Make sure you have your say on Mount Royal pilot

Yay! The mountain road reopens Nov. 1 and like many, I look forward to a fall foliage drive — while the route lasts.

In November, the city’s consultation office will ask our opinion of the “pilot project” that blocked through-traffic for most vehicles. Here’s my official submission. I urge you to make your views known in the coming weeks — whatever side of the mountain road you’re on.

I bike up the mountain several times a week on the dirt road and often check what’s happening on the stretch of main road that’s been closed to traffic all summer.

I can sum it up in a two words: absolutely nothing.

The once busy-with-cars throughway between Beaver Lake and Smith House is virtually deserted. There are some buses, police and city vehicles — and a handful of passing cyclists.

But they’re almost all men in their 20s and 30s. There are barely any older bikers, or women — Camillien Houde Way’s 10-degree climb is too gruelling for 95 per cent of Montreal cyclists to enjoy.

There are no pedestrians on the closed stretch either, except those waiting for buses. Who would possibly walk on asphalt when lovely Beaver Lake and the Chalet lookout are so close by?

So almost nobody has benefited from this truncated road that has upset so many Montrealers.

City hall often justifies the idea by citing Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, which closed its road to cars last year. If New York can do it, they say, so can we.

Like most Montrealers, I’d never heard of Prospect Park, so while visiting Brooklyn last month I biked the park’s new car-free six-kilometre road. The comparison with Montreal is outrageous and dishonest — as city hall surely knows if anyone’s bothered to visit.

Prospect Park’s road is absolutely flat, so it’s flooded with thousands of cyclists, skateboarders and pedestrians, age eight to 80 — a never-ending festival of humanity.

If our mountain road was this bike-friendly, I’d support closing it. But for that to happen we’d have to bulldoze Mount Royal into rubble, then flatten it level with giant space hammers, or a passing comet.

As well, Prospect Park has a big road some 100 yards from the one they’ve closed. Mount Royal’s road is the only way over it — there’s no alternative.

In short, we’ve closed off the mountain to 10,000 motorists a day, so several hundred super-fit guys can train there. Let’s just build them a separated bike lane, protected from traffic. Or their own private bike track.

Despite few winners, there have been many losers: countless families that took older parents for a scenic drive, or showed off the mountain to out-of-towners. An army of daily cemetery visitors. People like my neighbour Hazel, who told me passionately:

“I don’t have a country house. I’m too old to bike or hike up — so the mountain drive was my way of seeing nature: the ice-encrusted trees in winter, the gorgeous leaves in fall, those majestic sunsets in summer. It was like going to the country for me!”

Other losers: the immigrant families who use the mountain for picnic getaways every weekend. I spoke to many near Beaver Lake one recent Sunday — and they all complained about how difficult access and parking have become for them and their arsenal of barbecues, coolers and chairs.

Closing the road has divided the city, but there may be possible compromises. Les amis de la montagne recently suggested the road could be redesigned as a scenic route for motorists to enjoy — but without commuters speeding through.

That would stop it being the rush-hour shortcut it’s become since Google Maps started showing it as a faster option. It would be for those with the time and desire for mountain sightseeing.

The city has built a nice viewing platform on the still-open eastern summit of the road — we need more like it.

Les amis also suggest more buses and heated winter bus stops to encourage people to leave their cars at home — voluntarily.

Others have proposed closing the road during rush hour — but opening it when Dr. Penfield or Pine Aves. are under construction, yet again. This would avoid the congestion, pollution and frayed nerves we see when traffic is all forced onto Sherbrooke St.

City hall wants to get us out of our cars. But let’s do that with positive incentives, not by encouraging congestion.

Let’s create more bike paths, bus and subway lines. Or offer free buses like some European cities do.

Lets add, not subtract. Whatever your opinion on the mountain, there’s only one way to be heard. The consultation committee’s website has been filled with bureaucratic questionnaires and bumf all summer.

But from Nov. 9 through Nov. 30, they will seek people’s opinions on the pilot project, bilingually, before making recommendations to city hall. Please take part, at acces-mont-royal. com.

The mountain belongs to all Montrealers and that’s who should decide its future.

You.