Ceci a été discuté précédemment: la voie du REM doit nécessairement survoler les viaducs du chemin Sainte-Marie en direction est et en direction ouest avec un dégagement suffisant pour les camions; la station se trouve entre les deux viaducs et il serait impossible de la redescendre plus près du niveau du sol.
2 « J'aime »
These areas are way more dense, and those two projects you describe are transit projects, not projects to increase road kilometers for cars. This area is low density, entirely suburban and with a really shit road network, I’ll give you that. But the “paradox” does absolutely exist when a new road is built, because the paradox is about higher efficiency reducing cost and therefore increasing consumption. In this case the efficiency would be the road network (for private cars that is), the cost would be travel time and increased consumption is congestion. But either way, there will be a transitway there which I’m sure will get healthy usage because it will probably be faster than the circuitous road network. Versus nothing today. It’s still a net positive for residents who want to avoid congestion to get to the city!
1 « J'aime »
But it would do so on a residential street that was never planned to received that much cars.
You effectively transform this residential street into a boulevard.
For congestion, let’s be honest it’s not that bad (I live in the West Island) the problem is how much people needs cars to do anything. Which makes traffic so frustrating and makes it that there is so much traffic. Adding a new connection to the highway won’t resolve it. It’ll only create pollution and congestion in a residential area.
5 « J'aime »
The problem is that it is already a boulevard, it is busy all day long because it is the only access road into most of the neighbourhood. At rush-hours it is gridlocked. Now the plan by VP and her minions is to use it as a bus route to feed to the Kirkland station. I would be 100% behind a bus-only road on the A440 land if it extended all the way to Pierrefonds Boulevard. This proposal isn’t even half-assed, it was proposed by a group of well-meaning individuals who have never experienced daily life in a car-dependent suburb. They don’t even realize that most of the streets don’t even have sidewalks.
Quand c’est un projet immobilier qui va ajouter des déplacements dans un secteur, on en veut pas, quand c’est une route, on la veut à tout prix.
Ce ne sont pas les citoyens qui étaient contre le développement de terrains privés à Pierrefonds Ouest.
The few dozens of people who answer the Kokoriko surveys are certainly NIMBYs that are against any densification proposals, but it was PM that rallied their troops against any residential developments west of Saint-Charles.
I am not sure if my understanding is correct, but I don’t see why roads not having sidewalks has anything to do with building a busway and cycling infra. It’s quite the opposite, if we want to make the suburbs less car-dependent we absolutely have to build infrastructure that offers alternatives such as transit or cycling.
1 « J'aime »
i was wondering why the bus route does not go all the way Pierrefonds Boulevard or even Gouin to connect to more peoples ? Is this planned as Phase 2 ?
2 « J'aime »
We already know that the SFH suburbs were not designed for walking, that’s clear. And while many households want that – and dare I say even seek it out – sometimes people live where they can live, and put up with the drawbacks of living there.
The problem is that when we move forward into a modern world that absolutely needs to focus on public and active transit, we expect all these people living on winding streets and culs-de-sacs to somehow be able to get to the nearest bus stop, or to bike or walk to work. However, without adequate road access into the subdivisions there is constant automobile traffic regardless of the good intentions, and it remains hazardous to pedestrians and cyclists to share the pavement.
I’ll once again say that if the A440 transitway were built all the way to Pierrefonds Boulevard, it would make tons more sense. Buses like the 68 and 468 could run all the way to Kirkland station rather than terminating on a cul-de-sac near Château-Pierrefonds. I’m about a five minute walk from Pierrefonds Boulevard, and while the REM will not get me to work quicker (it will be about four times as long as driving during off-peak and perhaps twice as long during rush hour), I would certainly take public transit for most of my other outings if I could grab a bus directly to the REM just five minutes from my front door.
2 « J'aime »
And because the neighbourhood was poorly designed in the first place, we need to continue adding more lanes for cars and perpetuate the problem?
The goal is to change habits and to start transorming this area of the island of Montreal that is so car-dependant. So there are two options here, imo :
- we create a new boulevard for cars like St. Charles (and add some reserved lanes for buses and bikes, because). It’ll ease congestion a bit in the beggining but soon enough, it will be as jammed as St. Charles because this West Island sector is really poorly designed for people without cars. Adding a new option for people with cars will just make them want to make the trip with their car and the new developments around the REM station will bring more people moving around with cars because it will be easier with a new boulevard nearby (even if it’s not with trafic jam, people tends to take the cars when they’re used to).
- We create a new corridor only for buses, emergency vehicles and bikes. People around the area and on Antoine-Faucon will have two options : being jammed in trafic on St. Charles, or taking a bus on a reserved lane all the way to Kirkland station. That’s how you change habits.
5 « J'aime »
Nobody knows. The borough and municipality mayors have repeatedly asked VP these questions without any answers at all.
1 « J'aime »
It’s not more lanes it’s an access road.
I’m beginning to think that everybody making these suggestions for this part of the West Island have never actually been here nor tried to use public transit here, especially during rush hour or in the winter. I am not pro-car, anti-transit. Quite the opposite. But I live in the real world, not some PMR fantasy land. I was able to buy this house in the 1990s, had a good price in a fairly warm Montreal housing market. House prices in the greater Montreal region have skyrocketed since, leaving few opportunities for people to just “sell up” and move closer to the city or to efficient transit. hi, like many, have dozens of really good ideas for how to improve things, but the reality is that we don’t even have money for the upkeep of our existing infrastructure, never mind adding sidewalks and protected bike lanes left and right.
Maybe I wrongly understood what you were saying? My bad if that’s the case.
If you want to build an access road with cars on it, it’s more lanes.
And just so you know, I come from the deep suburbs of Quebec City, I exactly know how it feels to be part of a place not efficient at all on mobility.
Difference here is that Kirkland is getting a light metro station.
1 « J'aime »
I don’t think that’s a fair argument, sure the current situation is not good and the solution is far from perfection but we have to start somewhere. That somewhere is building new infrastructure with modern standards like adding cycle paths and sidewalks. For now it’s simply a short access road, but that doesn’t prevent it from being extended in the future. At worse, the status quo will remain, but it will be the first link in the chain by adding a glimpse of alternative transportation in the sector. On the other hand, adding a car sewer there is a guaranteed way of making things worse.
1 « J'aime »
“Car sewer” is kind of the attitude that irritates me. If I don’t have a car in this part of the world, I don’t work, I don’t contribute to the economy. Again, I wish I lived in Utopia.
I don’t go often to the West Island, mainly because there is no way to get there other than by car which has the consequence of making traffic an absolute nightmare. Also, I don’t live in the PMR. I live in the east-end which is arguably less shit but still sucks nonetheless. That doesn’t stop me for advocating for safer infrastructure and better use of space. Sure, we have made mistakes and now we have to do something with it. But I fail to see how doomerism is going to make anything better.
That’s why we need better planning and infra everywhere, not just in the central core.
We need to downsize our ridiculously overbuilt car infrastructure. We know that cars are not a sustainable mode of transportation so there is no point in maintaining the status quo with our infrastructure. Roads have a limited lifespan and at some point they have to be redone. When the time comes to repave a street, it’s an opportunity to reduce the space dedicated to cars and introduce sidewalks, cycle tracks and vegetation which cost less to maintain on the long run. That’s what the inner neighborhoods are doing because it is objectively the most sustainable decision.
7 « J'aime »
A car « sewer » refers to the concept of building road infrastructure for the sake of traffic flow (hence the name) over other criteria. Maybe it wasn’t the wisest choice for me to use loaded language, but my point remains.
We agree that car dependency is not good for our society’s wellbeing. That’s why we ought to change things.
1 « J'aime »
I think you and I are on the same page. Our views definitely don’t seem to be different.
1 « J'aime »