Update: It seems voting is still open here. They also have a PDF explaining the three options, so I may have jumped the gun!
Update 2: Seems there was public outcry that the vote wasn’t more widely available to everyone, hence the online voting options. More information on the plan here.
The group behind long-term planning on our high street put three projects to a public vote the other night. The winning project is to make the street more pedestrian friendly by:
- Expanding the sidewalks
- Adding in a cycle lane
- Reducing traffic to just one direction
Click here for the original post
Scenario 2 prevailed. With this option, Rue Masson would become a one-way street (to the east in unofficial logic) and there would be a bike lane. The sidewalks would be 1.5 m wider on each side and a total of three parking spaces would be lost. There would also be a public square on the forecourt of the Church of the Holy Spirit. It remains to be seen now where the line 47 would be diverted to the west. There are solutions that can be done without going through Dandurand and Laurier. This consultation was organized a few weeks ago by the Promenade Masson Business Development Corporation. (translated via Google Translate)
On the face of it, I was ecstatic about this change. The borough touts our high street as its metaphoric heart, but I’ve felt for a long time that it was still too much of an artery for cars. The sidewalks are way too narrow and blocked with street furniture. It’s not a nice street to walk down, especially with a small child in a pushchair or on foot as there’s often not enough space for two people to pass. I love the idea of more space to walk. Also, reducing the traffic from two lanes to one means a 50% reduction in motor vehicles, which in turn will reduce localised air pollution.
But, when I thought more deeply it became obvious this isn’t going to be a plan without consequences.
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The bus route will need to be relocated going West.
This seems to have been acknowledged in the plan, as the local bus would have to be relocated either one block North or South of the high street in one direction. This is probably going to annoy the majority of people who end up with further to walk, but it will please people who now get a bus route along their road.
Due to the diversion, it will most likely make the bus journey going West just that little bit longer in the mornings. That’s a problem with this bus route, which is already slow and unreliable at the best of time in-spite of connecting a major local centre to the Metro.
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There will be more traffic on the back-streets
Even though the high street is an important local backbone for shops, cafes, pubs and entertainment, for a lot of people it’s just a short-cut across the borough for their car. With the street closed to Westbound traffic, you can guarantee that the displaced traffic (including some pretty large trucks) will start taking the residential streets. That’s almost certain to annoy residents.
A knee-jerk reaction to this might be to mimic the Plateau by sealing off side-streets to traffic in a way that prevents them being used as cut-throughs, which is great for cyclists and pedestrians, but leads us to…
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There may be a risk to businesses
As the neighbouring Plateau has shown, when you start restricting road traffic, people are less likely to come visit a neighbourhood. This in turn can potentially affect businesses.
In the case of the Plateau, there’s been a whole cocktail of things which have aversely affected local establishments, but sealing off vast swathes of the neighbourhood hasn’t helped. As much as I’m in the camp of restricting cars as much as possible in favour of cycling, walking and public transport, this kind of thing needs to be carefully researched before going ahead.
In conclusion, fantastic idea on the surface, but it needs a lot of measure and wisdom behind the implementation, and that’s something the city has proven time and time again it’s not good at.
