The autoroute was closed for almost four weeks,[3] "disabling an important north-south link between Montreal and its northern suburbs as well as the Laurentian region".
[1] A number of people had noticed that the overpass was not in good shape: When the Quebec Ministry of Transport was contacted regarding blocks of concrete falling onto Autoroute 19 from the Concorde Boulevard overpass above, a patroller was sent to do a sight and sound test [6] to gauge whether the road should be closed and to clear away the concrete hazards; this was 30 minutes before the collapse.
[9] He noted, "30 or 40 years ago, engineers could not anticipate the traffic some of their bridges would be forced to accommodate in the coming decades".
[10] The Monday (October 2) following the collapse, as everyone was trying to get to work, three major expressways into Montreal from Laval were gridlocked with vehicle line-ups stretching for kilometres.
In response to the incident, the Quebec government instigated several strategies to speed the recovery effort and to minimise the inconvenience of commuters.
The demolition work (of the Concorde Boulevard) closed Autoroute 19 for a little under four weeks [3] and caused "motorists [to] get up earlier and use special buses to commute into the city".
[15] The official detour routes were as follows: To aid Laval commuters, and to help the province cope with traffic problems,[16] Ontario donated a "GO Train" to increase ridership in the wake of the weekend collapse.
"Hopefully this tragic event did not happen in vain and we, as a society, will learn from it and make the conscious decision to re-invest in infrastructure using a long-term, holistic approach as well as life-cycle management guidelines",[19] Marie Lemay the CEO of CCPE said.
"Long-term adequate financial resources are needed from all levels of government in order to support a sustainable and planned approach over the full life cycle of any infrastructure project".
[19] In July 2007, incidentally just weeks before the I-35W Mississippi River bridge collapse, the Quebec department of transports issued a list of 135 overpasses that were considered potentially unsafe.
The day after the I-35W Mississippi River bridge collapse, the City of Montreal revised its policies for one of those, the Henri-Bourassa overpass above Pie IX Boulevard, closing it completely to all trucks.