Comité de citoyens
Mont-Royal Avenue Verte
Mise à jour: 21-02-2007

Mont-Royal tramway?
Stephanie O'Hanley
 
When a section of St-Denis between Sherbrooke and De Maisonneuve closed for road infrastructure repairs, the folks from Mont-Royal Avenue Verte - a grassroots organization attempting to convert Mont-Royal Ave. to a pedestrian, bicycle and tramway-only thoroughfare - saw an opportunity. Road repairs went on for weeks and the inconvenience caused by the repair work meant businesses saw a huge drop in customers.

"If you're going to put a tramway on Mont-Royal this is what you have to expect. [We thought] let's go to the people living it right now," explains Owen Rose of Mont-Royal Avenue Verte. So the group asked St-Denis merchants in the affected section if they would be more supportive of infrastructure work if the end result was a pedestrian-friendly street with a tramway.

Of the 30 managers and owners the group polled on March 30, 70 per cent gave a green light to the idea of revamping St-Denis into a car-free space for pedestrians, cyclists and a new tramway, 17 per cent were undecided and another 13 per cent were against the idea.

"We wanted to break the stereotypes that all merchants are against the idea," says Rose, noting the poll results prove that "even in the worst-case scenario, merchants are for a tramway." About one-third of Mont-Royal Ave. businesses oppose taking cars off Mont-Royal, he says.

"The people are on side, it's just waiting to get the power on side," says Rose, pointing out that when a group of citizens created Mont-Royal Avenue Verte four years ago, "[people said], 'You guys are crazy' - now it's, 'I know about this project, when is it going to happen?'"

A commission studying an urban plan for the Plateau Mont-Royal borough backed Mont-Royal Avenue Verte's ideas, and the group has repeatedly submitted to borough council its 18,500-signature-strong petition asking for public hearings on the project. But Rose says they hit an unexpected "brick wall" with borough mayor Helen Fotopulos. "Her whole response to us was, 'I'm sorry, we don't govern by petition.'"

Mont-Royal Avenue Verte is holding a pedestrians-only, family-friendly march starting at Mont-Royal metro and heading east to Papineau on June 17 at 2 p.m. For info, go to www.montroyal-avenueverte.org.

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