Montreal Construction - Expressway Exit Ramp designed like Raceway Reverse Curve

In the on going Construction Festival season that is Montréal, Qc between the months of May through November, you can drive about this marvelous city and see sights from sinkholes large enough to swallow entire vehicles to construction sites half finished for seemingly an eternity.

Montréal, QC Construction Festival

While 4 foot tall orange cones stand guard like trolls around these many, many areas of the city and never a worker present. From the crumbling overpasses and dilapidated bridges to the dripping cavernous underpasses with collapsing ceilings, nearly everything in sight is under-par and overlooked for what seems to have been decades, while it now comes to light as all the puzzle pieces fall into place. One by one this city learns tales through the work done with the Charbonneau Commission giving us just purely fantastic stories - like the one about the Corrupt Quebec Bureaucrat who accepted $600,000 in kickbacks, kept one third in cash in a brief case, gambled away half at the Casino de Montréal as a way of "giving it back to the economy", and recently transferred his "home" into his daughters' name before cooperating with police - while he still lives there.

Thundhill Raceway, California - Curve The Cyclone

Yes my friends, this is the Construction festival that has become an all too familiar scene in Montréal, and now from the people behind the engineering side of things at SNC Lavalin and CIMA+, as reported by the Gazette recently, they are giving us some interesting new road features, we think, aimed at the automotive racing enthusiast! Finally! The designers are thinking of ways to make our daily drives, a little less safe, but a hell of a lot more interesting! Drawing inspiration clearly from the above pictured section of Willows California, USA Thunderhill Racetrack curve 5A - which they've labeled "THE CYCLONE".

Photo courtesy of original Montreal Gazette story

By adding Raceway inspired curves into parts of the road, we believe the goal has been achieved, as in this perfect example of a reverse curve (S-curve) built into an off-ramp from an expressway on a downward incline! Having taken this curve myself recently in the rain I can attest to the race-like feeling and the thrill of surprise (as there were zero signs indicating) having to sway right, then left, followed by right again. The experience brought me back to my day on the track in the GTR with the Skyline crew and that drifter who lost a wheel mid drift.

The best part of all is the consideration they gave to where to place such exciting new road features; this one happens to be right outside a new giant hospital - which is perfect as failed attempts by race-eager drivers won't need to travel far to get the medical attention they need - although they likely will need to wait a real long time before anyone helps them when they get there.