Neglecting everyday needs is well-beaten path
What did Montrealers really get for $49.7-million urban walkway?
Under an overcast sky and through periodic rainfall, one of the most hyped legacy projects for Montreal’s 375th anniversary was unveiled Monday with jazz music, a bubble machine and back-slapping.
In the end, Mayor Denis Coderre didn’t make the party on McTavish St., the centrepiece of the Fleuve-Montagne promenade linking the St. Lawrence River with Mount Royal. Neither could McGill University president Suzanne Fortier, even though the most prominent part of the walkway runs up the west side of campus. Their stand-ins did the honours, posing for pictures and extolling the virtues of an exploit that has become emblematic of the birthday gifts the city has bestowed upon itself.
From the outset, expectations for the river-to-mountain walkway were unrealistic because of both the high cost and the unfortunate hyperbole.
Initially pegged at $42.4 million, cost estimates eventually ballooned to $56.6 million once the city decided to throw in replacing the water mains on Sherbrooke and McTavish Sts. around McGill to avoid having to tear the roads up again later.
Réal Ménard, the executive committee member responsible for parks and the environment, insisted Monday the promenade was delivered on time and under budget. Now that’s a wee bit of magical thinking, given that the final price tag was $49.7 million and it was supposed to be finished in May. If you consider not having to pay $5 million in contingencies a cost savings and base the delivery date on a revised deadline, then it came in right on target.
But what have Montrealers actually got for their $49.7 million?
The 3.8-kilometre walkway has been billed as a transformative concept that will link the city’s main natural assets, passing historic sites and various famous landmarks along the way.
But let’s not kid ourselves. The route being vaunted already existed. Starting near Pointe-àCallière, it goes past Place Youville, sends people up McGill St. to Square Victoria, then directs them up Beaver Hall Hill to Phillips Square.
With new trees, fresh planters, pixelated crosswalks that echo the pattern of the brick work farther along, special signage and altitude markers, this lower portion of the Fleuve-Montagne has benefited from minor improvements.
But printing up maps to point out some of Montreal’s finest features would have achieved similar results at far less cost.
Nothing has been done to SteCatherine St., the next portion of the route. But the commercial strip is due for a major overhaul of its own in coming years.
Changes start to become more apparent on McGill College Ave. New decking has been installed on parts of the street. Blue Muskoka chairs have been set up and planters enlarged. It’s a pleasant walk to be sure, but McGill College always had sweeping sidewalks and room for annual photography exhibits. The terrasses are a nice perk, but they are temporary. They are certainly not the new linear park reclaiming a lane of traffic described in drafts of the plans. Projet Montréal leader Valerie Plante has called the execution “banal” compared with the original design.
Sherbrooke St. W. has been returned to fine form after a year of being excavated, with wide sidewalks and a temporary outdoor sculpture exhibit. It’s the new infrastructure under the road that gobbled up so much of the budget.
Turn up McTavish St. and you finally see a facelift that can be described as transformative. It is now a pedestrian-only zone covered in grey bricks, lined with trees and bushes, and decorated with large wooden benches from which to enjoy the view as the elevation rises.
The old, rickety stairs below Doctor Penfield Ave. have been redone and a ramp now makes the passage accessible to those in wheelchairs or with strollers. Farther up, the bricks continue alongside Rutherford Park, with its sports field, climbing to Pine Ave. and the entrance to Mount Royal.
The ascent is beautiful and dramatic. But it seems the bulk of the effort was focused on less than a kilometre of the promenade — and a part that was already a quasi-pedestrian area to begin with. This changes the cost-benefit analysis significantly for Montrealers.
What else could have been achieved for a similar price? For $40 million, Montreal could have had the Dalle Parc, a brand-new and much-needed pedestrian and cycling passage suspended over the new Turcot interchange. It would join two neighbourhoods — St-Henri and Notre-Dame-de-Grâce — now separated by a highway.
Now that, despite its dreary name (it translates as “slab park”), would have been an exciting creation to rival New York’s High Line or Seoul’s Skygarden. But it was deemed too costly and nixed by the Quebec transport department.
Is a revitalized McTavish St. and new sewers downtown preferable to something novel to offset the noise and pollution of a highway? We can ask the question.
As a Montrealer who mainly gets around this city on foot, I welcome the opening of the new Fleuve-Montagne promenade. Mostly, I’m just grateful it marks the end of a difficult year having to traverse the gaping maw of a construction site where safe passage for pedestrians was an afterthought.
I’m all for a walkable streetscape and believe Montreal needs to do more to make this city pedestrian-friendly. But that thinking should be part of its everyday priorities, not reserved for rare and pricey legacy projects.