Quebec Autoroute 30

Quebec Autoroute 30

Autoroute 30 (A-30), or the Autoroute de l'Acier (In English, Steel Motorway) is an Autoroute in Quebec, Canada. Construction of the A-30 dates back to the early days of autoroute construction in the 1960s. Originally called Highway 3, the A-30 was designed to replace Route 132 as the main artery linking the communities along the South Shore of the St. Lawrence River. The A-30 was originally intended to begin at the U.S. border at Dundee and end at Saint-Pierre-les-Becquets (in Centre-du-Québec). In the late 1970s an eight-year moratorium on new autoroute construction (in favour of public transport) by the Parti Québécois prevented implementation of this plan.

The original section of Autoroute 30 in 1968 linked Sorel-Tracy to Route 116. The A-30 was extended to an interchange with Autoroute 10 in Brossard by 1985 and to Autoroute 15 in Candiac by 1996.

Growing road congestion in and around Montreal led to the announcement in 2006 of a federal-provincial partnership to complete A-30 as a southern bypass. At that time, the section from Châteauguay to Vaudreuil-Dorion was to be tolled, however by 2009 it was decided to collect tolls only on the St. Lawrence bridge. Opened to traffic on December 15, 2012, A-30 extends north of the St. Lawrence River (over a new crossing) to an interchange with Autoroute 20 and Autoroute 540 in Vaudreuil-Dorion, permitting motorists travelling the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor to bypass the city. As construction progressed, short sections of the original A-30 that are bypassed by the new route were converted to spur routes and assigned new route numbers.