{"id":2299,"date":"2009-04-05T23:37:09","date_gmt":"2009-04-06T04:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingmontreal.ca\/2009\/04\/05\/what-montreal-can-learn-from-cleveland\/"},"modified":"2013-01-21T11:41:11","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T16:41:11","slug":"what-montreal-can-learn-from-cleveland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2009\/04\/05\/what-montreal-can-learn-from-cleveland\/","title":{"rendered":"What Montreal can learn from Cleveland"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Source: MTQ<\/p>\n

I was reading recently about Cleveland’s efforts in the 1970s to stop a county-planned highway from tearing a giant swath through one of that city’s poorer residential neighborhoods. This struck me as somewhat serendipitous, especially given the growing interest on the future of urban freeways in Montreal, which prompted a conference<\/a> on the subject last Friday.<\/p>\n

In his book Making Equity Planning Work, <\/em>Norman Krumholz, Cleveland’s Director of Planning under Mayor Carl Stokes, describes how he engaged an engineering firm to produce an alternate route for the I-290. The result was politically decisive:<\/p>\n

The alternative route proposal also served strong public notice that there was a serious disagreement among technicians, the kind of substantive disagreement that encourages politicians to negotiate policy. Up to this time, the highway engineers had utterly dominated the controversy. They believed and wanted others to believe that their traffic trip and cost data were authoritative and impartial; that their route selection was unbiased and optimal; that any change would add confusion, delay, and cost.
\n<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For those familiar with the MTQ’s dossiers on the Turcot and N\u00f4tre-Dame East, the rationales provided by Cuyahoga county traffic engineers forty years ago will sound eerily familiar.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The MTQ’s engineers have effectively guarded their monopoly on future possibilities for Montreal’s highway infrastructure and consequently Montrealers have their hands tied; either they are for the project or, apparently, against progress itself. There are simply no other proposals on the table. While one might expect the city to challenge the province on this front, it has kept relatively silent on the file, expect for an announcement last November <\/a>from Mayor Tremblay’s office that the Turcot should be fundamentally reconsidered. Unfortunately, that statement was not backed up by action.<\/p>\n

Perhaps due to Tremblay’s effective non-position on this front, the Ministry of Transportation has succeeded in situating these major city-building projects–with a combined projected cost around $3 billion and long-term consequences on Montreal’s transportation future–in the purely technical realm of highway structures and traffic volumes. Is it just me, or is it more than a little bizarre that such major decisions are not subjected to more political scrutiny from other levels of government and broader public debate?<\/p>\n

At a conference that took place this past weekend organized by the Montreal office of the ‘Direction de la Sant\u00e9 Publique’, attendees were treated to presentations by Ian Lockwood and Paul Moore, two traffic engineers who work for an Atlanta-based urban design firm<\/a> helping cities remove urban freeways and re-urbanize fallow land. They stressed the importance of public process in determining a city’s long-term transportation future (something woefully absent in the MTQ’s many “public consultations” which amounted to explaining how this new efficient highway is going to make everyone’s life better). The speakers floated a few ideas for how to better use the Turcot Yards and distribute the inbound traffic into the grid: why not build a few arterial and local roads, connect the Yards to NDG with attractive pedestrian trails on the Falaise St. Jacques, and provide West Islanders with more reliable light rail service? This would make the Turcot Yards a desirable area for homes and businesses with excellent transit service.<\/p>\n

This may or may not be the best proposal for the site, bu the point is: the decision is being made in Quebec City, not in Montreal and certainly not by those most affected by it. Is it not time we had a real alternative to consider?<\/p>\n

A final word for those who fear the traffic mayhem that would ensue if highways were removed. Based on extensive experience helping ween U.S. cities from the highway habits, Ian Lockwood made a observation using the analogy of physics. “We assume that car use is an incompressible liquid that must be routed somewhere,” he said. “But it’s more more like a gas that fills whatever space it is given.” Sounds about right me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: MTQ I was reading recently about Cleveland’s efforts in the 1970s to stop a county-planned highway from tearing a giant swath through one of that city’s poorer residential neighborhoods. This struck me as somewhat serendipitous, especially given the growing interest on the future of urban freeways in Montreal, which prompted a conference on theContinue reading “What Montreal can learn from Cleveland”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5006,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7829,7835,31,7842],"tags":[1065,3864,3858,3860,3865,9,934,10,3862,3857,3861,346,3866,125,3856,18,3859,5,112,273,3863,554,307,302],"class_list":["post-2299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civic-engagement","category-green-space","category-traffic","category-urban-design","tag-atlanta","tag-car-use","tag-carl-stokes","tag-cleveland","tag-cuyahoga","tag-development","tag-director-of-planning","tag-environment","tag-highway-infrastructure","tag-ian-lockwood","tag-long-term-transportation-future","tag-mayor","tag-ministry-of-transportation","tag-montreal","tag-norman-krumholz","tag-other-cities","tag-paul-moore","tag-planning","tag-public-consultation-consultation-publique","tag-quebec-city","tag-transportation-future","tag-tremblay","tag-united-states","tag-usd"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat Montreal can learn from Cleveland - Spacing Montreal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2009\/04\/05\/what-montreal-can-learn-from-cleveland\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Montreal can learn from Cleveland - Spacing Montreal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Source: MTQ I was reading recently about Cleveland’s efforts in the 1970s to stop a county-planned highway from tearing a giant swath through one of that city’s poorer residential neighborhoods. This struck me as somewhat serendipitous, especially given the growing interest on the future of urban freeways in Montreal, which prompted a conference on theContinue reading "What Montreal can learn from Cleveland"\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2009\/04\/05\/what-montreal-can-learn-from-cleveland\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Spacing Montreal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-04-06T04:37:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-01-21T16:41:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3614\/3415384167_2d3e4a355f.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jacob Larsen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Spacing\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Spacing\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jacob Larsen\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2009\/04\/05\/what-montreal-can-learn-from-cleveland\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2009\/04\/05\/what-montreal-can-learn-from-cleveland\/\",\"name\":\"What Montreal can learn from Cleveland - Spacing Montreal\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2009\/04\/05\/what-montreal-can-learn-from-cleveland\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2009\/04\/05\/what-montreal-can-learn-from-cleveland\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3614\/3415384167_2d3e4a355f.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2009-04-06T04:37:09+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-01-21T16:41:11+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/#\/schema\/person\/9a0f0c0f1c3615e607f0cd20a23de98e\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2009\/04\/05\/what-montreal-can-learn-from-cleveland\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2009\/04\/05\/what-montreal-can-learn-from-cleveland\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2009\/04\/05\/what-montreal-can-learn-from-cleveland\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3614\/3415384167_2d3e4a355f.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3614\/3415384167_2d3e4a355f.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2009\/04\/05\/what-montreal-can-learn-from-cleveland\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"What Montreal can learn from Cleveland\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/\",\"name\":\"Spacing Montreal\",\"description\":\"Canadian Urbanism Uncovered | Montreal Architecture, Urban Design, Public Transit, City Hall, Parks, Walking, Bikes, Streetscape, History, Waterfront, Maps, Public Spaces\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/#\/schema\/person\/9a0f0c0f1c3615e607f0cd20a23de98e\",\"name\":\"Jacob Larsen\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9b8090f8608e2f46cd8250f361e5ea43?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9b8090f8608e2f46cd8250f361e5ea43?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Jacob Larsen\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/author\/jacob\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"What Montreal can learn from Cleveland - Spacing Montreal","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2009\/04\/05\/what-montreal-can-learn-from-cleveland\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"What Montreal can learn from Cleveland - Spacing Montreal","og_description":"Source: MTQ I was reading recently about Cleveland’s efforts in the 1970s to stop a county-planned highway from tearing a giant swath through one of that city’s poorer residential neighborhoods. This struck me as somewhat serendipitous, especially given the growing interest on the future of urban freeways in Montreal, which prompted a conference on theContinue reading \"What Montreal can learn from Cleveland\"","og_url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2009\/04\/05\/what-montreal-can-learn-from-cleveland\/","og_site_name":"Spacing Montreal","article_published_time":"2009-04-06T04:37:09+00:00","article_modified_time":"2013-01-21T16:41:11+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3614\/3415384167_2d3e4a355f.jpg","type":"","width":"","height":""}],"author":"Jacob Larsen","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@Spacing","twitter_site":"@Spacing","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jacob Larsen","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2009\/04\/05\/what-montreal-can-learn-from-cleveland\/","url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2009\/04\/05\/what-montreal-can-learn-from-cleveland\/","name":"What Montreal can learn from Cleveland - Spacing Montreal","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2009\/04\/05\/what-montreal-can-learn-from-cleveland\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2009\/04\/05\/what-montreal-can-learn-from-cleveland\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3614\/3415384167_2d3e4a355f.jpg","datePublished":"2009-04-06T04:37:09+00:00","dateModified":"2013-01-21T16:41:11+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/#\/schema\/person\/9a0f0c0f1c3615e607f0cd20a23de98e"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2009\/04\/05\/what-montreal-can-learn-from-cleveland\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2009\/04\/05\/what-montreal-can-learn-from-cleveland\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2009\/04\/05\/what-montreal-can-learn-from-cleveland\/#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3614\/3415384167_2d3e4a355f.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3614\/3415384167_2d3e4a355f.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2009\/04\/05\/what-montreal-can-learn-from-cleveland\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"What Montreal can learn from Cleveland"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/#website","url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/","name":"Spacing Montreal","description":"Canadian Urbanism Uncovered | Montreal Architecture, Urban Design, Public Transit, City Hall, Parks, Walking, Bikes, Streetscape, History, Waterfront, Maps, Public Spaces","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/#\/schema\/person\/9a0f0c0f1c3615e607f0cd20a23de98e","name":"Jacob Larsen","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9b8090f8608e2f46cd8250f361e5ea43?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9b8090f8608e2f46cd8250f361e5ea43?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Jacob Larsen"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal"],"url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/author\/jacob\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5006"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2299"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20807,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2299\/revisions\/20807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}