Montreal City Weblog

Kate 10:29 on 2022-02-23 Permalink Reply  

• steph 10:35 on 2022-02-23 Permalink

  Is this a prequel to the RoyalMount project?

• Blork 11:11 on 2022-02-23 Permalink

  I’m interested in how they plan to do this. It seems it would have to be entirely elevated, as it crosses over several rail lines and some industrial roads. It runs about a kilometre.

  And I’m sure these folks won’t be happy to have their quiet neighbourhood turned into a throughway:
  https://goo.gl/maps/mBbj2Ywk79nrAjtJ9

• Kate 11:39 on 2022-02-23 Permalink

  That’s why there’s been constant resistance over the years, Blork. Some people do not want their street turned into a highway.

• Blork 12:03 on 2022-02-23 Permalink

  I wonder if the fervour on some people’s part to do this work is fueled by the fact that the name both sides is “Cavendish,” even though there is no link between the two. The north side could easily have been called anything. Let’s say it was always called “Ave. Blork.” Would people be so determined to “build a link between Blvd. Cavendish and Ave. Blork” as they are to “connect the two sides of Blvd. Cavendish?”

  If the Trump era, plus Covid, plus the trucker’s convoy, have taught me anything, it’s that much of the public is stupid beyond belief. The loudest among them have zero critical thinking skills, and are blank pages of gullibility awaiting the pen strokes of manipulators and grifters.

  “Building a link to the 40 at Ave. Blork” sounds like an infrastructure project that requires money and effort.

  “Connecting two sides of Cavendish” sounds like an overdue act of completion that must be done to restore balance to the universe. When wondering why Cavendish is “divided” you just know there are hundreds or even thousands of people who are outraged and thinking “LOOK WHAT THEY DID TO US!” and therefore connecting the two sides is a matter of JUSTICE and FREEDOM!

  …as opposed to just connecting a boulevard to a highway over a rail yard, which just sounds like a bunch of noisy and expensive work.

• Kevin 12:16 on 2022-02-23 Permalink

  I think having a crossing at Royalmount/Pare to the north side of Cavendish is one of the necessary steps towards building anything on the Blue Bonnets site.

• Tee Owe 12:49 on 2022-02-23 Permalink

  I like Blork’s analysis – i support renaming Cavendish North to Ave Blork, great idea!

• YUL514 14:21 on 2022-02-23 Permalink

  I take it many of you don’t live in the area or surrounding Hampstead, Snowdon, NDG, etc… to know how bad the congestion is on Decarie and all the roads that lead to it from the west. Throw in all the new Condo towers around Decarie/Vezina, Triangle, CSL towers, future Blue Bonnets, Royalmount etc… and it’s a mess right now that will only get worse. This is 50 years overdue but will it actually happen?

• Mark Côté 15:00 on 2022-02-23 Permalink

  And in a few years we’ll have bad congestion on both Decarie and Cavendish!

• Kate 15:35 on 2022-02-23 Permalink

  YUL514, we have this idea that it is an urban good to build roads to decongest traffic.

  I put it to you that it isnt necessarily so.

• Kevin 17:05 on 2022-02-23 Permalink

  Good design eliminates congestion. Good design means more than just new roads.

  Northbound Decarie Blvd, needs to be redesigned from Sherbrooke to De La Savane, moving on-ramps and off-ramps to the highway, banning left and right-turns in certain areas, and clearly marking traffic lanes on bridges and eliminating nearby parking spaces. It’ll be complicated because it involves 4 jurisdictions, but it has to be done if someone wants to turn Blue Bonnets into a community with housing.

• Joey 17:10 on 2022-02-23 Permalink

  @Kevin, which ramps would you move? I don’t drive on Decarie as much as I used to, but my impression is that the off-ramp on the northbound 15 at Cote-St-Luc Road is jammed way more often than 10-15 years ago. Could be because the light cycles at Decarie/CSL are much longer than they used to be, could be just more traffic, could be both. From a bureaucracy perspective, my hunch is the real difficulty won’t be thr four boroughs so much as the ministry, which probably has practical control over every inch of Decarie (highway *and* boulevard).

  Extending Cavendish ought to alleviate much of the eastbound traffic spilling on to Decarie (all those left turns to go north), but doesn’t every exercise like this just increase the number of cars on the road?

• Tim S. 18:11 on 2022-02-23 Permalink

  I get that more roads mean more cars and a Cavendish extension will be congested too, but it does make sense that there be more outlets from the NDG/Hampstead/CSL area.

  As to design, I wonder how much congestion on the Decarie expressway is because of people getting on Jean Talon and doing the four lane crossover to get on the 40 west. If those are people coming from CSL/Hampstead, a new way to get on the 40 might reduce congestion for all.

  Or I’m just being over optimistic because this might benefit me.

• Ian 18:56 on 2022-02-23 Permalink

  It’s worth noting that most of the major traffic bottlenecks along the 40 are caused by having to cross lanes of traffic, usually in a very short space. It’s also where a lot of the accidents are.

  I understand the principle that increasing highway space increases traffic, but it would make sense to at least make what highways there are safer, or in retrospect, it would have been great if someone thought this out. For one, there aren’t many highways in North America where your exit might be on the left or right, depending. forcing you to cross 3-6 lanes at speed.

• wmin 20:37 on 2022-02-23 Permalink

  A Cavendish link would greatly facilitate bicycling between NDG and the north side of the island.

• j2 01:07 on 2022-02-24 Permalink

  Love the idea wmin, but you’re assuming they think of that before they make it a ghost cycle birthing ground. (Used to cycle to work on cote-de-liesse, this link would have been amazing.)

• YUL514 09:47 on 2022-02-24 Permalink

  Kate, if you are going to add tens of thousands of units to the area you need to expand infrastructure. I know the theory of build more roads and you’ll have more cars but that’s not a reason alone to ignore what is going on. Vezina, Plamondon, Van Horne, Isabella, all these streets are jammed during rush hour because residents need to access Decarie north. At the western sector of NDG you have a backlog of those accessing the 20 West. An extension would and has always been ideal.

• Kevin 09:56 on 2022-02-24 Permalink

  Joey,
  Possibly all of them.
  CSL is de facto a two lane exit.. maybe make that official, and come up with a better way for northbound Blvd users to access Decarie south.
  I think an entrance north of Isabelle is needed —maybe reverse the positions of the entrance and exit?

  All scenarios should be modelled and tested.

• carswell 10:00 on 2022-02-24 Permalink

  In case people missed it, this morning’s Daybreak interviewed Côte-St-Luc mayor Mitchell Brownstein about the project. It’s not currently posted on the program’s website but may be later. Some of the main points I recall:

  Per Brownstein, the project was going to happen eventually. The reason it’s happening now is because the extension is crucial to the Hippodrome development and if that doesn’t happen soon (by 2027?), Montreal will lose the land.

  Though there have been proposals for a tunnel and an overpass, the current plan calls for a trench with, from the sounds of it, lots of greenery. Since the Hippodrome project is supposed to encourage active and public transit and not encourage cars, the extension will accommodate pedestrians, cyclists and public transit and, controversially, only one lane of traffic in each direction.

  The demerged municipalities concerned (CSL, Hamstead, TMR) want — and still hope to get — two lanes in each direction.

  There was also mention of a tramway directly connecting CSL to the Namur metro station (via the Hippodrome development presumably).