Quebec will now pick up the orange cones after 72 hours of inactivity on a construction site, announced Monday the Minister of Transport, Geneviève Guilbault. As of December, the government will also install “metal slides” rather than colored cylinders in the work zone.

“If there are at least 72 hours of inactivity, we will remove the cones and put them back for the rest of the site. I think we have a duty to set an example as the government of Quebec. And I think that already with that, we will set the tone,” explained Ms. Guilbault at the curtain raiser of the Strategic Forum on Transportation of the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal (CCMM).

This comes nearly a month after the City of Montreal’s Worksite Summit, which referred to a “maximum delay of 24 hours” for the installation and dismantling of worksite signage.

The elected transport manager on the executive committee, Sophie Mauzerolle, also welcomed the minister’s announcement, speaking of a “collective desire to review our ways of doing things”. “Whether it’s 12, 24 or 72 hours, it’s still a big improvement over what we had before. Either way, I think it’s going to be very positive,” she said on the sidelines of the event.

“It will make a difference for the citizen, for the perception of the city, and also on a kind of frustration to the effect that there are always cones”, reacted the president of the CCMM, Michel Leblanc, in press scrum. “The challenge that will remain, and it does not happen overnight, is this famous coordination between everyone. So far, it has to be said that it has often been at the last minute, ”he qualified, however.

More generally, Quebec says it wants to “tighten” the ways of managing the work, especially downtown. So by June, the Department of Transportation will also change its signage standards to “further encourage the use of small cones where possible.” It was also a request from the Plante administration.

In December, Quebec will take another step by seeking at all costs to “install metal barriers rather than orange cones to make the necessary separation framing the construction sites”, mentioned the minister. “It may be less aggressive, always in this search for this balance between visual cleaning, fluidity, but always the security aspect,” she explained.

Ms. Guilbault also says that she would like “construction sites more in tune with the styles of each district”, referring in particular to “opaque fences, for example”.

His ministry also promises “technical changes” in the coming months, which will affect the barriers installed near the sidewalks, which will become smaller in order to have “more fluidity”. A third horizontal board will also be added to the barriers blocking the sidewalks, in order to improve detection for the blind.

The elected caquiste also plans to change its signage standards in downtown Montreal, in “densely populated areas with speed limits between 30 and 40 km / h”. A speed category of less than 60 kilometers per hour will be added in particular to adapt the signage to it. “We want it to be less wall-to-wall,” said the Minister of Transport, citing as priorities “the issue of encroachment on public space”, access to businesses and access to parking .

She undertakes in passing to create an “innovation cell” which will work to make a “census of best practices” in the management of public works. One of his mandates will be to work on a possible “connection” of the various technology platforms such as the MTQ’s Obstacle Management System (SGE) and the City of Montreal’s AGIR.

Both software perform essentially the same task, that of mapping construction sites in Quebec and Montreal. “We are well equipped to be able to do it,” said Sophie Mauzerolle on Monday, showing herself open to starting this “connection”.