Montreal’s extreme temperatures has brought power outages to both residents and the Jacques-Cartier Bridge.
The $40-million light installation, which illuminates the bridge every night, hasn’t been working since Saturday because of the city’s recent blend of winter weather.
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The bridge is meant to change colours with the seasons throughout the year. It gradually changes from an energizing spring green to a radiant summer orange, a fall red and an icy winter blue.
Since this weekend, it’s been dark.
According to the Pont Jacques-Cartier, the fluctuations of the temperature in Montreal, coupled with this weekend’s storm, has halted the lighting, which doesn’t respond to cold weather the way metal does.
Metal expands and contracts in the cold but the bridge’s lighting equipment couldn’t handle the ups and downs of the storm.
Originally inaugurated as part of Montreal’s 375th anniversary celebrations, this is the bridge’s second winter of illumination.
The lighting fixture on the bridge is currently being worked on and is expected to be fixed as the weather forecast calls for more regular winter temperatures.
Since the electrical equipment for the illumination behaves differently than the steel structure does, this caused an outage. Our teams are actively working to restore the colours to the bridge. (2/2)
— Pont Jacques-Cartier (@pontJCBridge) January 22, 2019