Montreal City Weblog

Kate 13:07 on 2026-07-06 Permalink Reply  

• Joey 13:59 on 2026-07-06 Permalink

  The way to make Old Montreal more car-friendly is to make it vastly easier and preferable not to visit by car. Even the most basic generic marketing of Old Montreal is very pedestrian-first; it’s sold as a little slice of Old Europe in North America. And every small European town has the same approach – parking on the periphery, minimal through traffic, everything is walkable.

• Kate 15:11 on 2026-07-06 Permalink

  Old Montreal would be so much more photogenic without cars, but that’s unrealistic.

  It’s too bad that it was saved from demolition by Blanche Lemko van Ginkel. We could have had a lovely elevated highway through where dowdy old St Paul Street is, a sister structure to the Metropolitan – which, after all, is one of the city’s showpieces, which we all show to visitors.

  And now that we’re getting more pipelines, it’s positively patriotic to drive everywhere we can!

• Jim 15:21 on 2026-07-06 Permalink

  I agree, I think the key outcome should not be “ban cars” versus “keep cars.” That is the wrong debate. The better goal is to make Old Montreal car-accessible when needed, but not car-dominated by default.

  Many historic town centres in the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Spain, and elsewhere already work this way. I am not saying this is working perfect everywhere, but mostly you can still reach them by car if you are a resident, delivering goods, staying at a hotel, dealing with accessibility needs, or providing emergency services. But casual through-traffic is discouraged or blocked. Parking is usually pushed to the edge, with clear walking routes into the historic core.

  The economic argument should focus on making the area easier and more pleasant to visit, not harder. A historic district works best when people want to linger, walk, eat, shop, visit galleries, and enjoy the place. Cars may bring people nearby, but pedestrians create the street life.

• Maggie Rose 15:31 on 2026-07-06 Permalink

  Crikey, that’s some top-notch, quality sarcasm there, Kate! Makes me realize the world needs a lot more of that of late. And are mobility & safety new code-words for more cars now?

• Kate 16:36 on 2026-07-06 Permalink

  SMF is not stupid. She knows she was elected by the internal combustion backlash, and she will service them graciously, although the photos I’ve seen of her lately don’t look like a woman who’s enjoying her job.

• Taylor C. Noakes 18:44 on 2026-07-06 Permalink

  Complete empty suit situation here. No ideas, no vision, pure knee-jerk reactionary with zero interest in what experts have to say.

  Find one urban planner at any of our four major universities who would advocate for this.

  One. I’d say it’s probably impossible.

• Ian 20:08 on 2026-07-06 Permalink

  You guys are looking at this urbanism thing all wrong. The obvious solution to eliminate car traffic is to make the area totally undesirable, like it was in the 80s. Tear out the park, put back all the broken glass in between the cobblestones, and get rid of all the attractions and stores. I look forward to Hotel Nelson being a punk bar again.

• bob 20:28 on 2026-07-06 Permalink

  “parking on the periphery, minimal through traffic, everything is walkable” – exactly the way to go.

• qatzelok 13:44 on 2026-07-08 Permalink

  The neighborhoods of the city that tourists appreciate the most are the car-inaccessible ones like the Plateau.