Montreal has finally plugged the hole in the Notre Dame Foundation… with an old part found in its garage

The city of Montreal has finally closed the loophole that has been blocking Notre-Dame Street for months thanks to a part it found… in its own garage.

Philip Sabourin, a city spokesman, explained Tuesday morning at 98.5 that it was maintenance employees who found this old part abandoned in a water services depot.

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This result comes two weeks after the city was embarrassed by the massive hole that since July has disrupted traffic on Avenue Notre-Dame East, one of the city's main arteries.

The piece the city ordered in September and received weeks later to plug the hole was too small because its crew ordered it in millimeters, but received it in inches.

The hole that occurred in one of the lanes of Notre Dame Avenue, which disrupted traffic for several months until very recently.

QMI Photography Agency, Joel Lemay

“It's not incompetence, it's human error. For me it's inexperience […]Mr. Sabourin then explained in an interview with Radio Cope.

“New from old”

Mr. Sabourin, who declined his interview request NewspaperHe told 98.5 that the part found to solve the problem did not appear in the city's inventory, because it was “damaged and unusable.”

“It was in the back of the garage, under the pallets, covered in dust. “We found it because we used the media to launch our call for wanted posters.”

Then the municipal teams assembled this old part with the new part, which was very small.

“The part that was found in Notre Dame that was missing, the frame was not good, but the doors were good. The part that was found, the frame was good, but the door was missing,” Mr. Sabourin said.

The spokesman stressed that even if it is a matter of “making something new out of the old,” this solution is not temporary, although it should last “50 years and more.”