For all of the potential I think is being wasted — the empty grass lot at its southeast corner is a shamefully suburban way to treat such a prominent junction — it’s a small miracle that the new Pine and Park intersection even exists. The old interchange was such a decrepit and forlorn place it’s hard to believe that in less than two years the whole thing was demolished and replaced with a pretty decent surface intersection. Even in its current state there is a lot of pedestrian and bicycle traffic. People leisurely amble across the street, bump into friends at the bus stop and stop to look at the mountain. In other words, the intersection works exactly as it should.
18 comments
Whose idea was this? I moved here just before this happened, and it strikes me as near genius. Please put this person in charge of all roadway improvements heretofore.
I never understood the original concept of the interchange. A highway onramp in the middle of the city? A deathtrap to kill McGill students trying to walk to the Cinema du Parc?
I agree, both about the wonderousness of reclaiming that intersection for, well, humanity, and about the mundane nature of its current state.
Obviously when some of the landscaping grows in, things will improve.
Still, it’s definitely something of a blank slate. There’s certainly room for some form of public art or monument.
Also, I recall the Alouettes plan to excavate their new ticket office out of the hillside facing the intersection.
agreed with RS. great idea, good work. the exchange is terrific now.
What do you mean by your first sentence, Christopher?
It’s funny, I don’t think the space is being wasted. I find that it’s kind of peaceful to look at a simple, clutter-free intersection.
Plus they planted trees, yyaaayy.
I agree.. not very urban especially given that this is really the northern entrance to the downtown core from our most elegant avenue. I feel that the trees should have been balanced with fountains or a monument, benches,… something worthy of an urban, high density, city.
One little detail that escaped everyone’s attention, and was NOT on the aerial publicity photo of the proposed new intersection during construction: a new road through the park from Duluth to the stadium. Yes, the city built a new road through the park, told no one ahead of time, and NO ONE seems to have noticed. Lies and deceit, a couple of perpetual government project management traits.
But, don’t get me wrong, I love the new intersection, the old one was, what’s the word, a complete disaster in every possible way.
Now, we can access the park from pine avenue, duluth, and rachel, but we are still waiting for access at the level of marie-anne street. Maybe when they extend the new park avenue bike path north of Rachel this will be completed. The car-centric parc avenue renewal to the new people-friendly version work is not quite yet finished.
I agree, the new Pins-Parc layout betrays a weird sort of anti-urban bias or a romanticised vision of nature.
I wonder how much “green space” in the suburbs is being cut down to build single family houses for the people who otherwise might have been living in new row houses in that spot.
Public space is nice — if not houses (the affordable ones promised during the Cité Concordia project?), then the place needs some proper urban equipment — a neoclassical square. Or a coffee shop. Or an ice cream stand. A pretzel truck.
There is already plenty of grass in that area, so it’s not really adding to the diversity of urban functions.
I agree with newironshapes on this one. The area does not need a few more square metres of non-descript landscaping. Hopefully, the coming years will see further thought put into this.
The city of Montreal consulted with residents regarding with what should be done with this space, and people overwhelmingly supported the status quo. Too many Montrealers are small minded people.
L’arrondissement du Plateau a lancé un appel à tous à l’automne 2007 pour permettre aux citoyens de donner leurs idées sur la façon d’utiliser les nouveaux espaces verts dégagés par la reconfiguration de cette intersection. On peut consulter tout le dossier à cette adresse:
http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/portal/page?_pageid=98,1481927&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL
Les résultats de cette consultation publique (à laquelle 3 citoyens participants sur quatre provenaient du quartier), sont maintenant soumis à l’Office de consultation publique dans le cadre de sa vaste consultation sur le Mont-Royal, présentement en cours.
I totally disagree with everyone who says the interchange landscape lacks an “urban” stamp. Why do we have to put a coffee shop or an ugly sculpture or unnecessary fountain? Why can’t we just let our eyes rest and our heads relax for those mere 200 to 400 metres? I think it’s genius that they just let it be. It’s not overdone, it’s not overworked, it’s not over thought. It’s not trying to impress or fit in. It’s just a few easy slopes of grass and rocks and trees. And when the trees grow in it’ll be gorgeous.
The landscaping flows down from the mountain instead of up from the city. Inspired.
Too many Montrealers want the city to revert to rolling pastures with nothing obstructing the blue sky. :)
Maybe it’s because I recently got back from NYC, where, from Central and Riverside Park on down, I saw a care to detail — to the use of quality materials, great design, maintenance — that I find often lacking here.
Perhaps it’s unfair to compare us to NYC. But this little corner is, as noted above, a visual gateway to Montreal’s most important urban park. Right now, it looks, to me anyway, like a cheap, banal suburban landscape job.
I see it as an opening up to the mountain. Previously, visual access to Mount Royal was either from behind stratified layers of mansions (from the south and west) or vague waves of green from all other vantage points. Unless you were directly east of it, at Jeanne Mance park, the mountain always only floated (or loomed) behind things.
While granted this landscaping is on the southern edge of JM park, it nonetheless widens (and democratizes) the visual (and therefore) physical access to the mountain. It brings you closer to the mountain by knocking down those things that were obstructing it. The fact that what is now there are gently sloping tracts of green doesn’t offend me. In fact, can it’s also a subtle way of designating it as 100% public space. Yes, yes, no irony or artistry was used in the landscaping of this space. But still, I love it anyways. It speaks to me of the future of the city, not the past.
I think some people are confused about which corner Chris is discussing. The southeast corner is the one beside the Air Transat building from where the photo is taken. Not the corner shown in the photo. I agree that the Southeast corner is being wasted. When going down Park Ave and entering the urban area dominated by LaCite I can’t help but feel that something is missing on the left. Something like a plaza or fountain or a small market/coffee shop could ease the transition between the celebrated Mont Royal Park and the dense urban neighbourhood of Milton Park.
This is not the kinda land use befitting a city like Montreal. Where is the grandeur? The vision? I guess we left all that in the pre-1970 decades.
On a related note, I used to savor the fact that Mount Royal was designed by Olmstead, who designed Central Park. Then I learned from this here world wide web that, in fact, most of Olmstead’s design ideas where abandoned to cut costs, as the city was going through rough times.
The widing wide gravel road was done to his plan, but he planned to, among other things, radically re-landscape the mountain, creating ranges of forestation that would give an exaggerated sense of scale to the mountain.
No doubt many might prefer the more “natural” look of today’s Mount Royal. But seeing what was done with Central Park, which is so exquisitely landscaped — and really, art-directed — it’s interesting to wonder what might have been.