Montreal City Weblog

Kate 13:32 on 2023-09-13 Permalink Reply  

• Joey 15:56 on 2023-09-13 Permalink

  We’ve beaten this particular horse well past death, and I have no desire to kick-start another discussion, but I am trying to figure something out that’s not apparent from what’s been posted/published.

  It’s clear that Plante has chosen to maintain car access to the mountain from the west only. It’s also clear that there will be some kind of road maintained from the east to allow for emergency vehicles, though the roadway will be diminished to allow for tree-planting, etc. These inconveniences seem acceptable (even if it might seem frustrating or silly for, say, a picnicking Plateau family to have to drive around the mountain to be able to access Beaver Lake from Cote-des-Neiges), but I wonder about bus access.

  The news release basically said the city would ask the STM to improve its offering. It’s disappointing that there isn’t a plan, or at least a concept. I’m assuming that there will be some version of the 11 bus that will run from the parking areas along Remembrance and then presumably to Snowdon metro. That’s well and good, but the idea that someone living in the Plateau who relies on transit can only get to the top of the mountain by taking a bus or metro to CDN seems, I dunno, harsh. Maybe buses will be able to use the westbound roadway currently envisioned as an emergency route. It would kill the vibe they’re going for (Camillien-Houde as Chemin Olmstead 2.0) but would make life a lot easier for people who rely on transit.

• Ian 16:04 on 2023-09-13 Permalink

  At least the pedestrian and bike paths are separated. If they’re only plowing the pedestrian path for emergency access I bet the bike path will become an amazing impromptu snowboarding location …

• carswell 16:49 on 2023-09-13 Permalink

  @Ian Is it steep enough (7% maximum grade IIRC)? If not, it’ll be the city’s longest cross-country ski descent.

  Having just lived through this year’s Grand Prix cycliste (street and sidewalks closed for most of the day, hours of media helicopters flying overhead and people yelling whenever a cyclist and sometimes an event car or motorcycle went by and — a first this year — zazuelas), I’m wondering what will happen to that event under the new plan. As things stand now, parts of CH are already narrow for the event, especially at the start of the race.

• Ian 17:20 on 2023-09-13 Permalink

  I’m sure that cross-country skiers will test it out, lots of people use the switchback path to the belvedere already.

  Also it will be nice to walk up through the Outremont woods to the lower belvedere without dodging traffic – besides the bikes anyhow.

• DeWolf 18:11 on 2023-09-13 Permalink

  Based on the renderings that were released today, it seems like it will be the bike path that is used for emergency access, which makes sense as it will be paved with asphalt. The pedestrian path appears to be similar to the existing Olmstead path – hard-packed gravel. I assume it would be hard-packed snow in the winter.

  I think it would be nice to deploy the self-driving buses that were tested on St-Hubert onto the future bike path/emergency road. That would ensure public transit access from the east.

• carswell 18:23 on 2023-09-13 Permalink

  The bike path should be named after Clément Ouimet.

• bumper carz 18:33 on 2023-09-13 Permalink

  This is such great news! Along with Mont Royal, Parc Jean Drapeau could also use a few less roads and a few more pedestrian and bicycle trails. It’s hard to get up to the JC bridge in the current configuration.

• carswell 18:37 on 2023-09-13 Permalink

  Also, if this is built as announced, the Grand Prix cycliste route could be switched to Chemin Olmstead instead of CH or, more likely, Parc > Pins > Cédar > Côte-des-Neiges > Decelles > Chemin de la Polytechnique > Chemin de la Rampe > Édouard-Montpetit > Vincent-d’Indy > Mont-Royal > Parc, though the latter option would be a lot more disruptive to traffic than the current route. Personally, I’d be happy if they just cancelled it; that said, I appreciate that most people don’t share my aversion to any and all spectator sports.

• jeleventybillionandone 19:03 on 2023-09-13 Permalink

  I don’t know if there is a more official source yet, but Marianne Giguere has indicated on Facebook in the “Citoyen·nes du district De Lorimier, Plateau-Mont-Royal” group that there will be bus service in addition to emergency services access to Camilien Houde. I do not know how this jives with the bike path also being used for emergency access.

• Kevin 21:06 on 2023-09-13 Permalink

  The city’s sketches are a fantasy land and depict a person with a cane casually strolling down the mountain’s gravel path.

  What a load of arrogant horseshit.

• Tim S. 22:03 on 2023-09-13 Permalink

  I’m sure that the new set up will be very nice, give an alternative to Olmstead trail (which is pretty well used) and make a small number of high-performance cyclists very happy.

  But I find it jarring that they’re willing to spend 90 million on this but just announced 10 million for improving safety around schools. Yes, I know there are different budgets and governments can do multiple things at once, but I feel like this is a victory for one particularly dogged lobby group.

• Anton 05:09 on 2023-09-14 Permalink

  Plug: let’s convert it to a ski hill (2017)
  https://www.cat-bus.com/2017/10/mont-royal-ski/

  At some point my character encoding got corrupted, but it’s not so bad in the English version.

• walkerp 08:20 on 2023-09-14 Permalink

  Hooray! Such great news. It will make the mountain so much nicer and every little step to reduce fossil fuel burning helps.

  @Anton my great uncle skied down Camilien-Houde in the 1920s or 30s. If I remember correctly, it used to be just a tram line and it didn’t run when there was too much snow so it was quite common for people to ski down it.

• Ian 09:06 on 2023-09-14 Permalink

  There also used to be a ski hill with a lift in behind where UdeM is – you can still see the lift pylons.

• DeWolf 10:49 on 2023-09-14 Permalink

  The lift cables are still there too, on the ground. You can hike up along the path of the old ski lift but it’s very steep.

• Ian 21:35 on 2023-09-14 Permalink

  Cool, I hadn’t noticed – usually when I’m up around there I’m poking around the old quarry site so I just head straight up to the music building. I’ll check next time, thanks!

• orr 14:46 on 2023-09-15 Permalink

  Nice that Madame Plante is fulfilling Camillien Houde’s wish that there *not* be a car road over the summit.