{"id":251,"date":"2007-11-11T20:11:24","date_gmt":"2007-11-12T00:11:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingmontreal.ca\/?p=251"},"modified":"2013-01-21T11:41:51","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T16:41:51","slug":"marche-central-going-green-yeah-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2007\/11\/11\/marche-central-going-green-yeah-right\/","title":{"rendered":"March\u00e9 Central going green? Yeah, right"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

March\u00e9 Central, the big box power centre that has emerged recently around the corner of Acadie and Chabanel, just north of the Metropolitan, is installing recycling bins throughout its property<\/a>, for the benefit of its customers. It will also provide bins to its retail tenants, allowing them, finally, to recycle.<\/p>\n

The March\u00e9 Central’s management claims that this effort is a big step towards helping the environment. “Ici, l\u2019environnement, c\u2019est devenu une priorit\u00e9. Maintenant, quand le temps est venu de faire une d\u00e9pense, on essaie toujours de trouver un moyen de r\u00e9duire nos d\u00e9penses en \u00e9nergie. C\u2019est important de trouver des fa\u00e7ons \u00e9cologiques de g\u00e9rer nos activit\u00e9s,” declared its assistant director, Raymond St-Jacques, in an Ahuntsic community weekly.<\/p>\n

Steve Faguy, on his blog, rightly points out<\/a> that this is little more than a cheap PR stunt. Recycling bins don’t change the fact that the March\u00e9 Central is a vast, car-oriented shopping centre that occupies a large chunk of land in the middle of the city. Its huge surface parking lots can accommodate 4,000 cars, but there are virtually no sidewalks, few spaces for bicycles and no attempt to integrate public transit, despite the nearby presence of several bus lines and even a commuter train station. This is, in other words, a single-use retail area no different from the sprawl you can find on any suburban thoroughfare in North America. <\/p>\n

The March\u00e9 Central’s impact on Montreal is more insidious than you might think. Although it surely generates a fair bit of tax revenue, it sucks customers and their money away from urban, pedestrian-oriented retail strips. Its auto-oriented design is an environmental disaster, contributing to Montreal’s ever-worsening air pollution, not to mention the heat and contaminated runoff generated by its asphalt parking lots. The fact that its management is now trying to wave the flag of environmental responsibility makes this all the more despicable. <\/p>\n

The blame doesn’t rest entirely with them, though. At least one of its retailers, the Mountain Equipment Co-op — a popular outdoor equipment cooperative that prides itself on its sustainable business practices — has been promoting the same brand of faux-enviromentalism since it opened in Montreal three years ago. In Toronto, Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Quebec City and Halifax, MEC opened its stores in central locations<\/a> easily accessible by foot, transit and bike. Here, though, it chose to open at March\u00e9 Central. Although it has housed itself in an energy-efficient building, that hardly changes the fact that almost all of its customers are forced to travel to MEC by car. That doesn’t even take into account the hypocrisy of opening a supposedly environmentally-friendly store in an environment that is so blatantly hostile to alternative modes of transportation.<\/p>\n

So many Montrealers are concerned about the well-being of their city, yet I haven’t heard a peep about the development of the March\u00e9 Central, which was vacant land less than a decade ago. If we want to keep our neighbourhoods healthy and encourage people to get out of their car, why are we turning a blind eye to this?<\/p>\n

Graphic created by Steve Faguy<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

March\u00e9 Central, the big box power centre that has emerged recently around the corner of Acadie and Chabanel, just north of the Metropolitan, is installing recycling bins throughout its property, for the benefit of its customers. It will also provide bins to its retail tenants, allowing them, finally, to recycle. The March\u00e9 Central’s management claimsContinue reading “March\u00e9 Central going green? Yeah, right”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"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":[7834,7835,7840,7842],"tags":[1029,467,8,9,1025,10,149,125,1030,376,153,5,26,273,1028,1026,1027,1024,1031,332,152,830,148,380,1023],"class_list":["post-251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-green-space","category-politics","category-urban-design","tag-assistant-director","tag-calgary","tag-city-hall","tag-development","tag-energy-efficient-building","tag-environment","tag-halifax","tag-montreal","tag-mountain-equipment-co-op","tag-north-america","tag-ottawa","tag-planning","tag-public-enemy","tag-quebec-city","tag-raymond-st-jacques","tag-retail-area","tag-retail-strips","tag-retail-tenants","tag-runoff","tag-steve-faguy","tag-toronto","tag-transportation-2","tag-vancouver","tag-victoria","tag-winnipeg"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMarch\u00e9 Central going green? 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