“Impossible to count” lost parking spaces
The Journal grieves that it’s impossible to count the parking spaces lost to create this summer’s temporary active transportation routes. But even La Presse is finding that it’s not so popular among store owners and their customers.
DeWolf 12:00 on 2020-05-27 Permalink
Some of these interventions are proving a bit awkward. Laurier East is a good example. There’s no more street parking but pedestrian volumes aren’t particularly high on most of that stretch, except for a few choke points in front of the Metro, the SAQ and the Jean-Coutu. As the owner of Rhubarbe told La Presse, it doesn’t really make sense to remove parking even from the residential parts of the street. Hopefully the borough will listen and implement a more nuanced approach.
On the other hand, the pedestrianisation of Mont-Royal is sorely needed, because at the moment it’s impossible to maintain any sort of distance from people on the sidewalks, and it’s still much quieter than usual. If they don’t feel safe walking down a particular street, people will avoid it entirely, which is something merchants may not be taking into account.
The big and apparently controversial bike lanes on Christophe-Colomb are a real game-changer in terms of mobility. I was using them the other day and it makes north-south journeys so much faster, safer and more relaxing. Because they are so big, however, they’ve become an easy target for the “war on cars” crowd, even though they don’t actually remove any traffic lanes. I haven’t heard many complaints from the street’s residents, because I think most of them have access to off-street parking in the back alley, and not everyone living on that street owns a car anyway.
Alex L 12:29 on 2020-05-27 Permalink
“If you build it, they will come”. And if you don’t, well…
Clément 15:15 on 2020-05-27 Permalink
I wish we treated “car roads” the same way as these new bike paths.
Ian 17:01 on 2020-05-27 Permalink
I agree with DeWolf here, there’s no one-size-fits-all.
Transit corridors do make the most sense for big bike path projects as those tend to be the most dangerous for bicyclists – and yeah, Mont-Royal is awful to walk on at the best of times between basically St Urbain and St Denis. I’d love to see the sidewalks on that stretch permanently widened.
I don’t really comprehend the lack of context or co-ordination when it comes to more residential areas, though. For instance, my street has a two-way bike path, which is great, because people were riding on it 2 ways before despite it being a one-way street – now they still do, but in designated lanes. My complaint is that the paths go in the wrong directions – the left side path goes against traffic and is impossible to see into from the driver’s side on the left hand parking lane. This is such a simple and obvious planning error, that is super easy to correct, but the borough won’t do anything about it.
qatzelok 17:16 on 2020-05-27 Permalink
Please cars, don’t ever come back. I live in the center of the city and my health has never been better than it has this year. Not only does the lack of automobile exhaust help me breathe during allergy season, but biking to and from has never been safer or healthier.
Please, for God’s sake, leave your SUV parked in the carport behind the smoke tree except to go to suburban malls.