Montreal City Weblog

Kate 23:08 on 2021-04-07 Permalink Reply  

• mare 23:49 on 2021-04-07 Permalink

  I remember the renderings and animations of the St-Laurent bike roundabout (next to the CN rail underpass) and the Bellechasse and St-Zotique bike path. The plans look beautiful, but the reality never gets even near the artist impressions.
  (The St-Laurent underpass reconstruction was interrupted for a year because the contractor went bankrupt, and then was finished very differently. The Bellechasse bike path was made and then immediately uprooted because water and electricity conduits are built on the south side. They just started again on that. The St-Zotique bike path construction was announced on signs and a few months after the date had passed the signs were removed and the street is still exactly the same as it was two years ago.)

• Joey 09:02 on 2021-04-08 Permalink

  From the pics Alex Norris posted on Facebook, I was wondering if the plan was to make it one-way. Looks like it isn’t, but it seems they are eliminating the parking lane. Bold move to have a major street like Pine have nowhere for cars/trucks to pull over…

• John B 09:39 on 2021-04-08 Permalink

  I don’t know, I bike down Pine sometimes and I don’t think there’s a ton of business there – at least it seems like a bit of an abandoned wasteland. I bet most of the car traffic is using it as a connection to Cote-des-Neiges. There’s probably a study somewhere.

  This renovation will bring pedestrian & bike traffic to the few businesses that are there, and maybe provide enough that more businesses can open up.

• Joey 09:54 on 2021-04-08 Permalink

  @John B agreed that the vision here (like the REV on St Denis) seems to be in part to reduce the attractiveness of the street as a thoroughfare. We’ll see if the plans ever see the light of day… guess it’ll depend on the election.

• DeWolf 10:32 on 2021-04-08 Permalink

  Joey, Pine hasn’t had any parking for two years.

• DeWolf 10:37 on 2021-04-08 Permalink

  Mare, installation of the St-Zotique bike path was delayed to this year, officially because the electrical work on Beaubien was still underway and the borough didn’t want to do any work on St-Zotique when there wasn’t a detour route available. Unofficially, the bikelash last summer may have given the borough cold feet. Supposedly the work on St-Zotique will resume sometime soon but the borough has been evasive about the details.

• DeWolf 10:42 on 2021-04-08 Permalink

  Also in response to Joey – Pine isn’t losing any traffic capacity. East of Park, It has always had two lanes of moving traffic and will continue to have two lanes of traffic after the revamp.

  I just checked and the parking was eliminated in 2018. That means the street has been in its “new” configuration with two lanes of traffic and curbside bike lanes for nearly three years already. The renovations will simply make the configuration permanent. Any problems with congestion etc. would have arisen by now.

• Meezly 11:29 on 2021-04-08 Permalink

  Pine is ugly, so I welcome any improvement. This past spring, I had to walk from Ave du Parc towards St-Denis a few times. I’d get off the bus at the Hotel Dieu stop before Pins, and walk along the side streets simply because it’s a much more pleasant walk though walking along Pins would have been more direct. Having biked and walked along Pins, I hope they’ll add a few pedestrian crossings, as it can be very difficult to cross Pins at a side street corner during busy times unless you’re at an intersection.

• mare 12:18 on 2021-04-08 Permalink

  @DeWolf Thanks for the update. Making Bellechasse one way isn’t very popular with drivers, especially because there are restrictions on turning across the median on both Rosemont and Beaubien during rush hour. I guess adding another one-way East-West street will make this even more pronounced. Rosemont and Beaubien definitely have become much busier, especially in the afternoon, now cars have one less route to drive East coming from Van Horne, St-Denis and St-Laurent on their way to the St-Michel entrance of the 40 E. The average speed has also gone up, despite large sections being 30km/h.

• Ephraim 14:05 on 2021-04-08 Permalink

  Better set of pictures at https://imgur.com/a/EoSx4Gt and apparently no one told them that Laloux has been gone for YEARS. And why do some of the pictures look like Rachel? I hope someone remembers that there is a readaptation centre (Villa Medica) in the neighbourhood and that accessibility to those with wheelchairs, canes and walkers is a consideration. (One of the reasons that the neighbourhood needs more public seating, they need to rest.)