Nitpick - it’s the entire highway (A-40) on the island of Montreal that’s 49.4 km/30.7 miles long. The main elevated section is about 5 km long (between the two sections of A-15), and there are shorter elevated sections as you head east. The rest is at ground level.
I believe you’re correct, although good information on the elevated length is surprisingly difficult to pin down. The English Wikipedia entry is completely unhelpful, but I finally found what seems to be reasonable information on the French Wiki, which says that the main elevated span runs between avenue de l’Esplanade and rue Colbert, which is a distance of 5.4 kilometers. Having frequently driven that expressway, I would have guessed that the elevated section was much longer than that. It’s probably my faulty memory, but I have the impression of the elevated section going on and on, but driving at 90 km/h (about 56 mph) one would cover the entire elevated span in about 3.6 minutes.
I just “drove” along it using Google Maps. It’s also elevated from St-Laurent to Pie-IX (3 or 4 km). Otherwise - it’s a surface road (with several below-surface sections).
No, that doesn’t make sense. St. Laurent Blvd and Pie IX (pee-neff, as we used to call it) are both within the elevated section. Heading northeast on the Metropolitan, you’re already on the elevated section crossing St. Laurent, and still on the elevated section going over Pie IX.
This is all pretty much how I remember it, but I’m just surprised that the distance from Avenue de l’Esplanade to rue Colbert is as short as it is. I used to think of the latter as being in the area of east Montreal suburbia, and the St. Laurent area as downtown. I guess that’s why I thought the elevated section was so long. But I verified the distance with Google Maps, which said 5.32 km – not sure if that’s the road distance or how the crow flies, but close enough, and agrees with the figure on the French Wiki.
If anyone is interested this video was recently posted about the Mackinac bridge. It does not bear on the OP directly except inasmuch it gives insight to suspension bridge design (and more to the point, very long suspension bridge design even if this is still a lot shorter than the Sicily one).
16 minutes:
