The word ambitious was kicked around a lot as the Plante administration presented its proposed urban plan outlining the city’s development over the next 25 years.
That’s because instead of submitting a plan for development, Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante is proposing to marry housing with a vast new public transit network. The city’s urban plan, unveiled Tuesday morning, plans to add 200,000 housing units, centred around more than 300 kilometres of new transit projects, with the goal of upping the percentage of trips taken by public or active transit to 69 per cent by 2050 from the current 47 per cent.
Among the proposed transit services are a scaled-back version of the Pink Line, extension of the Orange Line north to St-Laurent’s Bois-Franc neighbourhood and a westward extension of the Blue Line to Lachine. The centrepiece of the plan though is a 184-kilometre network of tramways. Last month, the ARTM, the region’s transit-planning body, presented a plan for a 38-kilometre tramway toward the city’s east end. At $18 billion, it would be the most expensive transit project in the province’s history and would have to be approved by the province and then get federal and provincial funding.