Mont-Royal pedestrianization is working
According to Metro, the pedestrianization of Mont-Royal is looking like it’s working with merchants finding more business from the foot traffic.
Update: Metro also says some Mile End merchants are now asking Plateau borough to pedestrianize one of its streets – Bernard, St-Viateur, or Fairmount.
CharlesQ 13:49 on 2020-06-30 Permalink
Just wait until the Quebecor empire finds that disgruntled business and do write up article saying the complete opposite.
david182 22:46 on 2020-06-30 Permalink
All three could be pedestrianized, at least for the summer. Rachel was probably too much – it’s a significant cross street – but these are small streets with lots (or used to be) of local commerçants.
I think my top street for pedestrianization at his point would still be Sainte-Cath in the Concordia ghetto. Even with all the foreigners and others out of town, that area is certainly the highest population density in the city, particularly with all the new buildings that have gone up between the Bell Center/Sainte Cath/Atwater/Dominion Square. 10,000+ people in 10 years just in that small area.
They don’t have a huge number of commercial offerings, but it’s not either them or us (with Mont-Royal, etc). They should shut it down to cars and let people get out there!
Ian 10:28 on 2020-07-01 Permalink
“foreigners and others” not even trying to dogwhistle anymore, eh dave(x)?
As somebody who actually lives in Mile End I could see it working on Bernard. It’s a good wide street with lots of mixed business and few patios. There are a few spots where there are empty storefronts but no worse than on other Mile End streets, and it might be just the thing to get local businesses up and running again especially that bit between Clark & St-Laurent.
Saint Viateur would be problematic because there are a LOT of businesses that get all their deliveries by truck along the street, as the alleys are narrow and aren’t passable by large trucks – only the alley between Parc and Jeanne-Mance is viable for that. Since the streets were intentionally narrowed to slow traffic a few years back, trucks have become a real menace on Saint V. Also worth noting Lipa on Parc does almost constant grocery van deliveries all day so the mouth of the alley behind Parc would need to be kept open at Saint Viateur. The SAQ on Parc also uses big trucks that can only get in and out in that alley.
Fairmount is actually pretty underpopulated business-wise between Waverly & Parc – it’s almost all school buildings except for Arts Café which already has a terrasse so unless they only wanted to pedestrianize the trendy strip between St-Laurent and Waverly, I can’t help but wonder what the point would be.
Were it not for the perpetual construction I’d also suggest Laurier, it was actually kind of recovering for a couple of years before Gascogne closed & the luxury hotel started being built in what is possibly one of the slowest construction projects I’ve ever seen.
I don’t really see what the problem is with Atigh though, Fabergé has a terrasse, Kem Coba basically had a terrasse built for them by the city… unless the problem is that only between St-Laurent & St-Urbain is zoned for terrasses? But that would be an easy zoning fix, I would think.
My main concern with removing parking spaces on those commercial streets is that all the people that drive to get their bagels or coffee or overpriced brunches or artisanal sorbet or yoga pants or hibiscus pop are going to park on the residential streets, inconveniencing residents. I asked Richard Ryan about it and he hand waved the question because there is sticker parking. While this is true, a third of the street parking is open to non-residents, and there is overflow. Unless PM also makes all adjacent residential streets sticker parking only, it’s unfair to create special zones for business at the expense of residents.
David986 11:30 on 2020-07-01 Permalink
Dogwhistle? When you’re using an imported American term, I’d thank you to use it properly. In normal times, that stretch of Ville Marie is packed with foreigners and others (Canadians), most of whom are students of some kind. Not much of a controversy in that observation. Since Covid-19, many of these are back in their homelands/provinces, so that the area has fewer people than usual – potentially an argument against pedestrianization.
Ian 14:14 on 2020-07-01 Permalink
Your “de chez nous” routine is tiresome, paternalistic, and utterly transparent. You know exactly what I mean, we are also Canadians. Stop trying to “other” people. Unless of course you mean in a colonialist occupier of unceded indigenous lands sense, but somehow I doubt that was your meaning.
I know I shouldn’t stoop to your level but “dogwhistle” is not “an imported American term”, it was first used politically in Australia and is now widely used throughout the English-speaking world – which, despite what you may think, Montreal English is part of.
david93 15:00 on 2020-07-01 Permalink
Yeah, I guess in your world it’s called “othering” to describe people who come from “other” places, but in mine, it’s perfectly normal to describe, say, foreign/Canadian students who move to Montreal on a temporary basis and have now emptied out an entire part of town, as somehow qualitatively different in habitation patterns/behavior. What a crazy thing to say! I’m so glad you’re here to set me straight. Thanks!
Ian 15:21 on 2020-07-01 Permalink
This is the beauty of dogwhistling, is that when you get called out on it you can simply say “oh, is that how you took it? That’s not what I meant at all, how absurd to accuse me of such a thing” while slyly winking at your audience. Well played dave(x).
“Even with all the foreigners and others out of town, that area is certainly the highest population density in the city” … clearly, not trying to make us think those “others” somehow don’t belong in Montreal. You meant foreigners and those from other places, not in the sense of “otherness” at all! Of course 😉
david93 16:39 on 2020-07-01 Permalink
What would that even whistle? Are you really trying to tell me that Canadians are an oppressed group such that they can even be “othered” in this context to their detriment? Canadians trash Quebec all the time, they have totally different values, they’re often smug and annoying, and they assume a lot of things that I’m not enthusiastic about – for instance, that their lack of culture (which is a culture) is a universal law that all countries should follow. But they’re definitely not going to suffer from having their Canadianness pointed out, particularly when we’re discussing their habitation patterns in Montreal.
And I’m not anti-foreigner – I posted at length about the provinces new scheme just a few days ago, and I’m probably the only regular poster on here that has any idea how immigration even works in Quebec or Canada. I’m pro-immigration. Though moderately anti-French, as I find them almost as annoying as I find many Canadians.
I think you need to take your Woke 120 textbook of the shelf and review it to get a better sense of what constitutes ‘dogwhistling’ – both on form and content.
Ian 18:23 on 2020-07-01 Permalink
So your defense is that you’re just a bigot? Interesting.
david03 23:45 on 2020-07-01 Permalink
Yeah, I’m a bigot against Canadians and French, exactly. Sound the alarm and sign the song for the politically marooned left wing anglo-quebecker on the island of Montreal – you’ve found your enemy.
Kate 09:40 on 2020-07-02 Permalink
Ian, david doggedly holds that Quebec is not in Canada and has an entirely different culture. I don’t really care what he believes, but this line of debate is sterile and doesn’t go anywhere because it’s counterfactual – an article of personal faith, not of fact.
Ian 11:15 on 2020-07-03 Permalink
Fair enough.
In any case I still don’t see why the borough won’t just let Atigh and whoever else on Fairmount wants a terasse to have one, they already have terasses at Arts Café, Belle Corée, Barros Lucos, Fabergé, Kem Coba (effectively) … we don’t need to shut down the whole street as it doesn’t make sense. Bernard, though, would be great – especially since there are also several decent bars on Bernard that would clearly benefit from a terasse in a way that maybe a place specializing in hibiscus pop might not.