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October 22, 2005
PAGE: A6 (NEWS)
In search of 'user-friendly' streets
The way we get around has become, in the words of one critic, a 'monumental issue' for our city politicians. And activists say they are reaching 'critical mass' in their quest for improved bus, train and metro service
LINDA GYULAI, The Gazette
Normand Parisien gets the feeling he's been here before.
"The people of Montreal must not be strangled anymore," he told The Gazette on Oct. 10, 1989, in an interview about Montreal's shrinking public-transit bus fleet and cuts to the metro service.
"There has to be serious planning, not just crisis management." That was Parisien's warning on May 25, 1996, about a reported 33-per-cent increase in the number of cars using Montreal's bridges.
This was Parisien's response to a transit-fare hike on Oct. 29, 1999: "It's unfair. It's a tax on the users."
And Parisien criticized a decade of "marked deterioration in services" when he slammed the fourth transit-fare increase in two years on Nov. 23, 2004.
You get the picture.
This municipal election marks Parisien's 15th anniversary as the executive director of Transport 2000 Quebec, a group he joined in 1977 to lobby for more funding and better planning for transit systems.
In Transport 2000, Parisien foresaw the shape of things to come: more cars, more highways, more pollution. The year 2000 has come and gone, but Parisien is keeping up the pressure on governments to support alternatives to the car.
"It's a monumental issue," Parisien, 46, said.
One-third of Montrealers use public transit to get to work vs. 53 per cent who drive and four per cent who get a lift in a car, the latest Canadian census figures show. Another eight per cent walk to work. And two per cent ride their bikes.
"There aren't only cars circulating in Montreal," he said. "The street has to become user-friendly for all the people who use it. We have to change the way we think about roads."
The group has new blood. Sylvie Martel, in her 40s, joined Transport 2000 last month in frustration with poor bus service in the east end and frequent metro break-downs.
An Anjou resident, Martel waits at least 15 minutes during weekday morning rush hour for the No. 44 bus to Radisson metro. If the bus is full, it leaves people waiting at the stop.
From Radisson, she travels to Square Victoria station and either hops the No. 61 bus or walks the rest of the way to her job at a call centre. On good days, the trip is an hour, she said. But every couple of weeks, sometimes more often, the metro breaks down.
Extending the metro to Anjou, as some suggest, might be too costly - but the city should invest in bus service, she said.
"I'm optimistic that we're now participating in a critical mass in the population that is starting to turn the tables" in favour of alternative transit, said Owen Rose, a member of Comite de Citoyens Mont Royal Avenue Verte.
"We're seeing that with the rise in oil prices, with ecological concerns, with local economy issues. ... So now it's a question of harnessing that opportunity."
The group, which started three years ago, proposes to bar cars from the full 2.8-kilometre length of Mount Royal Ave., between Frontenac St. and Park Ave., and turn it over to pedestrians, bicycles and public transit - ideally a tram or electric bus.
The group's goal is to get municipal officials to hold hearings on the project to get public input. To that end, it asked mayoral candidates in the Nov. 6 election - Mayor Gerald Tremblay, former mayor Pierre Bourque and newcomer Richard Bergeron, who leads Projet Montreal - whether they'll support it. Plateau Mont Royal borough mayor candidates were also asked.
Answers are to be posted on the group's website next week.
Rose's point about critical mass might explain how Canadian cities extracted a cut of the gasoline tax from the federal government this year. In June, the feds announced $100 million more for Montreal public-transit infrastructure over two years.
"Critical mass" might also help explain the emergence of Project Montreal two years ago.
The cornerstone of the party's sustainable-development platform is a proposal to build a tramway network on Montreal Island.
A chapter in the platform on public-transit is nine pages long, compared with a page in the rivals' platforms.
Transport 2000 is not endorsing a party, but Parisien said he thinks Projet Montreal has the best platform. He added that Tremblay and Bourque have had a hand in the decline of Montreal's public-transit system.
Funding for bus and metro service was slashed by the Montreal-dominated MUC during Bourque's years as mayor from 1994 to 2001, Parisien said. Transit fares were moderately raised.
Service has been moderately increased in Tremblay's four years in office, Parisien said - but not back to pre-1994 levels.
A reduced student fare has been extended to 18- to 25-year-olds. But fares have leaped under Tremblay, Parisien said - four times in the last two years.
Nevertheless, "transit is drowning in a large number of issues in this election," he said.
"Montreal is a metropolis and the big electoral debate between the two major political parties seems to be who's going to fix the greatest number of potholes."
On the net: www.montroyal-avenueverte.com
; www.transport2000qc.org
lgyulai@thegazette.canwest.com
To see the parties' platforms on transit, consult their websites:
Richard Bergeron, Projet Montreal: www.projetmontreal.org
Gerald Tremblay, Montreal Island Citizens Union: www.tremblayalamairie.com
Pierre Bourque, Vision Montreal: www.visionmtl.com
INFO: Municipal Elections
ILLUS: Photo: PHIL CARPENTER, THE GAZETTE / A bus stop on Park Ave. at the corner of Mount Royal Ave.: Both the quality and cost of public transit are issues for Montreal voters.
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