The current system is fine. It's a good thing to have cars inoffensively zooming far overhead where they can't be seen or heard. It would also be far cheaper to keep it as is. The replacement will cost $3 billion (which really means $9 billion of course). Quebec ranks as the 5 th most indebted jurisdiction in the industrialized world. We just can't afford this unnecessary extravagant nonsense.
Sadly the plan has no effectively organized opposition as there is no party on the right and one potential Mayoral Candidate is a language nut (Harel) and the other Bergeron, has proposed to rebuild the highway structures to allow far less traffic to get through. Now why on earth would anybody build new roads with less capacity than the old roads?
So whatever vestigial valid objections that the Montreal Project's Bergeron might have had to this project are overlooked due to his wacky car reduction plans ie: grannies-riding-bikes-10-miles-in-January nonsense. One day cars might be powered by windmills and give off ozone-protecting gases for all Bergeron knows. Besides, we'll need a lot of highway access as we'll all be trying to get off the island when the PQ gets into power again.
The biggest problem with the Turcot is that it's realigning highway 20 to hug the bottom of the St. James Cliff. That makes absolutely no sense as the area is contiguous to NDG which should clearly be extended below the hill with neighbourhoods. The proposed new neighbourhood is sure to be a slum set amid car hell. The idea of reducing the elevated element of the highway is also nutty and will mean more zooming around at ground level, which is dangerous and noisy, and unpleasant.
Spaghetti-Junction could very well be downsized with no ill-effects on traffic.
ReplyDeleteHave you taken a stroll lately along the St-Lawrence river north-shore, between Pointe-des-Cascades and Cedars?
They are building a new bridge that crosses the whole St-Lawrence river there, for highway 30.
With Highway 30 built, through traffic won’t have to to through Montréal anymore (No, Chimples, I have no idea why they call it “through” traffic), so traffic will go down on Montréal highways.
And, besides, when the PQ will come back in power, waste-island people will not need to go east.
Now why on earth would anybody build new roads with less capacity than the old roads?
ReplyDeleteEasy because most Montrealers dont want increased car traffic in their city.Where I live 74% of residents dont own or run cars.Yet we have to live with all of their inconveniences. Suburbanites drive through twice a day crazed by Ron Fournier and Tim's coffee and wreak havoc in my neighborhood. Sadly I dont get to rip through Blainville twice a day chasing their kids off the streets.....you know what maybe I will.
This is typical, Montreal likes to spend money continuously on useless projects. Can you say Big owe?
ReplyDeleteWouldn't it have cost us less to demolish it and erect a useful building in it's place, than all the money spent (and still to BE spent) on repairing what has become nothing more then a monster truck field.
There's only one real solution: bury the whole damn thing. Plant a nice garden on top for rich condo dwellers on top on what would suddenly become one of Montreal's best addresses.
ReplyDeleteOh, and a mtn bike trail up and down and up and down along the escarpment. This has the potential for best urban mtn bike trail in north america. I'm not talking a flat trail for baby carriages and runners, I am talking an off-road mountain bike trail. Rugged, tough, and awesome.
John and Fat Judy are both right. The higher the traffic capacity the more traffic will use it which means more people from the suburbs coming in and working, taking money out of city coffers by messing up the roads, accidents, etc. and taking their hard-earned cash back to their wretched cul-de-sacs. We pay for auto commuters, sometimes with our lives and we don't need more of them. To bury the whole thing would be ideal but mega-expensive. The worst plan is the plan on the table.
ReplyDeleteThere is no logical defense for pouring massive amounts of money in and then rigging it to be inadequate.
ReplyDeleteThat's just crazy.
If you don't like cars and want to make it hard for them to use the damn thing, you can put tolls in, electronic devices, you can ban them, put up pylons blocking lanes or whatever.
The assumption that cars will always hurt the environment or threaten people is highly dodgy. In a few years they'll be running them on elastic bands fully computerized to be small, silent and equipped with radar to avoid ever banging into anything or anyone. They'll stop automatically when a pedestrian walks in front of it in the city.
I've had enough of the neurotics trying to design the city, they're letting their emotions take charge of their brains.
Kristian
ReplyDeleteLove your site ,because we do share one thing we love this city. Because I want to see the city safer and greener doesnt make me neurotic.The car pool is increasing exponentially. When we were kids Dad had wheels and nobody else. Now I ask the students in my High School classes how many cars are in their families and I often get 3 or 4.In a class of 33 my record car tally was 111. Our road system can not sustain this growth. I have to be honest if my old man hadnt said to me when I was 16,"you wanna drive, buy your own car,you aint touching mine"I probably would have one but over the years I realized I didnt need one. You dont either.You are however right about coercion its the only thing that will challenge the notion of convience.
John