‘Roundabout where is this?
UPDATE: Jason gets it right below. It’s the intersection of Sources Blvd. and Riverdale Blvd. in Pierrefonds, just beyond the tracks, one of the few roundabouts on the island.
Riverdale Blvd.: Behold the suburban conformity!
The roundabout, which I crossed a while back on my bike, leads to a new development in the Parc des Rapides du Cheval Blanc that is so new the streets don’t have names, the driveways are made of gravel and grass hasn’t grown yet on the yards. I took a brief tour of the neighbourhood, noticed a lot of young families, many of Indian and south Asian descent.
I also noticed a lot of insects, reminding me that this development is encroaching on what was once their habitat.
The Rapides du Cheval Blanc is one of the 10 Eco-territories on the island of Montreal, which some might assume to mean its territory is sacred and can’t be touched. But in 2007, the borough of Pierrefonds-Roxboro approved a development of 251 housing units (PDF), about half of which are in the form of single-family detached houses that all look alike. The developers had actually wanted to build 650 housing units, but pressure from the city forced them to scale back from 15 to 10 hectares. The revised project also talked a lot about “integrating” into the territory by using the same trees or something. Still, the development cut 21% of the green space out of the eco-territory.
Hmmm… on the Island where there’s nothing but roundabout: Isle des Soeurs?
The 2nd intersection entering Nun’s Island at Boulevard Rene-Levesque and Boulevard de l’ile-des-soeurs.
These cause me much grief. Being a Brit, I have just about managed to drive on the right (provided I use a stick in the UK and an auto everywhere else) but I cannot get my head round (ahem) anticlockwise roundabouts.
So wherever it is, it probably has some of my broken headlight lens plastic on the kerb…
Could it be where boul. des Sources meets Riverdale in Pierrefonds (near Parc Rapides des Cheval Blanc)?
Some suburb where the majority of us never venture?
Somewhere in Ville Saint Laurent (the new part off of Henri Bourassa Blvd?)
James
On this side of the pond, we spell it “curb”.
And, as for you, Mr. Webmaster, I thought that the term in this country was “traffic circle”.
Haven’t you been to Swindon, in the “magic roundabout”??? It has a nice anticlockwise roundabout smack in the middle…
Development encroaching on their habitat… hmm… I guess the Plateau was a barren wasteland before it was turned into a ‘non-conform’ concrete jungle, right?
As of the 2006 Canadian Census, 1,620,693 people resided in the city of Montreal proper.[1] The population of the Montreal Census Metropolitan Area (also known as Greater Montreal) was 3,635,571 at the same 2006 census. Majority of you never venture huh? Last I checked 1.6 is less than half of 3.6. The MAJORITY live outside of the “City of Montreal”. When this city realizes that suburbs are *part* of the city as many of us commute there, and spend money there (paying for parking among other things) then maybe things will get better.
City folk need only travel as far as Hampstead to experience an on-island roundabout. Where Langhorne (Hampstead’s extension of Dupuis), Finchley and Merton Crescent meet up.
The new development took up easily half the park accessible to Montrealers, not 21%, as a large part of the area is not hikeable as swamp or underwater. They took a dry part. The history of the land I am curious about, history is evident in the stone piles that make up several rock walls on the land. The land is not pristine as there is an “intercepture” sewer going through the park. You can see at least two of the sewer “interceptures” on the mud and stone trail named Boulevard Riverdale (see google maps).
If you have been to the well maintained Cap-Saint-Jacques Nature Park, you know the potential for the land for people to enjoy . There is zero maintenance done on the trails (for public access) and no garbage cans, no outhouses or toilets exist. No parking.
As few people know of the place , I think thats how the developer got the land. With the lack of publicity, lack of maintenance for public access, the city got a bunch of money and future taxs to collect at the expense of the health of the public.