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Beat the
street
Avenue Verte
Mont-Royal pushes the pedestrian envelope in Montréal
By Katie Wallace
To the rest of
Canada, Quebec — and especially Montréal — often appear as a
laissez-faire New World enclave of Old World living; a
cosmopolitan bastion where a European-style existence lies no
further than the nearest pâtisserie.
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In Montréal,
the car is still king.
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Owen Rose, an architecture intern who has lived in Montréal's
central Plateau neighbourhood for almost five years, says he
savours the fact that, within a three or four minute stroll from
his door, he passes two bakeries, three fruit and veggie stalls, a
well-known butcher and fish market, not to mention a gaggle of cafés,
a pharmacy and a hardware store. But, says Rose, there is still
one element that tarnishes Montréal's continental joie de vivre:
unlike many European cities that have been limiting automobile
access to their urban cores, in Montréal, the car is still king.
Just under four
years ago, Rose and a group of fellow citizens united to take back
the street in their neighbourhood which, with more than 100,000
denizens, is one of the most densely populated regions in the
country. Within six months, Avenue Verte Mont-Royal had collected
more than 18,000 signatures from other pedestrian-minded residents
in support of the group's proposal to ban cars on Avenue
Mont-Royal, the Plateau's central artery and commercial hub. The
plan allowed for access by emergency vehicles, delivery trucks and
public transit with car crossings at all major intersections.
The petition was
presented to the Bureau Council and the group has since lobbied
the Plateau's local council to adopt their plan but, to date,
Mount Royal is as congested as ever - the avenue's regular bus,
the 97, is rumoured to be the slowest in the city.
When the project
first launched, Rose says he and his colleagues were not surprised
that there was considerable resistance from Plateau shopkeepers
and merchants, who feared a loss of business from car-driving
customers. Now, Rose says, after considerable consultation with
area businesspeople, there is a three-way split between merchants
who are for, against, and don't care about the plan.
And, as Rose points
out, pedestrian traffic already accounts for the lion's share of
business along Mont Royal with approximately 80 percent of
customers walking or biking to do their shopping.
He points to
Copenhagen, a city that began creating car-free zones over 40
years ago. Rose says Danish merchants initially showed the same
sort of resistance that Plateau shopkeepers have demonstrated.
But, he says, it wasn't long before merchants on car-free streets
reported significant boosts in their business, so much so that
businesspeople on auto-accessible streets cited the ban as an
unfair business subsidy.
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"You
know that old expression, 'you can't fight city hall?'
When you live the experience, it's a smack in the
face."
— Owen Rose,
member of Avenue Verte Mont-Royal
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In Montréal, the
main barrier to putting the plan into action, Rose says, is at the
political level. He scratches his head over this especially since
the director of public works for the Plateau explained to him that
Avenue Mont-Royal prevented no major barriers to going car-free.
But the group has seen no movement on their file at the municipal
level. "You know that old expression, ‘you can't fight city
hall?' When you live the experience, it's a smack in the
face," says Rose.
Conversely, an
unexpected side effect of Rose's group's work has been a rise in
social activism on the Plateau. "Our activities have given a
functional vocabulary to other groups," he says, pointing to
citizen coalitions pushing for affordable housing or cleaner
streets, groups that formed in the wake of Avenue Verte
Mont-Royal's inception.
These causes mesh
with Avenue Verte Mont-Royal's aim to improve life in its backyard
by actively promoting the potential ease and healthiness, both
physical and social, of urban life, and, Rose says, to reinvent
the way people live in downtown neighbourhoods in Montréal.
"It's a question of what it is to live in the city, to create
a convivial public space," he says.
On International
Car-Free Day in 2004 and during the summer festivals that see
Avenue Mont-Royal temporarily closed to vehicles, Rose and his
foot soldiers catch a fleeting glimpse of their vision brought to
life - the public space Rose speaks of teeming with bikes and
strolling citizens.
But for now, that
space includes thousands of cars.
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