NIMBYism is Alive And well in Westmount

Lawsuit aiming to halt highway construction was NIMBYism writ large

Some stereotypes die for good reason. The city of Westmount, for example, is no longer the exclusive home to what René Lévesque once dismissed as “white Rhodesians” — haughty WASPs, noses hiked high in the air, whose use of French was limited to asking the help to bring a Pimm’s Cup to the lanai. Today, nearly a quarter of the burgh’s 20,000 souls have French tongues, and over 75 per cent are bilingual.

Westmount’s demographics may have shifted, the edges may have come off its blue-blooded pedigree, but its sense of entitlement remains stubbornly intact. The city of Westmount reminded us of as much when it tried to block one of the province’s largest infrastructure projects in recent history because of concerns about noise.

In February, Westmount went to court to get an injunction against the KPH Turcot, the consortium charged with rebuilding the Ville-Marie Expressway. The reason: some of its residents would suffer “irreparable prejudice” resulting from the “noise pollution” generated by those very cars passing through Westmount’s borders, according to court documents. These inconveniences, Westmount wagered, necessitated the immediate halt to construction. The very eardrums of certain Westmounters were at stake.

“Chutzpah” is far more poetic a word than “arrogance” or “hubris.” Sadly, even it fails to encapsulate the jaw-dropping self-importance on the part of the good city. Highway 720’s importance is difficult to overstate. For nearly half a century, traffic has flowed along the VilleMarie Expressway’s 8.5 kilometres. Used by upwards of 300,000 vehicles a day, it is one of the busiest pieces of asphalt in the province.

And in Westmount, home to three of these kilometres, the 720 is an enduring source of NIMBYism. On the one hand, the strip of real estate below Ste-Catherine St. that borders the highway is alluring: a plot in one of the country’s toniest postal codes, close to good schools, verdant parks and what is surely the province’s finest lawn bowling pitch, for a fraction of the price of a townhouse on the other side of the street.

On the other hand: trains, traffic noise, dust and other such reminders of humanity’s existence. But where do they think they live, Kirkland?

Westmount’s injunction request is a product of this high-handedness. City lawyers argued, apparently with a straight face, that work on the structure be halted because 500 metres of it wasn’t lowered to reduce noise levels as planned. You read correctly: the city of Westmount wanted to shut down a nearly $4-billion construction site because residents living in proximity of a half-kilometre stretch would have to bear the same noise levels as before — at worst.

Thankfully, Superior Court Judge Élise Poisson handily swatted Westmount’s request aside in her May decision. Though it calls the 720 “a major source of contamination,” Judge Poisson noted the city of Westmount didn’t even bother to produce its own noise level tests to prove this alleged cacophony. As a result, work will continue as planned, and the residents along that 500-metre stretch will have to make do with sound barriers. They may even have to pay for them.

Westmount is hardly the only burgh to bridle at incursions from the outside world. The city of Côte- St-Luc has for more than 50 years stymied the very reasonable idea of extending Cavendish to connect it with the neighbouring borough of St-Laurent. And a literal fence divides the Town of Mount Royal from Parc Extension, its less-flush neighbour to the east.

For many years, TMR locked the gates along this fence on Halloween. I’ll let you imagine why.

Yet Westmount’s attempt to halt work on a massive, essential infrastructure project used by hundreds of thousands every day is NIMBYism writ large. What’s worse, the city is going to continue in its legalistic attempts to halt the work, Judge Poisson’s judgment be damned. Some stereotypes don’t die. Sometimes they just go to court.