As a kid, I had this poster in my room that depicted the crash of a steam powered train. The engine had smashed through the upper level of the Montparnasse train station in Paris in 1895. Written in small letters in the white space beside the image were the words:
"Oh, shit."
I always thought this poster was hilarious. The words seemed to perfectly capture what must have gone through the minds of those standing at street level, scratching their heads, trying to figure out what went wrong.
What the poster didn't tell you is that a young woman at street level was killed in the accident. Knowing this, the image seems much less amusing.
Fast forward to Montreal 2011 and a repeat performance of the "Oh, shit" poster, complete with orange vested construction workers standing in the Ville Marie tunnel, seemingly scratching their heads, trying to figure out why a 15-metre-wide concrete beam crashed onto the eastbound lanes of the highway.
This picture isn't that funny either. In fact this situation has gone far beyond a joke. The decrepit state of Montreal's highway infrastructure is only slightly less disturbing than the apparent gaping holes in Transport Quebec's inspection system.
The latter is a process cloaked in secrecy, which constantly assures us our roads are safe and yet periodically issues emergency road closures after suddenly discovering an undisclosed structural issue.
If there is any good news in this latest incident, it is that no one was killed. Had this occurred during rush hour, or at any time when the usually busy Ville-Marie expressway was packed with cars or a tour bus, and this would surely have been the blackest day in Montreal's history.
The collapse of the De la Concorde overpass in 2006 that claimed the lives of five people should have been enough for the Quebec government to do more than reassess the state of the province's infrastructure. It should have forced the complete overhaul of its inspection process. Clearly, that system is as culpable as the shoddy work of the company contracted to build the overpass.
What is really needed is an outside authority to probe the state of the province's construction industry and inspection process. In much the same way Montreal Police are investigated periodically by the SQ, there needs to be an external body, with no stake in the process, enlisted to investigate these failures without bias. In an ideal world, that would be the Federal Government. Considering the fact that a good chunk of the province's infrastructure funding has come from Ottawa in recent years, one would think they would want to know how and where their money is being spent.
Unfortunately, the politics of this backward province would intervene. So we are left with politicians from the municipal to provincial level finger-pointing at one-another whilst Transport Quebec lurks in the shadows, revealing nothing to the citizens who literally take their lives in their hands every day they commute to work. Oh, and let's not forget the massive chunk of our income that is siphoned off to help fund this death-defying circus act.
I think the only way to make some progress would be to round up all of those inspectors and the overpaid, entitled bureaucrats and force them to resolve the infrastructure issues while sitting on a stalled bus on a section of the Turcot interchange. Something tells me they'd come up with a plan real quick.
As entertaining as that image may be, it's just part of the ongoing joke that's just not funny anymore. One has to wonder how many lives will be lost before the government get's serious about this issue. Our reputation internationally is crumbling as fast as the roadways we nervously navigate. The tragic death or severe injury of a foreign national as a direct result of this city's decaying highways would not only undermine a valuable tourist industry it would likely expose the pathetic state of the province's corrupt and incompetent administration to the world.
Sadly, this may be the only way that bureaucrats and our elected officials can be held accountable.
Something has to happen soon, before we find ourselves looking at yet another slab of dislodged concrete and muttering...
"Oh, shit."
