Lafontaine Park update & more
La Presse’s Mario Girard starts out here with a reasonable update on the progress of the reconstruction of the Théâtre de la Verdure on the western edge of Lafontaine Park, but later drifts off into a snipe at Mayor Plante about parking.
Parking is never going to go away as an issue. There’s also a story Thursday about people hating a new temporary bike path in NDG because it abolishes some parking spaces.
Ian 11:09 on 2020-07-23 Permalink
On the subject of temporary street restructuring I see that in Mile End Pm decided to make Saint-Viateur a “shared street”, kind of a shame considering how much that might have helped Bernard – Saint V already has pretty active street life. I wonder if the local business lobby played a role in that – there is definitely a lot more money on Saint V. Though to be fair Bernard does have several bus routes so that probably played a role in the decision, too.
Kate 11:51 on 2020-07-23 Permalink
There is a bus that goes along St-Viateur but it’s such an obscure and sparse route that you can spend considerable time along there and never see it.
Ian 18:26 on 2020-07-23 Permalink
The Casgrain bus, right… I noticed today that much of Fairmount is being turned into a “shared” street as well, I haven’t been up to Bernard for a couple of days, it might be happening there too, now. I’ve noticed that in Mile End we have stopped getting any kind of notification for these street changes, construction, or pretty much anything – they just go ahead and do it. I guess PM assumes we will be attending council meetings or visiting their website or something. To be fair it’s no real skin off my back since apparently they aren’t asking for public consensus, so we’ll find out when it happens and that’s that, but it feels like not that long ago we used to get warnings from the borough when there was even a sidewalk repair in the neighbourhood. It’s all become rather excitingly random. Oh look, Maguire is one way now. Huzzah!
j2 07:29 on 2020-07-24 Permalink
Re: ndg bike path, that plan is to put it right in front of (at least one) primary school, which would imply the kids need to cross a lane of cycling traffic to get to the school. So for four hours a day (because covid means more buses staggered because of social distancing) the lanes will be either unusable during rush hours or young kids will be dodging cyclists.
And if it’s lanes the buses will be occupying the east bound car lane.
The fixation on parking is odd and the wrong point.
DeWolf 12:18 on 2020-07-24 Permalink
I can only assume that Bernard was left out because it has a lot more car and bus traffic than St-Viateur and Fairmount. But the borough did note that businesses along there have been given special permission to occupy the parking spaces in front. L’Gros Luxe has already put out tables (which they haven’t had permission to do since they opened). Nonya has occupied the sidewalks out front with tables which looks very nice.
The shared street designation is a bit of a technicality since it doesn’t restrict access, it just makes it legal to have picnic tables or restaurant seating in the parking spots without one of those bulky wood terrasse structures. Pedestrians theoretically have priority but I doubt anybody is going to be walking down the middle of the street when there are still plenty of cars around.
Kate 13:28 on 2020-07-24 Permalink
As I recall, DeWolf, the guy running the Bernard branch of L’Gros Luxe fought hard for a terrasse permit and never got one, till now. It’s an ill wind, as they say.
I’ve never eaten in a L’Gros Luxe and always had the impression it was a tolerable place for when you had a group of diverse friends who couldn’t otherwise agree on a place to have brunch, but maybe it’s better than that?