Westmount dreams of going green
La Presse is looking at the enclave cities this weekend, apparently. Says Westmount wants to go green. Westmount’s mayor has a nerve saying they “have” two metro stations, since Westmount always exerts itself not to allow anything of collective purpose within its borders – no metro stations and no hospitals. Also, nobody higher than 200 feet above sea level in Westmount uses public transit.
If Westmount really wants to go properly green it should start by renovating and reopening its public greenhouse.
Daniel 13:44 on 2020-02-09 Permalink
Oh dear, I loved that greenhouse when I lived in the area a few years back. Sad to hear it’s still not open.
Kate 15:09 on 2020-02-09 Permalink
I haven’t been by, so I’m not certain. But I’ve seen nothing about it reopening. The last item I saw was a frankly implausible piece claiming Westmount didn’t have the money to repair and renovate it.
Matthew Surridge 15:12 on 2020-02-09 Permalink
Is it established somewhere that Westmount blocked a metro location? Growing up there, I always heard that Drapeau was upset at the municipality for some reason or another and refused to allow a station fully within its borders, which is why Atwater is where it is.
CE 15:26 on 2020-02-09 Permalink
According to the medtrodemontreal page on the Vendôme station:
“A segment of track between Place-Saint-Henri and Vendôme stations is divided by a wall – the only point in the metro network where the two parallel main-line tracks are thus separated between stations. The extra support of the intervening wall was necessary due to softness and instability in the surrounding rock. Plans had called for two stations — Northcliffe and Westmount — between Villa-Maria and Place-Saint-Henri instead of just one, but the same weakness, combined with political pressure from residents of the area, made the change of plans necessary.”
There’s supposed to be a photo of the Westmount station but it looks like all the photos on the site are broken. I hope this site hasn’t been abandoned and is deteriorating because it’s been an amazing resource for me and many other people doing research on the Metro for many years.
Daniel 16:06 on 2020-02-09 Permalink
I always wondered why there was a wall separating the tracks between those two stations. Another of life’s small mysteries solved!
The plans for an intermediate station or two also explain why it’s quite a long run between those two stops.
The archived version of the page has a photo: http://web.archive.org/web/20110607005736/https://www.metrodemontreal.com/orange/vendome/history.html
John B 08:52 on 2020-02-10 Permalink
The greenhouse is still closed.
I remember reading somewhere that Westmount wanted the repairs done to match the original building materials & workmanship, (essentially a more advanced version of not putting ugly plastic panels in the broken bits), but there are very few, if any, companies in Montreal, or even Canada, that can or will do it for a price they’re willing to pay.
That makes more sense, restoration of hundred(?)-year-old buildings can be expensive, especially when they’re really specialized buildings. But at some point they’re going to have to choose to either pay more or accept a different style of repair.