{"id":372,"date":"2007-12-13T16:33:19","date_gmt":"2007-12-13T20:33:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingmontreal.ca\/?p=372"},"modified":"2013-01-21T11:26:01","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T16:26:01","slug":"notre-dame-plan-isnt-winning-anybody-favours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2007\/12\/13\/notre-dame-plan-isnt-winning-anybody-favours\/","title":{"rendered":"Opposition keeps mounting to Notre Dame plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

If the Minist\u00e8re du transport du Qu\u00e9bec expected a smooth ride for its plan to upgrade Notre Dame Street between the east end of downtown and Highway 25, it was sorely mistaken. As we reported last month<\/a>, a coalition of citizens has emerged with an alternative vision<\/a>, one that would see Notre Dame converted into a truly urban boulevard that is well-integrated into the urban fabric of Montreal’s east end neighbourhoods. Today, two newspaper articles shed more light on the opposition to the province’s Notre Dame plan.<\/p>\n

In today’s edition of the Mirror, news editor Patrick Lejtenyi meets with two neighbourhood activists<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are two big problems with the project,\u201d says the Coalition\u2019s Monique D\u00e9sy Proulx, a 15-year Hochelaga resident who has long been a thorn in officialdom\u2019s side over development and river access issues. \u201cThe first is, this is an enormous amount of money for cars in an era where we\u2019re talking about Kyoto and air pollution. We should be opting for a new vision.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Just last week, on the eve of the global warming conference in Bali, Indonesia, Quebec Premier Jean Charest announced $350-million worth of new measures the province will apply to fall in line with its Kyoto commitments, to kudos both locally and abroad. The money will come from federal transfer payments, he said.)<\/p>\n

\u201cSecond,\u201d continues D\u00e9sy Proulx, \u201cwe\u2019re on the edge of the river, but we can\u2019t exploit it at all.\u201d Although part of the project would unite two parks on either side of Notre-Dame, the shoreline is otherwise blocked off from pedestrian access and remains an unimpressive industrial wasteland. \u201cThis could be an exceptional site,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

And she isn\u2019t impressed by any proposed park. The current waterfront park, Parc Champ\u00eatre, \u201cisn\u2019t somewhere I\u2019d want to go at night,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s cutting us off from the river for the next 50 years, which is absolutely revolting,\u201d says Francis Lapierre, another coalition member. \u201cIt will be a huge concrete scar affecting the residents of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve and Mercier.\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Meanwhile, in La Presse, a Columbia urban design graduate and interning architect named \u00c9tienne Coutu writes about the drawbacks<\/a> of the Notre Dame plan, which would widen the street from four lanes to eight, involved a 200-percent increase in traffic capacity along some sections of the road. The current plan, he writes, is nothing more than a rehash of one that was rejected by the City of Montreal four years ago. Faced with an MTQ unwilling to back down, though, the city caved in.<\/p>\n

Surprise! Les plans du minist\u00e8re des Transports sont d\u00e9j\u00e0 pr\u00eats \u00e0 \u00eatre mis en oeuvre. \u00c9videmment, puisqu’il s’agit du m\u00eame projet que l’on ressort aujourd’hui des tiroirs, cinq ann\u00e9es plus tard. Dans tous ses d\u00e9tails, il s’agit pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment du m\u00eame projet que la Ville de Montr\u00e9al avait fait avorter en 2003, en pr\u00e9textant vouloir un boulevard urbain. Depuis, on s’est emp\u00eatr\u00e9 dans une foule de d\u00e9signations possibles en prenant bien soin d’\u00e9viter le mot \u00abautoroute\u00bb. N\u00e9anmoins, le projet est demeur\u00e9 le m\u00eame, avec ses tron\u00e7ons en tranch\u00e9es, en tunnel, et en d\u00e9pression sous une dalle am\u00e9nag\u00e9e.<\/p>\n

La Ville a finalement pli\u00e9 l’\u00e9chine devant le projet autoroutier du MTQ. Elle a abandonn\u00e9 ses traditionnelles demandes, dont la reconstruction des t\u00eates d’\u00eelots d\u00e9truites il y a 30 ans, et a travesti ses pieuses promesses de cr\u00e9er un boulevard urbain digne de la Ringstrasse de Vienne. Si on en est arriv\u00e9 l\u00e0, c’est qu’il \u00e9tait hors de question pour le MTQ de faire des compromis: la Ville, sans le sou, s’est donc r\u00e9sign\u00e9e et a baiss\u00e9 les bras. Aurait-elle monnay\u00e9 cette abdication, comme pour son opposition au pont de l’autoroute 25?<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s true that the alternative vision of Notre Dame that has been presented by the highway plan’s opponents is ambitious to the point of being far-fetched. It doesn’t take into account the fact that Notre Dame is the service road for one of the continent’s busiest ports. Unless the port is moved, it will remain an inhospitable street and certainly not one that would be conducive to any sort of human-scaled, pedestrian-oriented development. <\/p>\n

But maybe that’s the point: we should be planning for the future. Building what amounts to an eight-lane expressway along a large section of our waterfront seems like a hopelessly pass\u00e9iste approach to urban transport. Shouldn’t we be investing in sustainable alternatives instead of patchwork solutions that will not even last a generation? If Notre Dame is reconfigured according to the MTQ’s plans, it will only entrench the habits we will eventually need to abandon. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If the Minist\u00e8re du transport du Qu\u00e9bec expected a smooth ride for its plan to upgrade Notre Dame Street between the east end of downtown and Highway 25, it was sorely mistaken. As we reported last month, a coalition of citizens has emerged with an alternative vision, one that would see Notre Dame converted intoContinue reading “Opposition keeps mounting to Notre Dame plan”<\/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":[7835,7839,7840,31,7842],"tags":[1308,89,8,1390,9,10,1385,1383,1389,67,1391,686,1392,265,1384,125,1387,1393,1386,1388,292,940,302],"class_list":["post-372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-green-space","category-neighbourhoods","category-politics","category-traffic","category-urban-design","tag-bali","tag-centre-sud","tag-city-hall","tag-columbia","tag-development","tag-environment","tag-etienne-coutu","tag-francis-lapierre","tag-graduate-and-interning-architect","tag-hochelaga-maisonneuve","tag-indonesia","tag-jean-charest","tag-kyoto","tag-la-presse","tag-monique-desy-proulx","tag-montreal","tag-news-editor","tag-patchwork-solutions","tag-patrick-lejtenyi","tag-premier","tag-quebec","tag-the-mirror","tag-usd"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nOpposition keeps mounting to Notre Dame plan - 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\/2007\/12\/13\/notre-dame-plan-isnt-winning-anybody-favours\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Opposition keeps mounting to Notre Dame plan - Spacing Montreal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If the Minist\u00e8re du transport du Qu\u00e9bec expected a smooth ride for its plan to upgrade Notre Dame Street between the east end of downtown and Highway 25, it was sorely mistaken. 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