on NB A-15. A-20 wasn't supposed to come in here, but should have crossed where A-25 does now and followed A-720 on the other side of the river. This interchange is actually a double trumpet from 15/20, with each trumpet serving a single side of A-10. A-15 NB and A-20 WB both follow the same one-lane ramp, with a 50 kph curve, into a merge with A-10. That is positively nasty.


Signage on A-20/10/15 EB/EB/SB; exit numbering along the triplex follows that of A-15, but A-15 must exit itself (the ramps count as exits, regardless of route continuity). Note the I-87 shield and bilingualism - since A-15 to I-87 is the main truck and tourist corridor between Montréal and the United States, Québec plays nice and caters to the dumb Americans. Stewart Clamen, a "Montreal ex-pat," theorizes that it's because Canada itself owns this bridge that it gets to be bilingual, since Québec is otherwise monolingual. I think the signs are more widespread than that, though.


A true casualty of bilingualism. If you don't know what an Autoroute is, you're just screwed.


Onto Pont Champlain (A-10/15/20) NB/WB, then turning north to look north along the St. Lawrence River, with Montréal along the left bank (I would call it the west bank, they would call it the north bank). Every lightpost in the city is numbered in this manner.


Continuing across the bridge with its reversible lane - in the U.S. the diamond and word BUS would be white, not yellow.


Again, the bilingualism. Avenue Atwater Avenue. Ummm... yeah. The bold 1 in the first photo doesn't look right at all, but the truck route and merge signage are neat. These photos are on A-15/A-20 NB/WB, the Autoroute Décarie, an ancient four-lane freeway that's reminiscent of the Schuylkill in Philadelphia, as you see in the 2007 photos. Most of the freeway is just plain A-15 (the depressed section); A-10 left the triplex a little early to go end on its own in peace. This right here is the notorious part though, and you can see that reputation is well-earned. The stripes in the third photo show Québec standard practice, to prevent cars entering the right lane during a merge or diverge area.


A blank BGS?? There are a few of these all across Montréal, and are about the most useless thing I've seen adorning a highway. Here you see the Autoroute Décarie, the less falling-apart trenched section.


A second blank on the Laurentian Autoroute SB as A-15 approaches its multiplex with A-40. Then, to the southwest end of the multiplex, where A-15 splits to the left and A-40 to the right at what I presume would be a flashing arrow if it was working.

Onto Autoroute 10 alone
Onto Autoroute 20 alone


Into New York on I-87
Sortie 42 to A-30
Sortie 42 or 53 to QC 132
Onto Autoroute 40
Autoroute des Laurentides (A-15)
and Pont Champlain (A-10/15/20) on Steve Anderson's montrealroads.com
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