Consult us before blocking Mount Royal traffic
I leave town for two weeks and what happens? I return to find a mini-Berlin Wall set to go up on Mount Royal, blocking off my Plateau neighbourhood from the west end.
OK, OK, there’ll be no Checkpoint Charlie, or machine-guntoting guards atop the mountain, but there will be a huge 800-metre roadblock and a major transformation of Mount Royal and our city.
The plan to seal off the upper part of the mountain road, announced by city park boss Luc Ferrandez, will terminate a 60-year-old drive almost every Montrealer has taken and loved. It’s awe-inspiring at sunset and solitudinous in winter, a stirring “wow!” moment of natural beauty for many who drive it.
The stated aim of the city’s plan is impossible to disagree with: to protect cyclists from increased traffic. But the cure may be worse than the disease, and it’s caused an immense outcry from Montrealers of many stripes.
Josée Legault, a leftish columnist who doesn’t even own a car, calls it an “absurd idea” and “le power trip de Luc Ferrandez “and his “automobilophobia.”
Lise Ravary, ever-sensible Journal de Montréal writer, calls it “a radical project’ that will turn the mountain road into “a reserved bike path for elite cyclists.”
La Presse columnist Marie-Claude Lortie says turning the road into “a dead end” is like losing part of “our city’s DNA.”
Most importantly, the city never bothered to consult Les Amis de la Montagne, a group long-dedicated to protecting the mountain.
In fact, Les Amis don’t support the city’s new plan either and are concerned it could hurt the mountain more than help it.
They’ve been lobbying for years to add more stop signs and lower speed limits, to create a safer, gentler scenic parkway that discourages cowboy commuters.
Many people started using the road as a speedy shortcut during the neverendum Pins Ave. construction. But that habit has to stop and stricter speed limits is the answer, say Les Amis.
They say sealing off the road with a 3/4-kilometre no-car zone will cause complications.
Families from the east end wanting to skate at Beaver Lake will have a long walk, or a longer roundabout drive, discouraging some from going.
People from the west end will have similar problems getting to the old chalet’s breathtaking lookout. Others visiting graves of their loved ones will find it much harder, as will summer campers at Smith House who can’t get dropped off there anymore from the west end.
Les Amis worry Beaver Lake’s small parking lots will be clogged and create worse traffic, possibly discouraging visitors to the mountain, the crown jewel of our city.
So who gains, for all these losses? Park boss Ferrandez says he simply wants to protect Montreal cyclists, But as Ravary asks: how many cyclists are we protecting?
I’m an avid biker myself who cycles up the mountain several times a week, most of the year.
But I use the old dirt road, since Camillien Houde Way’s long, steep climb is a difficult slog for me — and I suspect 95 per cent of city cyclists.
Those who do bike the road are the city’s fittest, fastest bikers. They should and can be protected from traffic with speed limits, and a separated new bike lane to prevent more terrible deaths, like that of Clément Ouimet, killed there last year when a driver made an illegal U-turn.
But why seal off an entire through-road for the city’s best cyclists? The real reason is the man behind this literally divisive plan — Plateau Mayor Luc Ferrandez, who never saw a car or parking spot he didn’t want to eliminate.
As in the Plateau, he aims to divert traffic onto a few streets, create more congestion and thus dissuade us from using our cars.
During the mayor’s race Valérie Plante was repeatedly asked if she wanted to “plateauize” Montreal and she stridently said no — she would be mayor, not Ferrandez.
But you can’t symbolically plateauize the city more than by closing the road over the mountain that gave Montreal its name. And while Ferrandez says it’s a three-month “pilot project,” the self-certain Plateau Mayor will not easily change his mind once it’s up.
To justify their plan, Projet Montréal just dusted off a 10-year-old city of Montreal survey that no one remembers, including — I’ll bet my bike — most of their party’s own councillors. In it, 2,700 people responded to an online questionnaire, partly about the threat to wildlife on the mountain, and almost half agreed with closing the mountain to commuter traffic.
Why don’t we have a genuine city-wide consultation and see how today’s 2 million Montrealers feel about Projet’s actual plan?
Thousands have started signing a petition to block the Ferrandez road block. You can add your voice at change.org.
Closing Mount Royal is a mountain of a decision — one that should be studied and debated by all Montrealers.
Until then, I say: Vive le Mont Royal libre!