MONTREAL \u2014 Montrealer Marianick Baril says she\u2019s had eight flat tires since Christmas. Now, she plans her daily commute less on travel time and more by choosing the streets that have the fewest craters that threaten to send her vehicle back to the mechanic.<\/p>\n
This winter has been particularly perilous for Baril and other Montreal drivers, with officials reporting 3,824 pothole-related complaints between Jan. 1-27, nearly five times the 796 logged over the same period last year. <\/p>\n
\u201dThis isn\u2019t normal,\u201d said an exasperated Baril on the scarred, pockmarked roads that have forced her to spend about $3,500 since late December repairing her 2015 Honda Accord Touring.<\/p>\n
But it doesn\u2019t have to be this way. A specialized laboratory at a Montreal technology college is trying to help fix the city\u2019s perennial asphalt problems. Its director, engineering Prof. Alan Carter, says he has solutions. The issue, he laments, is a lack of money and political will.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a question of responsibility that no one wants to take,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s understandable \u2014 we don\u2019t have the money.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the city is quick to note that this season\u2019s weather is partly to blame. Numerous freeze-thaw cycles, particularly in January, have taken their toll. Environment Canada has recorded at least 17 days this winter with temperatures fluctuating above and below zero.<\/p>\n
\u201cWater seeps into cracks, freezes, and expands, weakening the road surface,\u201d says Carter, who leads the pavements and bituminous materials laboratory at \u00c9cole de technologie sup\u00e9rieure.<\/p>\n
And while he recognizes that Montreal\u2019s punishing winters do a number on infrastructure, he says the main reason for the city\u2019s disastrous road network is insufficient maintenance. The city has delayed maintenance for so long it doesn\u2019t have sufficient labour or money to properly fix the roads in a reasonable time, Carter said. Municipal and provincial government, he added, must start factoring in long-term upkeep when approving infrastructure projects.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe build (roads), but without enough money for maintenance,\u201d Carter said.<\/p>\n
Another issue is the recipe behind the asphalt poured into city streets. Carter\u2019s laboratory is developing mixes that he thinks can be better suited for Quebec winters, but he says his innovations aren\u2019t making their way to the streets of Montreal.<\/p>\n
Using an accelerated loading track \u2014 a 12-metre-long, three-metre-wide, and 2.8-metre-deep road surface \u2014 his team simulates years of traffic in only months. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to optimize the recipe. We need mixes that last as long as possible,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
The laboratory is testing various levels of recycled asphalt pavement \u2014 or RAP. The Quebec government has a 20 per cent cap on recycled materials in its asphalt, but Carter is trying to see whether that can be increased without losing performance. He also thinks some less-used roads in Montreal can forgo asphalt altogether and instead be composed of gravel, which he says is cheaper and easier to maintain.<\/p>\n
But the Transport Department, he said, \u201cdoesn\u2019t have any money, so the whole research and development side, and the modification of the standards, and the innovation side, they have almost no staff for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked if the Transport Department collaborated with Carter\u2019s laboratory, spokesperson Louis-Andr\u00e9 Bertrand told The Canadian Press in an email, \u201cThe department has its own pavement laboratory.\u201d The department was not immediately available on Monday to respond to Carter\u2019s accusations that it doesn\u2019t properly budget for road maintenance.<\/p>\n
A 2021 CAA-Qu\u00e9bec report estimated that poor road conditions cost Quebec motorists $258 annually in vehicle repairs \u2014 more than double the national average. <\/p>\n
Montreal maintains about 4,030 kilometres of roads, many showing signs of wear. The city\u2019s auditor general has said that as of 2024, about 25 per cent of arterial roads were rated poor or very poor, and 37 per cent of local streets were in that category as of 2022. Montreal officials plan to spend about $684 million on roadwork in 2026 \u2014 roughly $82 million more than last year, including resurfacing and planning programs. <\/p>\n
In 2025, the City of Montreal repaired 103,026 potholes through private-sector contracts, up sharply from 61,286 in 2024 and slightly higher than the 98,288 recorded in 2023. These figures exclude repairs carried out by borough governments. <\/p>\n
Catherine Lavoie, CEO of a non-profit research centre on urban infrastructure in Montreal, said the deterioration reflects years of underinvestment in maintenance. \u201cI have never seen roads in such poor condition \u2026. It was clear that the previous city council had other priorities. Today, unfortunately, we are seeing the consequences of this.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Alan DeSousa, mayor of the Saint-Laurent borough and member of Ensemble Montr\u00e9al \u2014 the party of recently elected Montreal Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada \u2014 said it would be \u201ctoo easy to point the finger at the previous administration. I have a responsibility to find solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a response to the accusations that the city has under-invested in road maintenance, Martinez Ferrada\u2019s office said in a statement, \u201dWe spare no effort to prevent potholes in the long term.\u201d<\/p>\n
From October 2024 to mid-January 2026, the city says it poured 19,310 metric tons of asphalt on Montreal streets. Carter says that\u2019s enough to pave roughly 27 kilometres of a standard one-lane street, with a thickness of 10 centimetres. He says that\u2019s a reasonable amount of asphalt for that time frame, but he insists it\u2019s not the lack of asphalt that is causing Montreal\u2019s problems.<\/p>\n
Many Montreal streets are failing from the bottom up, he said, explaining that too many road foundations are \u201cdead \u2026 but we keep plastering the cracks.\u201d Roadways are built in layers: a structural base that provides strength and stability, topped by a thinner surface layer designed for traction and safety. Most repairs, Carter said, replace only that upper layer, leaving weakened foundations untouched \u2014 a temporary fix to a deeper, structural issue. <\/p>\n
The challenge extends beyond Montreal. Nearly half of provincial pavements are rated poor or very poor, according to the Quebec government\u2019s 2025\u20142035 infrastructure plan, and much of the network dates back more than 50 years. <\/p>\n
The question now, Carter said, is whether governments will choose to invest more in preventive maintenance or continue paying the higher price of long-term neglect.<\/p>\n
Baril, for her part, has stopped buying new tires. \u2018\u2019New tires are expensive. Now, I go to Facebook Marketplace.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 17, 2026.<\/p>\n
Charlotte Glorieux, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MONTREAL \u2014 Montrealer Marianick Baril says she\u2019s had eight flat tires since Christmas. Now, she plans her daily…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":{"0":"post-480658","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-montreal","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-montreal"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}