Transport Quebec must revive Dalle Parc plan
Transport Quebec was ahead of the curve when it first proposed the idea of the Dalle Parc eight years ago.
When plans for the new Turcot Interchange were unveiled in 2010, the inspired idea with the uninspiring name was the pièce de résistance, the clincher that would win public support and approval for a massive project, with a massive budget that would cause massive disruption.
It was a fairly novel concept at the time: a wide, green overpass above a highway for pedestrians and cyclists, a park in the sky that would knit together city neighbourhoods separated by a chasm of highway traffic and railway tracks. It was the magic ingredient that would tame the inhuman tangle of concrete, asphalt, vehicles and smog below.
But then it quietly disappeared from the plans, ostensibly because its $40-million price tag was deemed too steep, even though it is but a tiny fraction of the $4-billion cost of the Turcot overhaul.
Citizens’ groups are now fighting to have the Dalle Parc plan revived and built before the Turcot work is completed in 2020. There have been petitions and protests. Mayor Valérie Plante took up the cause after she was elected and pressed the case with the Quebec government. Consultations have been promised. Confidence is high it can still get done.
But Montrealers are still waiting and hoping. Without a concrete answer, it remains a chimera on the city’s horizon.
While we wait, however, the elevated park concept is gaining traction elsewhere.
The first North American skypark was New York City’s High Line, which repurposed an abandoned rail line into public space. It had opened to rave reviews in 2009, just a year before Transport Quebec promised its own new version would be incorporated into the highway reconstruction. (Paris’s Coulée verte René-Dumont, a 19th-century viaduct that reopened as an elevated garden in 1993, predates it by several decades.)
The High Line, with its lush shrubbery and expansive views, has become a favourite recreation corridor for New Yorkers and a must-see tourist attraction. And it kicked off a worldwide trend of creating elevated parks as urban renewal projects or suspending green space in the midair in areas where there would otherwise be precious little.
Chicago followed suit in 2015, converting its own scuttled rail line into the Bloomingdale Trail. And last May, Seoul unveiled its Skygarden, an obsolete overpass that is now a snaking walkway.
The race is now on to create Canada’s first elevated park.
St. Thomas in southwestern Ontario is also trying to marshal funds and support to transform an old rail bridge through a ravine into a skypark, recreation trail and tourist destination. This project is billed as STEP (for St. Thomas Elevated Park).
Toronto is now planning the Rail Deck Park, a vast green space to cover the yawning train yards in the downtown core and close the gap with the city’s waterfront. (And in an ingenious twist on reclaiming elevated concrete structures, Toronto also created a skating rink dubbed the Bentway under the Gardiner Expressway this past winter, which had much popular appeal.)
Eight years ago, Transport Quebec was out front with its idea to create a suspended park. If it had not deviated from the original plans, the promised Dalle Parc would be a few short years away from reality today. In addition to looking forward to a new highway interchange and an end to the nightmare of traffic detours, Montrealers would also be gearing up for the opening of a new public green space, cycling trail and walking path. Instead, we wait.
The Dalle Parc has the potential to be transformative for Montreal. For residents, it would be a bridge linking the SudOuest, LaSalle and the Lachine Canal with Notre-Dame-deGrâce, vibrant neighbourhoods that have long been cut off from each other.
It would connect with the falaise St-Jacques greenbelt, plans for which Transport Quebec recently presented to the public. The four-kilometre-long forested area is supposed to act as a buffer between the escarpment and the train tracks being rerouted as part of the Turcot project. Home to rare snakes, birds and plants, the narrow band of green space is to house biking and walking trails, too. But community members who had advocated making the nature paths part of the cycling network were flummoxed that Transport Quebec’s blueprints for the falaise have very few access points and little connectivity with the neighbourhoods it abuts.
Perhaps the Dalle Parc could help in this regard.
It often seems as if Transport Quebec is going to have to be dragged kicking and screaming out of the car-first era. The department responsible for our highways and overpasses must realize that cyclists and pedestrians are a growing and vital part of our transportation mix and deserve due consideration in forthcoming projects. Yes, even highways.
The Dalle Parc should have, would have and could still be the perfect place to start to make this shift. There is still time to make this happen.
Transport Quebec was in the lead eight years ago in proposing such a bold, brave project. But if it fails to deliver, it will soon be bringing up the rear.
Mayor Valérie Plante took up the cause after she was elected and pressed the case with the Quebec government. Confidence is high it can still get done.