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Pedestrian malls wrong road?
Planner discourages car ban on Mount Royal Ave.
MICHELLE LaLONDE
The Gazette
Monday, June 26, 2006
Eliminating cars and trucks from major commercial streets like Mount Royal Ave. is not the best solution to traffic problems in the Plateau Mont Royal district or elsewhere in Montreal, city councillor Michel Labrecque says.
Labrecque, who is developing a new traffic plan for the Plateau, travelled to cities all over the world attending conferences on urban transportation during his previous career as bicycling advocate with Velo Quebec.
Though Labrecque, who represents the Mile End district, is in favour of more pedestrian malls for the city, the Plateau borough should not rush into banning traffic on Mount Royal Ave., he said.
"When we do move to take cars off certain streets, we have to choose our spots very carefully to ensure there are no unwanted effects," Labrecque said in an interview.
Labrecque agrees traffic on Mount Royal Ave. is a major problem. Pedestrians, cyclists and public transit should be given priority on that thoroughfare, he said.
But Labrecque worries that rushing to close the avenue completely to cars and trucks could be "a bungle, a fiasco."
"There are dozens of things we need to do in the first phase of this plan, which will take us up to 2012, before saying we'll take road traffic right off (that avenue). ... Let's start by slowing it down and reducing it," he said.
A group of Plateau residents held a march recently, organized by the Committee for a Green Mount Royal Ave., a 4-year-old group that advocates closing the avenue to private vehicles, widening sidewalks and adding a bike path and more efficient public transit.
Borough mayor Helen Fotopulos said she admires the group's determination, but its marches and petitions have not warmed her to their idea.
"There's no logic to it. ... You don't just dump the traffic problems of one street onto all the other streets," she said.
Fotopulos said she found little support for the plan when she went door to door in the last city election campaign. Nor did the proposal surface during public hearings on the city's urban plan, she added.
Although pedestrian-only streets like Prince Arthur are a big hit with tourists, Labrecque said some nearby residents regard the setup as a failure.
The area was not zoned properly to ensure that a diverse mix of commercial businesses could continue to serve residents, Labrecque said. Restaurants and bars are virtually the only types of businesses able to pay the high rents on the street and this has led to noise problems and other nuisances.
Closing Mount Royal Ave. to traffic would be even more complicated, he said. While Prince Arthur is only closed to traffic between St. Louis Square and St. Laurent Blvd., vehicles can cross it going north and south along smaller residential streets.
"In the section of Mount Royal that is proposed for closure, you have major streets like St. Denis, Christophe Colomb and Papineau crossing it. How will pedestrians cross these streets?"
Labrecque added that closing Mount Royal Ave. would only push traffic onto parallel streets to the north and south.
"Not looking at what happens to streets up and downstream would not be respectful of the other residents in the district," he said.
Labrecque said he will listen to arguments for closing Mount Royal Ave. with an open mind when public hearings on the traffic plan are held this fall.
But he said he would be more inclined to favour closing a smaller street, like Duluth Ave.
"Duluth is a good example of a street that could succeed (as a pedestrian street)," he said, because it has a park on either end (Lafontaine in the east and Mount Royal in the west), and would not have such a spill-off effect on surrounding streets.
As part of his research on the mobility plan, Labrecque has visited more than 50 construction sites over the past three weeks in three different boroughs. He said that of the 50 sites, fewer than 10 met the city's requirements for keeping the streets safe for pedestrians. He said many work sites were blocking sidewalks on both sides of the street, with no arrangement made for pedestrians.
"It's just another symptom of the complete lack of respect for pedestrians. It shows the culture regarding pedestrians is not very developed here. We have some very basic work to do to change that.
"Let's go step by step," he added.
The borough's traffic plan is to be made public in February and its implementation is to begin by next June.
mlalonde@thegazette.canwest.com
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