Three winter streets to be car-free
Sections of three streets will be car‑free for ten‑day periods this winter: Villeray west of St‑Denis, Notre‑Dame in St‑Henri, and Duluth between Drolet and St‑Denis. These are said to be test cases for longer pedestrianizations.
Joey 10:58 on 2025-02-02 Permalink
Good for the city for trying this out, but what lesson can you conclude from closing two non-contiguous blocks of Duluth? Besides the inevitable annoying of drivers who have to make a detour?
yasymbologist 11:33 on 2025-02-02 Permalink
Cars are having too many privileges, and a two-minute detour seems to be insufferable. I need to write Valerie Plante a thank you card for her putting motorists in their place. Oh wait, I am a motorist too.
Kate 14:14 on 2025-02-02 Permalink
The Duluth closure is contiguous, although stretching it across St‑Denis does kind of cut it in half.
I thought of walking down to Villeray Street today but the wind chill of -20 has dissuaded me. But sometime this week. It’s a nice street when it’s closed in summertime.
Joey 15:15 on 2025-02-02 Permalink
@yasymbologist – sorry if I wasn’t clear, I am all for more pedestrian streets, I juts don’t understand what the point of that particular decision is. What is the benefit of having the two blocks adjacent to St-Denis closed to traffic is St-Denis is still open (north-south)? Why not just do all of Duluth, or the stretch from St-Laurent to St-denis?
@Kate are they contiguous if they are separated by a busy north-south street that’s open to traffic? It’s cold out but there’s hardly any wind (at least in Mile-End)
Chris 15:32 on 2025-02-02 Permalink
>The Duluth closure is contiguous
Sorry to be a pedant, but I agree with Joey. It’s literally the opposite of contiguous. “Connecting without a break.” “Sharing an edge or boundary; touching.”
Ian 16:40 on 2025-02-02 Permalink
I thought the last time they tried to close off Notre Dame nobody liked it and both citizens and local business griped so much the summer project was cancelled even before it finished the season. What changed?
thomas 17:12 on 2025-02-02 Permalink
Perhaps the oddest street closure is Ste-Catherine Est between Atateken and Wolfe to make room for the skating rink.
DeWolf 18:23 on 2025-02-02 Permalink
The Duluth pedestrianization is part of a festival that takes place on both St-Denis and Duluth, hence that particular location.
The Notre-Dame pedestrianization is part of another festival that took place over several weekends last winter. Instead of breaking things up, it’s taking place over a single 10-day period this year.
@Ian This is a totally different part of the street. The summer 2020 attempt at pedestrianization was in Little Burgundy and most of the opposition seemed to come from David McMillan, because a bunch of smaller restaurants on that strip expressed support.
Kate 18:26 on 2025-02-02 Permalink
Do we really have to be pedantic here? Non contiguous suggests to me that you’d have the closed blocks interrupted by blocks of the same street continuing to allow motor traffic.
Chris 19:03 on 2025-02-02 Permalink
For it to be truly contiguous, you’d have to close the cross streets too. i.e. on Duluth you’d close St Denis for the block above and below Duluth. Of course, that would disrupt motor traffic more, and so we don’t do it. But we could do it, and it would be better. It would be safer for pedestrians. It would be faster for pedestrians. In the summer, on Mont Royal, some cross streets are closed in this manner, and some are not (like St Denis).
Kate 11:23 on 2025-02-03 Permalink
Chris, they never close the cross streets. Closure of Mont‑Royal Street in the summer is generally regarded as a success, but the cross streets remain open, and people are pretty accustomed to this now.
Do you remember the old Car-Free Days downtown when they actually closed off car access to a small patch of the city (it started out relatively generous, but the patch got smaller and smaller over several years till they gave up completely). I think that was the only time I saw access from all directions shut down, but it may not ever have been complete.
Joey 11:35 on 2025-02-03 Permalink
Kate, true but there’s a difference between allowing occasional cars to cross pedestrianized Mount-Royal via side-streets, like Henri-Julien, and maintaining north-south flow of a major artery like St-Denis. But it’s sort of undeniable that the pedestrianization will likely feel like two separate closures, rather than one short stretch.
Kate 12:37 on 2025-02-03 Permalink
OK, you guys are right. On the map it looks contiguous, but on the ground it isn’t.
Chris 20:31 on 2025-02-03 Permalink
>Chris, they never close the cross streets.
Perhaps I’m losing my mind, but I’m 99% sure that in the summer Mont Royal pedestrianization, some (not all) of the cross streets are closed. They put bollards at the intersection and allow two way traffic on the cross street so that people can still park on their block.