A couple of westbound signs from the western reaches of the northern Montréal bypass. A-640 is as close as Canada gets to a beltway like so many U.S. cities have.


All the way over to the other side of the bypass and eastbound. QC 344 used to follow Rue Gagnon, now a dead-end, and crossed railroad tracks at what looks to have been an at-grade intersection. Now, it borrows the alignment of A-640 on the west side of Charlemagne.

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A-13/640 ghost interchange

Autoroute 13 was originally planned as the northwest freeway for Montréal, but the portion north of A-640 was never built. The result is a half-used cloverleaf - except the entire arrangement uses C-D (collector-distributor) lanes for the exits. Thus you would exit from NB 13 onto the C-D lanes for the EB 640 exit, but not for the WB exit; you're carried onto that one directly (the unused C-D lanes that bridge over A-640 "merge" into your loop). Or you exit A-640 and are forced onto A-13 (in fact, the WB-NB direct ramp was converted into the outside of a trumpet ramp), whereas if the entire interchange were open you would be able to merge back onto 640.


The unused NB C-D road. The inner loop of the trumpet to A-640 WB (would have been a cloverleaf ramp) takes over the C-D road in the bottom picture.


This picture is from the NB-WB ramp. Behind the red chevron is what would have been the WB-NB ramp, but this picture was taken to showcase the fact that Québec uses white-on-red chevrons instead of black-on-yellow.


WB 640, showing the gore point for the never-paved SB-WB ramp.


Now on A-640 EB up to the A-13 SB offramp, showing the unused but paved C-D road for the EB-NB movement continuing past the exit gore.


Continuing on that eastbound ramp, you merge with the also paved and also unused southbound C-D road. It was meant to handle the WB-SB cloverleaf weave, but now the outside of the trumpet (which would have been the WB-NB ramp but was modified) takes you directly onto the main freeway.


Back down to A-640 EB, past the unused EB-NB loop ramp. In fact, as you saw above, there is no traffic on the C-D road beneath that BGS, since neither loop ramp is open on the south side of the interchange.


Right before the A-13 ramp (the open one) merges into A-640 EB, this RIDOT-esque construction sign looms. It will only be there until March 2008, though.

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Onto A-13 alone

Onto QC 344
A-640 on Steve Anderson's montrealroads.com
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