Highway 19 extension gets cheers and jeers
Friday ’s announcement that Quebec will go ahead with the extension of Highway 19 was met with a sigh of relief by the citizens of Laval and municipalities north of there who have been pleading for more than 40 years for a more efficient conduit into Montreal.
For residents of neighbourhoods like Ahuntsic and Villeray who will be on the receiving end of the expected increase in traffic creeping down already congested Papineau Ave., the news conjured up exclamations of exasperation.
“When the Jacques Cartier Bridge is blocked, the traffic backs up to here,” said Jean-Louis Murad, owner of the compact Nettoyeur Jean-Louis dry cleaning and tailor shop on Papineau Ave., five kilometres north of the bridge. Just south of his store, Papineau narrows to one lane of traffic in either direction, with compact duplexes and modest stores and bars lining the road. “Of course the effects of the new highway will be negative here. We would prefer to have peace.”
Premier Philippe Couillard announced Friday the long-awaited, oft-promised extension of Highway 19 between Autoroute 440 in Laval to just past Highway 640 north of Laval would be built, with soil testing starting this spring and calls for tenders soon after. The highway will feature three lanes in each direction, with one lane reserved for buses, electric vehicles and car-sharing services. Four interchanges and a parking lot serving a bus service will also be built. Previous cost estimates for the eight-kilometre extension and interchanges put the price at $600 million.
Highway 19 now starts in the north of Montreal at the end of Papineau Ave. and runs into Laval just beyond Highway 440. After that it turns into Highway 335, a secondary road with only one lane in each direction that is often bottlenecked at rush hour. Extending Highway 19 would cut the commuting time for growing communities north of Laval like Rosemère and Bois-de-Filion, allow emergency vehicles to pass and speed public transit that is typically stuck in traffic, northern mayors argue.
“Finally,” was the reaction of Coalition 19, which was formed by area businesses and municipalities in 2006 to push for the extension, in a news release. The government described the new highway as “road infrastructure adapted to the needs of families,” which at the same time will make public transit more effective.
Members of Montreal’s ruling Projet Montréal party have long contested the project as a “monumental waste of money” that will increase congestion in the city, but please voters in the swing ridings north of Laval. Quebecers go to the polls on Oct. 1. Projet Montréal had pushed for a form of “urban boulevard” instead of a highway, with stoplights that would lessen traffic rates and allow commercial businesses to sprout up on either side. Northern mayors said that would be too slow.
Friday’s announcement leaves many questions unanswered, Projet said.
“It’s certain the residents of Bois-de-Filion would like more fluidity, but in Montreal we are already at full capacity for cars,” said Jérôme Normand, city councillor for Ahuntsic-Cartierville. “Even it if helps in the short-term to alleviate traffic jams, we are of the feeling that any highway that encourages people to take their cars instead of leaving them at home is in contradiction to the mobility policy that the government announced just a few days ago.”
While the plan for Highway 19 promises a reserved lane for buses, it’s still unclear whether the buses will unload passengers at métro stations in Laval or in Montreal, and what will be done to alleviate pressure on the already overcrowded métro Orange Line, Normand said. The government seems to be announcing piecemeal projects instead of looking at the big picture, he said.
“We need to bring some relief to the road system, and the public transit system in Montreal.”
Ériscar Brechelin’s tidy white bungalow sits at the northern edge of Montreal where Highway 19 ends and funnels into the narrower Papineau Ave.
The three lanes in front of his house are backed up from 6:30 to 9 a.m. each weekday as commuters flood in, and again during the evening rush hour. A taxi driver, it can take him several minutes to turn into his driveway, or cross the street to take his children to school.
“For Laval it’s good, but for Montreal it’s not so good,” he said. “It’s going to be like another NotreDame St. (the traffic-clogged eastwest corridor on the southern edge of the city). It’s going to be even more crowded here.”