WB across the main twinned span of Pont Honoré-Mercier with a distinctive double-arch, looking very much like the Robert Moses Causeway in New York. The newer EB side is wider but still only 2 lanes. In the last photo, the bridge continues going up after the main span, which may seem odd until the next set of photos.


A much less remarkable and shorter but equally trussy second span then looms, over the canal (Seaway) on the south side of the St. Lawrence River. The main span may be longer, but it's lower because there are rapids just north on the river that preclude through shipping traffic. Courtesy Doug Kerr's hand, here also is the plaque on the side of the Seaway span. The main bridge opened in 1934, but this truss opened in 1959 when the canal came around. The Honoré Mercier Bridge Commission (I believe the dates are 1958-1959) was established by the St. Lawrence Seaway Authority. The plaque is probably in English because the Authority is run out of Ontario, but since that province is nominally bilingual, they could have kept the plaque in French out of courtesy.


The decrepit condition of the interchange on the south (west) side of the river, which of course was rebuilt in 1959 to meet the Seaway bridge and has barely been touched since. It did get a new sign for QC 132 with the new wide-style shields that as you can see are much more readable than the old shields that match the ground-mounted variety. In the last photo, looking up at the EB side you see a signal assembly for a lane that could occasionally open as necessary. It looks like it's ready to crash onto the 138 WB-132 EB ramp. (What happened is that all of the approach ramps on the south shore were built two lanes wide - which is fine heading WB because one lane can open into two, but is terrible heading EB because two lanes have to merge into one well before the bridge. I guess if something happens that closes one of the ramps or if one has an extreme backup relative to the other, it could be opened up to the full two lanes?)


Faded QC 138 shield on Blvd. LaSalle (aka Chemin du Musée) in Verdun, unrecognizable except in bright light, WB at Rue St-Patrick just west of QC 138. Pont Mercier, which is QC 138, is the only bridge connecting the western Ile de Montréal (anything west of the Pont Champlain) to the southern shore of the St. Lawrence River.


Old, embossed street signs in Westmount, an English-speaking neighborhood that has resisted annexation by Montréal. There's not a terrific amount of hope for it, since the city owns the rest of the island, but so far it's still an enclave.


QC 134 begins here and heads east, not west - but the sign is correct (and these aren't white-background signs, there's just another sign on the back of them). After crossing the PONT (Jacques-Cartier), QC 134 turns south, ending into A-15 without ever actually heading west. The only reason its numbering and signing as an east-west route isn't a complete mystery is because Québec's cardinal directions are oriented to the St. Lawrence River. If you skew your compass nearly 90 degrees counterclockwise, suddenly QC 134 starts off heading south and then turns west, just like the sign says! You just have to think Québecois.

Onto QC 132
To Autoroute 30
To Autoroute 15
Onto QC 134 and Pont Jacques-Cartier
The oldest Montréal bridge, Pont Victoria (on QC 112)
To A-720
Back to Québec Roads
Back to Roads