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It was even a surprise to Quebec’s transport ministry that so many motorists seemed to heed the warnings of gridlock and stayed off the roads.

Transport Quebec spokesperson Martin Girard said the department saw nothing remotely close to the eight kilometres of gridlock its traffic-prediction models had forecast. In some parts of the city, traffic was even lighter than normal for a Monday morning rush hour.

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“It’s certainly not within the worst scenarios that we anticipated,” Girard said Monday morning. “It’s going well. I think people took public transit and it also helped that it was a holiday for federal employees; that can affect the number of people on the road.”

After a weekend with several closures around the Turcot Interchange, only two major access routes remained closed on Monday: the ramp leading to Highway 20 West from the Ville-Marie and the Ville-Marie access from Highway 20 East. The ramps were closed as crews working on the Turcot demolished a portion of the old Highway 15 North.