Police officers monitor a "flash mob" protest on St. Jacques St.

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you probably know my opinion on so-called "flash mobs". The term is poorly defined (mostly because the groups most associated with the term find it demeaning and refuse to describe themselves that way), but most people seem to have settled on the definition of a bunch of strangers meeting in a public place, doing something strange and then leaving.

That "something strange" is open to debate. In some cases, it's harmless fun for fun's sake. In others, it's a highly-choreographed stunt. I wouldn't really describe every seemingly spontaneous public performance as a flash mob, but as long as people are having fun I'm not going to complain.

My issue is that, because "flash mob" is popular among youth, various groups with agendas are trying to use it to their advantage. In some cases, the intentions are honorable, like fighting cancer. But it's also been used to promote beer, or create "viral videos" to drum up interest in some convoluted advertising campaign.

Now, it seems, it's also being abused for political activism.

Protest on St. Jacques St., above the Decarie Expressway

I really shouldn't have expected anything different from this "flash mob" protest organized by the anti-Turcot-project protesters. But heading down there with my camera, I saw plenty of mob and very little flash. In fact, no flash. They were just kind of standing around there. Did I miss the flash part?

Peter McQueen holds up a sign for passing motorists

I'm on the fence about the Turcot Interchange project as proposed by the Ministère de transport. I agree with a greater need for public consultation, and that we should prioritize public transit, and that forcing people to move should be avoided whenever possible, but I'm not sure with some environmentalists' conclusion that we should keep the concrete spaghetti mess in the sky.

Does this count as advertising?

Still, it's a free country. Let people protest. It's better that people express their opinion on these kinds of projects than have nobody question them before they turn into giant sinkholes of taxpayer money.

A green square pinned to chests signifies ... greenness?

Taking a page from the red squares used during student protests against Jean Charest's Liberal government (which had mixed results - a plan to convert bursaries into loans was reversed, but tuition increases went ahead), the protesters wore green felt squares. This particular square is on the shirt of Jacob Larsen, who wrote a post announcing the event on Spacing Montreal.

Perhaps green squares were appropriate because a bunch of faces were recognizable names from the Green Party, NDP and Projet Montréal:

Peter McQueen

There was Peter McQueen, a perennial Green Party candidate who's running for Projet Montréal in the coming municipal election.

Anne Lagacé-Dowson

And Anne Lagacé-Dowson, who left CBC Radio to run in a federal by-election for the NDP. She would eventually lose a general election to Liberal Marc Garneau. Since then she's been heard on weekends on CJAD.

Police cars ready to move in a block away

Despite these being fairly low-risk candidates for violence, police were there in force. Two cars around the corner, another four vans a block away. There were about as many police officers as protesters.

More coverage at Neath's Turcot blog and the Facebook group.

Three in a day

All this I would have dismissed if it were a unique case. But it was actually the third of three different protest-flash-mobs in a single day for three different causes.

At about the same time at Place des Arts, there was a flash mob for climate change. The "flash" part was apparently just making a lot of noise and standing behind a banner, which doesn't sound that different from every other protest that has ever occurred. Oh, there's something about freezing in place too, you know, to make it cool. And holding cellphones in the air (you see, because it's a "wakeup call", get it?)

And then earlier in the day, a flash mob for peace. This one even got the mayor to take part (he apparently wasn't too busy preparing to have his re-election hopes flushed down the toilet).

I used to like going to "flash mobs" because they were fun. I like organized fun, even with strangers (I even have an entire category for it on my blog). And even if the term "flash mob" had no real meaning, at least it had fun.

But now they've taken the fun out of it.

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What gets me is that the Turcot project isn't particularly evil. Yes, it involves a small number of expropriations and the public consultation process should have been done in the planning stage instead of after. But the core idea of the project - replacing a spaghetti network of aerial highways with a simpler, cheaper and easier-to-maintain ground-based interchange - was actually supposed to improve the city's image, getting rid of what had almost universally been called an eyesore and a tired relic of 50s-era design, while improving the views of people who live in St. Henri.

The ministry of transport eventually acquiesced and agreed that there should be reserved bus lanes and other measures to encourage public transit, which should have been in the design regardless. But now they're being asked by the green lefties to keep that eyesore in the sky. They argue that there would be more noise and dust if the cars were at ground level, and that it would cut off St. Henri from NDG (even though St. Henri is already cut off from NDG by a giant cliff).

I originally liked the idea of the Turcot being brought down to ground level when I first heard about it. There's very little worth protecting directly under the interchange, and the savings on maintenance and improved views seemed to make it a no-brainer. Now I'm conflicted. Neither side has convinced me that their version is better for the environment, the neighbourhood and the city.

A special blog has been set up to keep people informed (separate from the anti-Turcot mobilization blog), and links to a del.icio.us feed of 62 articles about the Turcot project, sorted by language, subject and publication.

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The project would also see reconstruction of Highway 15/20 through Ville Emard (which would be lowered significantly now that giant ships aren't passing through the Lachine Canal anymore), and more interestingly Highway 20 through Turcot Yards, which would be moved next to the Falaise St-Jacques along with new train tracks:

This would free up a giant lot to be developed (though nobody's come up with a good idea of what to do on it).

Though the MTQ has been holding consultation meetings, there are organized protests against the project, most notably from the Village des Tanneries, a small neighbourhood in western St. Henri whose residents are afraid their homes will be expropriated by the government and they'll be stuck without fair value for them.

Other concerns include:

• That the Falaise St-Jacques, a protected eco-territory, will be made inaccessible by putting a highway and railway next to it. (Of course, it's already inaccessible, mostly because it sits on a cliff.)
• That residents in neighbouring cities and boroughs (Westmount, NDG, Montreal West, Lachine, Sud-Ouest, Ville-Marie, Verdun, etc.) are not being sufficiently consulted by their municipal and borough governments.
• That not enough is being done to ease traffic on local streets, especially in Montreal West (where a new highway access from Brock Ave. is being planned), Ville Emard's Cabot neighbourhood (where accesses are being reworked to the 15/20 at de la Verendrye to simplify access to industrial areas for trucks), and NDG (where the MUHC is being built at the old Glen yard with no apparent direct access to the highway, and where the St-Jacques onramp to Highway 720 East is being made more complicated).

But when it comes down to it, the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. A giant space will be made available and nobody will have to cross a highway to get there. The highway will have a natural barrier on one side, eliminating the need to make those ugly artificial sound walls on that side. And it'll be much cheaper and easier to maintain the highest-trafficked highway interchange in Quebec.

It should be an extremely popular project. Unfortunately, citizens are getting short-changed at public meetings. This is entirely the boroughs' faults. They're saying it's the MTQ's problem and cutting off debate at council meetings, without mentioning that the MTQ is coming to the boroughs to take the pulse of citizens' issues.

Let's not let bureaucracy get in the way of progress, shall we? Let's work together to make this work and see the creation of a new neighbourhood when this is all done... in 2015. Maybe.

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