Champlain Bridge estacade

The Champlain Bridge estacade is a 2,043-metre ice-control structure running parallel to the Champlain Bridge, about 300 metres upstream, from Île des Sœurs to the St. Lawrence Seaway dike. It has 72 reinforced-concrete piers 10.5 metres high, two rock-founded abutments, and a prestressed-concrete deck 8.5 metres wide. Floating beams in the 27-metre spans were raised and lowered in heated slots; the three 53-metre deep-channel spans had beams that floated with the current.

Built in 1964-1965 by Transport Canada and managed by the Canadian Coast Guard, the estacade was designed as an ice-control structure, once called the "Régulateur des glaces". Its many piers slowed the ice drifting down from Lac Saint-Louis and the Lachine Rapids, protecting the Expo 67 islands from erosion. Around 1998 the Coast Guard moved its hovercraft base to Trois-Rivières, and in 1999 the structure passed to Les Ponts Jacques Cartier et Champlain Incorporée, which later fitted it out as a cycling and walking link.

The estacade is reached on foot or by bike from Île des Sœurs, where the existing riverside path connects to the deck, and from the South Shore dike carrying Route verte. The deck is 8.5 m wide, with 400 m of approach on the west side and 80 m on the east. The maintenance workshops near the south bank are reachable only by the estacade's roadway.

The estacade was built in 1964-1965 as an ice-control structure, once called the "Régulateur des glaces". Its 72 reinforced-concrete piers, 10.5 m tall, stand in water 2 to 10 m deep; the 27 m floating beams between them were raised and lowered in heated grooves and stored on the piers each spring.