Montreal City Weblog

Kate 10:09 on 2023-09-08 Permalink Reply  

• JP 11:07 on 2023-09-08 Permalink

  I lived at the intersection of Querbes and d’Anvers for 12 years. I would be furious too if I still lived there.

• DeWolf 11:24 on 2023-09-08 Permalink

  I think the plan as it has been presented is flawed and should be revised. On a practical level, removing all the parking from the east side of Querbes will result in mass disobedience that will mean the bike path will be essentially useless. And it will create a lot of political bad will for any future projects of this nature.

  North-south blocks are long in Montreal, so removing parking might work on a street like Bellechasse where you’re never more than 25 metres away from the nearest cross street. But on Querbes, someone who lives mid-block is a good two minutes from the nearest corner, or much longer if you’re less able-bodied.

  For me, the obvious solution here is to make Querbes a one-way street. Keep one lane of traffic, two lanes of parking and you still have room for protected bike paths. Because the lanes are exist on Querbes are dangerous and the street is treated as a speedway by drivers who ignore the 30 km/h speed limit. It’s a residential street and it really shouldn’t act as a thoroughfare, especially when L’Acadie is nearby. There’s a strong case for protected bike lanes, but there’s also a lot of people on Querbes who need parking nearby.

  Unfortunately the opposition to the bike paths isn’t helping their cause by acting like bullies and louts.

• walkerp 12:17 on 2023-09-08 Permalink

  That’s a good solution, DeWolf.
  Change is hard. I’m sympathetic to people who need their car to work, but some of the older generation are just angry and resistant to any change.

• Nicholas 14:31 on 2023-09-08 Permalink

  DeWolf has the right solution: take away a travel lane rather than a parking lane. It’s also a better layout for a more pleasant street. There are no bus routes on Querbes, and no reason it needs to be two-way; one-way pairs are very common in Montreal. It would also help reduce the rat running people use to avoid Acadie or St Laurent to get over the Met. You could make it even better by putting in some diverters to prevent people using the residential streets as cut throughs. But if for some reason it needs to stay two-way (traffic engineers will say traffic flow), then they can remove a lane of parking but alternate which side of the street it’s on. This kind of chicane allows parking on both sides, so spots can be put in front of homes of people who can’t walk far on both sides of the street. The borough could certainly compromise with any of these options, and strategically it pits different car owners against each other to choose which one they prefer, rather than against the bike lanes.

  It’s worth mentioning that people don’t have a constitutional right to park directly in front of their building for free. There are only residential zones near the metro and Jean Talon, where people can optionally pay 19 to 41 cents a day for a sticker to occupy public space.

• JS 14:39 on 2023-09-08 Permalink

  How many of the parking kvetchers have green spaces behind their homes that can be paved over and made into private parking spaces?

• Kate 19:08 on 2023-09-08 Permalink

  Why don’t they pave over Howard Park and make it into a municipal free parking lot?

• px_voice 21:29 on 2023-09-08 Permalink

  @DeWolf interesting solution and in general I agree the proposed solution seems to be poorly adapted to the realities of the neighbourhood. I expect there could be some delays or modifications, but sometimes to get these right takes years of reiteration (as evidenced in repaints in other places I’ve been to in mtl)
  @Kate, even paving over parks will never be enough for the volume of cars here. I think the battle is so divisive because there are significant and deepest differences in mindset and perspective over these issues. Also the neighbourhood is ‘grandfathered’ i.e. inherited wisdom or transferred behaviours around cars that are of quite a different complexion to adjacent areas, quite out of step with what is assumed to be a safe/valid position elsewhere.
  To me, the bottom line is not bikes but the issue of travel speed and safety for all road users, and it is obvious from even spending a few hours around junctions that there is something significant needed to readress the balance, and reinforce the incredible advantages that p-ex offers – namely highly efficient access to multiple important public transport routes, structuring the relation between local, interurban and highway transport routes to plan and address vehicle speed (rather than mostly decorative flashy signs an bumps). The home run has got to be the growth of cycling, as it offers a mobility scale essential to cities today, and a lot of this work is through careful planning for future generations. To me parking, and access to commerce is part of a changing equation for cities in general, and parc ex has yet to embrace a public realm strategy that takes advantage of its walkable density, and deeply a strategy based on its unique commercial and cultural makeup. I think a more precise global vision needs to be developed that integrates education, public workshops and site-specific research, as things are changing fast, and without deeper thought we are left with… Toronto vibes.

• bumper carz 08:42 on 2023-09-09 Permalink

  The “immigrants need cars” narrative in the article is very constructed and dishonest.

  What about the “immigrant children need space to ride bikes” or “Immigrants deserve access to active transportation options” narratives that the article could have included?

  Were these other possible angles of opinion not car-centric enough for commercial media? Is it really acceptable to allow the car lobby to use immigrants as human shields for their propaganda efforts?

• Ian 20:16 on 2023-09-09 Permalink

  DeWolf has my vote, too. It’s always a better traffic calming measure to remove a driving lane.

  Politically I suspect one of the biggest issues with ViSaMePEx is that these are actually pretty diverse neighbourhoods demographically, not just by ewthnicity but also by income. Historically a lot of the people that worked in the garment district lived in Parc Ex and aspired to cars so they wouldn’t have to rely on the terrible bus service from one side of the 40 to the other.

  When I worked in garment, I was a salaried worker – I rode my bike to work and was one of the only ones. People would take the bus until they could afford a car. Now I know most of the garment business is gone in Montreal but there is still tons of light industry in St Laurent north of the 40 and the people that work there still mostly live south of the 40. Just take a look at the bus schedules to light industrial VSL, even just across Acadie form Marché Centrale. It’s pathetic.