Tag Archives: urban planning

| Business, Montreal

A bicycle path isn’t the end of the world

Store owners are greedy. It’s hard to blame them, since the business they do is directly proportional to the money they get. A few slow weeks could put them out of business.

But the store owners are very pro-car. They want parking spaces. And when those spaces are taken away for reserved bus lanes on Park Ave., expanded sidewalks on Decarie Blvd., or a bike path on de Maisonneuve Blvd., they start screaming bloody murder. No thought is given to the idea that increased public transit might compensate for the loss of parking spaces, or to the idea that beautification of the area might encourage pedestrian traffic.

Instead, we get sky-is-falling exaggerations like this one:

“It could turn downtown into a ghost town,” he warned.

Really? A ghost town? When has a bicycle path ever turned a metropolis’s downtown into a ghost town?

“It’s an open-air shopping mall and people, especially higher-end customers, want to get there by car.”

“Who wants to go to a high-end restaurant by bus or by métro?” Parasuco asked.

Oh. Think of the embarrassment that would ensue if a high-end customer had to take – gasp – public transit!

Or they could just take a cab.

The problem with downtown parking is already there. People with cars go to Wal-Mart and Loblaws where ample parking is available. They park at strip-malls and go into the stores there. A trip downtown means circling for half an hour looking for a space at a meter.

The solution to this problem isn’t to encourage more cars, which is an entirely unsustainable idea. It’s to encourage public transit, walking and cycling as alternative methods of getting around.

Turn downtown into a pedestrian haven, and suddenly people are walking around doing a lot of shopping.

UPDATE: The Gazette agrees with me. And so does letter-writer Kim Smart.

| In the news, West Island

The highway link to nowhere

Suburban mayors are going crazy over suggested solutions to the 440 West Island problem. Come, gather ’round the fireplace as I explain it to you.

440 link to the West Island

Many moons ago, the Quebec Transport Department figured out that expropriating land from homeowners to build highways was a very expensive and time-consuming process. To help solve it, they asked themselves: Wouldn’t it be a good idea to “buy” the land now for a highway development later?

Enter the 440. Expecting to eventually link this East-West Laval highway to Highway 40 in Kirkland, the government planned a route for it and reserved the land so nobody would build anything there. At the time, of course, the entire area was undeveloped forest and farmland. Now, with development all around the proposed route in both Laval and the West Island, it’s easy to see on a satellite picture where the highway is going to go: on the winding strip of green between those houses.

Hoping to alleviate the West Island’s rush-hour traffic problem, Pierrefonds wants to build an “urban boulevard” on the Montreal Island part of the link, between Gouin Blvd. and Highway 40. It would, Pierrefonds mayor Monique Worth says, alleviate traffic on the main north-south axes: St. Charles Blvd., St. John’s Blvd. and Sources Blvd.

North-South axes in the West Island

OK, I get St. Charles. But Sources? By what stretch of the imagination is some route that takes Sources now going to benefit by this new road 10 km west?

Anyway, Worth cut in to her own argument in a CTV News interview today when she admitted the obvious: That rush-hour travellers to downtown would “still hit traffic on the 40”. The other obviousness is that almost all of the northern West Island is east of this proposed boulevard, meaning they won’t use it to get downtown.

The idea isn’t necessarily bad. It will help alleviate traffic on St. Charles which heads between the northern West Island and western off-island areas. But it’s not going to help one bit with the Great West Island Trek Downtown, whose biggest traffic problem is the Decarie Circle (and Highway 20/Highway 13 merge).

As for Highway 440, the link would have some advantages, the biggest one being a fixed link between Ile Bizard and Laval. Currently, though there are three ferries, there is no fixed link from Highway 40 to the north shore between Highway 13 and Hawkesbury, Ontario. That makes some significant detours.

But the proposed link also runs right through Ile Bizard’s nature park. And cutting down all those trees to build a highway is not only unpretty, it kind of goes against the whole “environment” thing.

Let’s start with small steps, the first being a fixed link between Ile Bizard and Laval. When the roads along that route start overflowing with traffic, then we can talk about building a highway.

Until then, keep the right-of-way reserved for now. Maybe have a dirt path for people to bike through. It’s trees, and they’re good, mmm’kay.

| Montreal

The other Cavendish extension

We keep hearing about the Cavendish extension, a long-awaited road link between Ville-Saint-Laurent and Côte-Saint-Luc which will solve a lot of motorist (and public transit) headaches and get some traffic off the oversaturated top of the Decarie Expressway.

But at the other end is a similar connection waiting to happen. This one is much shorter and doesn’t cross any tracks, but residents are complaining of the same problems.

Cavendish extension onto Toupin Blvd.

The issue, as the Chronicle explains, is pure suburban greed. Residents in the northern part, a middle-class neighbourhood of western Cartierville with some very affluent areas, are panicking at the thought of cars taking their boulevard. I’m not quite sure where all this traffic is supposed to go. To the west is the Bois de Saraguay, followed by Highway 13, and to the east is Sacré Coeur Hospital followed by Laurentian Blvd. But hey, outrage doesn’t have to be logical, right? Maybe they just don’t like ambulances on their street.

We’ve seen all this before. James Shaw Street in Beaconsfield, where residents oppose a connection to Highway 40. Broughton Road in Montreal-West, where residents ludicrously complain of giant nonexistent trucks barrelling down the twists and turns of the residential streets to reach a far-off Highway 20. Not to mention at least some opponents of the other Cavendish extension.

Their logic is simple. They have no problem using the streets other people’s homes sit on to drive their SUVs to and from work. But if those other people want to use their streets, suddenly it becomes a child safety issue. Their street deserves protection. Their street must remain a dead-end. For the good of their children.

In case you couldn’t tell by my sarcasm, it’s hypocrisy pure and simple. Greedy suburbanites who want the government to legislate a de facto gated community and have the entire world built around them.

Fortunately, the borough sees right through their arguments. Next time you want to live on a street without traffic, make sure you choose one without “Boulevard” in its name.

UPDATE (Sept. 23): A follow-up story from the Courrier’s Catherine Leroux

UPDATE (Sept. 28): A video posted to YouTube shows traffic on the street, but except for some drivers failing to make complete stops at stop signs, nothing particularly incriminating.

| Montreal

It makes sense, so let’s not do it

The Cote-St-Luc folks are outraged (OUTRAGED!) that Montreal’s transportation plan pushes back the Cavendish Extension for another 10 years.

It’s hard to see why there isn’t more movement on this issue. It’s one of those rare ones that seems to unite everyone: Public transit users whose trips to western Ville-Saint-Laurent could be shortened by up to 45 minutes, car travellers who want to avoid the Decarie circle, local businesses and the Cavendish Mall who want the extra customers, and CSL residents who want a quick path to IKEA.

So what’s the hold-up?

| Montreal

What are you doing driving on my street?

Another day, another group of angry rich homeowners who want nobody to use their streets but them.

James Shaw Street in Beaconsfield, the Cavendish extension, and now residents of Montreal West are upset because one of their roads is being used by people who are not them. And their arguments just don’t hold water.

Continue reading →

| West Island

West Islanders are never happy

Street planning always seems to have winners and losers. West Islanders who are tired of being stuck in rush-hour traffic are constantly complaining about the missing but long-promised Cavendish extension which would link Ville Saint-Laurent with Cote Saint-Luc, N.D.G., Hampstead and Montreal West.

And I’m sure some of these same people are bemoaning an extension of their own. This Week Beaconsfield voted to open up James Shaw Street (look at all those swimming pools!) to Highway 40 near the Chemin Sainte-Marie exit. The street’s residents are unhappy of course because it means more traffic for their protected suburban enclave.

It’s kind of silly how cities manipulate traffic flow to apease residents’ concerns, even to the point of nonsense.

Take Jacques-Bizard Boulevard for example. One might think that “Boulevard” would mean a lot of vehicular traffic. And a quick look at the street shows it has enough space for a good five lanes of traffic. A look at the map would show that the boulevard leads to a bridge to Ile Bizard on one end, and a medium-traffic street with a blank field beside it which is clearly designed for future expansion into more lanes.

Despite this, people bought houses on Jacques-Bizard Boulevard in Pierrefonds, and its extension Sommerset St. in Dollard des Ormeaux. Then, when the traffic coming off the bridge from Ile Bizard started driving up their wide boulevard, they complained to the city.

My response would probably have been something along the lines of “you know what you were getting into when you bought the place”, but clearly I don’t know how to deal with homeowners. Instead, the city forced all traffic to turn left or right onto Pierrefonds Boulevard, adding to the already clogged St. John’s and St. Charles thoroughfares.

I wonder: what would traffic be like in this city if homeowners weren’t so greedy?