CDN-NDG to rework tricky intersection
CDN-NDG borough has announced a plan to rework the tricky five-corner intersection where Decarie, de Maisonneuve and Upper Lachine Road converge, but the Gazette is already cuing drivers not to like it.
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Kate
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James 17:41 on 2024-10-15 Permalink
This intersection is definitely the most dangerous in my daily ride.
The section of De Maisonneuve west between Addington and Décarie was always one-way west until the MUHC super hospital was being built. Only for about the last 10 years has it been 2-way.
Eliminating cars between prud’homme and Décarie is an interesting step but will decrease by a lot the number of cars travelling west on De Maisonneuve (some would say that is good / Gazette will say that it is bad).
Peter McQueen had an idea for a bike bridge that would continue the De Maisonneuve bike path over Décarie and Upper Lachine. The problem I suppose is the cost and how to link up with the existing paths on the eastern side of Décarie.
carswell 20:06 on 2024-10-15 Permalink
It’s about time. Cyclists and pedestrians have been complaining about this intersection for decades and were long treated in the most condescending and dismissive fashion by car-loving councillors and mayors, most notably the disgraced Appelbaum. When biking, I’ll do just about anything to avoid it. I find it hard to envision a perfectly safe intersection for cyclists without a bridge but we’ll see what the city proposes.
BTW, in my experience, Gazette articles won’t display in browsers with an ad blocker but you can get around that by clicking the Reader Mode button on your browser if it has one.
Kate 09:26 on 2024-10-16 Permalink
Wednesday, it’s reported that the city also plans safety improvements to the St‑Pierre interchange in Lasalle, where two cyclists have died in recent years.
carswell, if I find that a Gazette story is accessible, I use their link. I haven’t worked out why some stories are paywalled and others not, but I have noticed that sometimes a story will become inaccessible after a period of time.
I don’t want to direct people to stories that can’t be read, so if a Gazette story is linked here that you can’t get to, please comment about it and I’ll find an archived link.
carswell 09:40 on 2024-10-16 Permalink
The article isn’t paywalled for me, Kate. I just get a persistent popup telling me to whitelist (hate that term) the site, a popup that, along with the shading of the underlying page, makes the article impossible to read. But a click on the Read Mode button not only displays the article but makes it more legible to boot.
Kate 10:31 on 2024-10-16 Permalink
OK, thanks. I’ve replaced the link to the Gazette story above with an archive link in any case.
MarcG 11:16 on 2024-10-16 Permalink
The ‘uBlock Origin’ browser add-on works well for blocking most ads, including the Gazette, without additional fudgery needed.
Kate 11:27 on 2024-10-16 Permalink
Including removing the paywall, MarcG?
MarcG 11:54 on 2024-10-16 Permalink
Yep
MarcG 12:12 on 2024-10-16 Permalink
Doesn’t work for La Presse, though, but the Read Mode trick works.
Nicholas 13:24 on 2024-10-16 Permalink
Good news about both intersections, both being very unpleasant; I’m sort of surprised now that my parents let me ride through both of them as kids. But I don’t see a huge change for the NDG one for safety (though it will help for traffic flow), as the tricky part is actually crossing the intersection, which won’t change unless they make the light cycle such that pedestrians and cyclists only go when all others have a red (but then there will be a long wait to deal with all the other movements). Reducing it to four legs from five will help, but I wonder if a roundabout would help here (though the grade change would make that difficult).
I do think it’s really funny that we spent millions of dollars to build that exit from Decarie onto de Maisonneuve for the MUHC, when there was already an exit to Sherbrooke, and now it won’t serve that purpose. I remember talking about it as a waste of money when it was proposed, but now even moreso.
Also, CTV says the VSP interchange is in LaSalle, but it’s in Lachine, like VSP is. It’s possible they’ll also work on the bridge over the canal (the border) and the intersection with St Patrick, which are both in LaSalle, but the majority of the work and the danger is Lachine.
Orr 18:07 on 2024-10-16 Permalink
That is a big improvement for general active transport safety. I passed through it on several occasions on bike and foot during my kidney donation process (so many tests!) and I had the patience to wait for the pedestrian signal, but it was not a good system at all. 2 deaths and 540 collisions in five years!
Because it is being discussed above as an issue, If you want to read the daily e-version of the gazette, your grande bibiotheque BANQ card gives you access to read the e-paper online at banq digital platform via the pressreader website. Kate cannot link to individual stories via it, as she has mentioned in the past. Nevertheless, it lets you read the gazoo and a wide range of other newspapers and magazines online easy peasy, no paywall hassles, browser cooking cleaning, no ad blockers (which I use an entire array of) workingor not working, forcing reader mode, etc. Just don’t read the comments. Never read the comments in a postmedia paper, never!
MarcG 18:45 on 2024-10-16 Permalink
That BAnQ access also gives you searchable access to the Gazette’s historical archive which is great for research.