Why new skywalks are popping up all over Montreal

 

Overhead walkways have become an eye-catching feature in cities around the world over the last few decades with some cities like Calgary boasting of their extensive skybridge networks.  

  So why does Montreal have so very few of these gleaming structures in the sky? 

   Montreal has only recently started joining other cities in adding aerial skywalks to connect buildings mainly because resistance to the concept is finally being overcome.

  Montreal attempted to connect buildings underground, with its downtown  tunnel network stretching an impressive 32 kilometers, with the key tunnel opened in 1993 connecting the southern half pvm to the northern section at Eaton center under St. Catherine street. 

  Architects and developers have been making futile pitches for overhead walkways in Montreal since at least 1969 when one vowed to install one in the La Cite complex near Park and Prince Arthur to keep kids out of traffic but that never happened and subsequent proposals similarly bit the dust, as the mayor was unfavorable to the contraptions,  as were groups like Heritage Montreal and various urban planning profs at local universities, who thought the skywalks would leave streets looking barren by further removing foot traffic from the sidewalks and obscure views to the mountain and besides, we have the underground passages doing the same stuff anyway.  

   The overhead walkways hit a nerve in 1984 when a passerrelle aerienne, as the french call it, was proposed downtown uniting the Mount Royal Hotel mall to Simpson's department store,  

     Mayor Drapeau approved the plan but many objected that the view to Mount Royal from St Catherine might be obscure 

   Another proposal from 1984 would have seen a pair of skywalks over De Maisonneuve connecting that building behind Christchurch cathedral to both Eaton's and The Bay but that never saw the light of day. 

  In 1986 a proposed hotel south of Windsor station included an overhead link to the station but that project never got built. 

  The doomed proposals continued until past 2000, when the ETS school had their plan to build such a structure over notre dame near peel got shot down. 

   Admittedly, not a whole lot was getting built in Montreal during those years anyway, as many projects stalled and empty fields and parking lots dotted the downtown core.

   Nowadays the overhead passages are still mostly banned but developers have been earning exemptions with many such structures going up around town, by fulfilling certain conditions, for example buildings getting linked need to be owned by the same owner and not block any important views. 

  Skywalks are now common in Griffintown, the one at St. Antoine near Mountain to the Bell Center is hard to miss and the most prominent skywalk in Montreal is the Maestria project around Bleury and St Catherine linking two skyscrapers from their 26th floors. 

  We at Coolopolis feel that the city should go all out and link buildings that don't even want to get linked for no other reason than just to catch up, here are a few examples - let's link Place Ville Marie to the Sun Life building. and we could hook up the old Eaton's department store to revive Super Sexe club to bring a little snazzy sex to the masses and we could then put one over De Maisonneuve near Drummond to obscure the new vista that was gained when the Drummond Court was demolished.