Cataclaw

Belle carte! Ce n'est pas de la folie Miska, c'est pas mal ce qu'il faut faire à long terme!

À court terme, la priorité selon moi c'est enlever l'autoroute Taschereau qui sépare le vieux Longueuil et le secteur du métro. Ensuite, on prolonge le métro jusqu'au vieux et le CEGEP.

Si on ajoute le metro et sa capacité pour densifier et si on élimine les barrières au développement (Taschereau) on peut obtenir une bande de "ville" urbaine, dense et contigue du Ch. Chambly jusqu'au secteur Charles-LeMoyne.

On pietonnise l'avenue des canadiens et on reconstruit la place dessus. Ca couterait pas cher déplacer des statues de... 10 metres

Tellement!

Let's do it. J'adore l'idée!

very good idea but then well have to divert the traffic to Jacques Cartier with a new highway

Why would we need a highway to divert traffic from the bridge? There's no highway on the Montreal side and it works fine. If we provide a transit alternative (like the one I propose) we can safely eliminate the highway. Any residual congestion would spur use of the new transit line and reduce overall vehicle use by the law of induced demand.

Si on veut vraiment en faire un centre-ville, il faudrait définitivement penser à réaménager toutes les bretelles et le boulevard Taschereau, comme tu dis Cataclaw, parce que pour le moment, ça reste beaucoup trop entouré pour être intéressant.

Tout à fait, JFrosty. Dans ma vision pour Longueuil, j'irais plus loin que ça encore --je mettrais à terre le segment "autoroute" du boulevard Taschereau (au complet, du CHCLM au pont) pour créer un boulevard urbain, stimuler le développement à ses alentours et améliorer l'intrégration autour du secteur Charles-LeMoyne. Pour contrer l'effet d'éliminer la voie rapide, j'installerais une ligne TEC train léger ou train lourd surélevée tout au long du corridor Taschereau.

Oh! I just love this nuance between "accessibility" and "mobility"--not unconsequential--deserves further discussions.

 

BTW "burg"= village, settlement; "berg"=mountain. So that must be "iceBerg", unless you want to refer to the nickname of some unknown far-northern community (I do not know of any far-southern community, as it would have to be in the Antarctic to meet the "ice" criteria; ps ok perhaps in the Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of So. Am.)

 

As to Vancouver: City of Van (except Downtown East Side), as well as the suburbs of North Van and West Van: very desirable indeed; but the outer suburbs, not so sure.

Accessibility vs. mobility are key concepts in urban planning that are explored at length. There's a lot of stuff online about this too if you're interested.

Thanks for correcting my typo, because, you know, nobody in the history of the world has ever made one of those before.

Ouache. Overdose de brique rouge.

Le cadre bâti à Griffintown a peu d'importance selon moi. On a rasé des communautés pour construire des industries.. et là on veut conserver ces industries pour des raisons historiques?

Certes, il y a des édifices qui valent la peine de conserver à Griffintown... mais je ne comprend pas trop ce désir de conserver l'aspect industriel des années 60 qui selon moi était laid et mal conçu dès le départ, point de vue urbanisme.

High-density, mixed-used, transit-based development makes me giddy. Even if the panels covering the building are crooked

Vive le Louis Bohème!

But what would it give us? Vancouver has crappy cross-river mobility, and plenty "mixed-income" areas, and from a social perspective, it's long and away the most fucked-up city in Canada.

Well, I would argue that Vancouver is probably one of the best cities in the world to live in. The studies seem to say so as well, considering Vancouver consistently ranks at the top in terms of quality of life.

Vancouver does have reduced mobility, but not reduced accessibility. Vancouver actually has very high accessibility. Mobility means how far you can go. Accessibility means how much stuff you have access to.

Scientists and experts have discovered that there is such a thing as too much mobility, and they're trying to reduce mobility in cities around the world in order to increase accessibility. It may seem counterintuitive, just like induced demand, but these are demonstrably true processes.

As for what It would give us, i've explained a lot already. You just don't really want to believe what I'm saying, even if it's true and proven, because it's contrary to your attitudes and ideologies.

-Agricultural land saved from sprawl

-Improved health among population

-Better environment

-Sustainable

-Collect more taxable revenue

-Save massively on infrastructure maintenance costs

-Increase social capital

-Reduce negative impacts of monoculture settlements

-Reduce smog

-Improve transit mode share and overall urban walkability and quality of life

-Save a ton on health care costs

-Improved economic conditions

-Fewer injuries and fatalities due to car accidents

-Better social intermixing and positive externalities

-People that don't have cars (kids, seniors, the disabled and the poor) have increased accessibility and equity.

-Cities with better quality of life and high accessibility tend to attract more businesses and perform well

-Improved safety and reduced crime (eyes on the street, mixed use means activity at all hours of the day)

-Stronger social and economic linkages as well as community organizing for positive effect

-Improve quality of life overall!

It's just the tip of the iceburg.

Qu'est-ce qu'on essaie de "prouver" ici? L'application d'une théorie générale à un cas comme l'agglomération de Montréal avec sa géographie complexe est assûrément problématique.

Problématique oui, impossible non. On doit le faire.

If you listen to this video at the 9min mark, Mr. Blouin discusses this project and the surrounding land.

 

http://www.thesquarefoot.ca/content/news/11-10-24/Exclusive-interview-with-Normand-Blouin--

Very interesting, thanks!

I find it encouraging that a builder of sprawl-inducing mega-malls is saying this his company will be focusing more on mixed-use large urban developments. Excellent!

C'est un bon début.

Selon moi il faut complètement mettre à terre le boulevard Taschereau à partir du pont Jacques-Cartier et l'autoroute 132. Il faut transformer ce morceau en boulevard et créer un lien entre le Vieux-Longueuil et son "centre-ville" le secteur du métro.

J'ai un nouveau fond d'écran, merci rufus96

Je marche devant ce projet à chaque matin. C'est bien mais il ne faut pas que ça s'arrête là. Il faut densifier le secteur et construire urbain, surtout qu'on est à 8 minutes de marche d'un métro...

Gilbert souligne un bon point et je suis tout à fait d'accord. Un espace publique, même une bande de 4-5 mètres le long de l'ilôt, serait bien. Il resterait suffisament d'espace pour une tour de 200m sans problèmes

Je passe là à tout les jours et je suis d'accord - nette amélioration.

Les photos ne rendent pas justice à cette rénovation.

Avec cet édifice, on vient de passer de 1970 à 2000. Petit à petit, le centre-ville de Longueuil devient de moins en moins quétaine.

new snaps of metro building re-cladding? how are the sidewalks/bikelanes doing on maisonneuve between bishop and mackay? man, since the faubourg deal didn't go through, it reactivates an old fantasy of mine about scoring that lot behind the tim horton/al taib for a student union, and completing the plaza.

That was actually the plan a long time ago! I remember seeing some designs and massings. It would have been 7-10 floors If I remember correctly. I can't remember if the designs were somewhat legit or made by urban planning students, either way it was interesting!

Anyway, I agree with you. I'd love to see that lot developed. It's the only empty lot on campus, and unfortunately it's right in the middle of campus. Concordia already owns it, if i'm not mistaken..

Wow. Merci Alexcaban!

Fat cities with highways is just too deep into correlation vs causation as you know...

Actually it's not. Like i said, go look online, you'll find plenty of studies. They've even followed people around for years and examined their habits. Suburbs contribute to obesity. It's a fact.

Why not let people make those decisions for themselves? Maybe the bad thing is better for them than the alternative. Who are we to judge?

Who or what is to judge? The mountain of facts, studies, evidence and proof that point to the conclusions i've listed. Dude, no disrespect, I like you even though we often disagree on stuff, but i've been studying this stuff my whole life. If you want to believe that it isn't society's business to make up laws for itself, that's fine. I respect your opinion and your ideological beliefs, but don't tell me the stuff i'm talking about, the arguments i've made and the facts i've pointed to are negligible, inconclusive or merely "causation vs correlation". They don't create 4-year university programs around the world for stuff that isn't true or well researched. I know it's not your intent, like I said I think you're an ok guy who isn't malicious or anything, but it's like you're insulting my field by claiming that what thousands of urban planners have studied in depth for years is flat out wrong.

That's like walking up to a doctor and telling him: "your knowledge on bones is wrong."

The stuff i'm describing to you is well researched, proven, understood and derives from the consensus among the experts and professionals that work in this field every day. You might not like the facts I'm presenting to you, but they are facts. You don't have to agree (hell, people don't believe in evolution even though that's a fact too) but don't discredit on my field of study and work.

Furthermore, I'm not going to ride transit. And I want to live in a house with a garage and some land under it. Considering I am paying for it, that gives me the right to get what I want...

That's your right, that's your choice, and I totally respect that. But your choice is one that is costly to society as a whole, so don't be surprised if in the future society starts taxing you more as a result. Also, don't be surprised when gas hits 2$/L because that's coming in the next 3 years too, but that's a different matter.

The main issue I see with your argument is just insufficient proof and backdata. Declining health and rising obesity? If you have a population that smokes, it tends to be unhealthy, and if they don’t, they tend to be fat, which has reasonably well-founded medical evidence for it. But driving a car? Certainly in my family and friends, the only two obese people never drove a vehicle at any time, and the slim ones tend to drive a lot. Obviously that’s anecdotal and of no real significance, but really – where is the mechanism?

You want evidence? Look at obesity figures for North American cities. The most urban and dense cities also have the smallest obesity rates. The cities with high proportions of overweight/obese are the most spread out, car-dependent and suburban. The mechanism is quite simple: city goers that walk everywhere, take the subway and ride their bikes get a lot more exercise than typical suburbanites that rely on their car to go everywhere (because they have no choice.) Live in Atlanta for a month and live in New York City for a month and you'll see what i'm talking about. I lived in both cities and the change is dramatic. You don't see much evidence but a wealth of data actually exists to support this. A few google searches will reveal a ton of data, studies and census data to back this up.

Obviously a suburbanite that goes to the gym and exercises often can still be slim too, but on average, residents of cities are slimmer than and healthier than residents of low-density suburbs. The suburbs in Montreal are a little less extreme and the problem isn't as pronounced in Canada as it is in the U.S., but it still exists and has plenty of data to prove it.

In terms of social relationships, I can’t see how automobiles are negative as opposed to other modes. I’ve ridden public transit in Montreal and it seems to be a bunch of depressed people staring at each other and the occasional ranting drunk/crazy person. Sometimes you can get into a conversation with someone. Conversely, I get into conversations with people all the time (roughly once a week) around my car at gas stations, parking lots and the like, and of course there are all the clubs, tours, rallyes and weekend show & shines. Last weekend I went on a thoroughly enjoyable tour of Niagara region vineyards with a Toronto-based club, people I would never have become acquainted with otherwise.

You're asking me to explain a very complex phenomenon in a short paragraph. Let me instead point you to a documentary that might do a better job of explaining it: http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/radiant-city/

Basically, it isn't about the mode of transport itself. It's not about being in a subway or being in a car. It's about the type of neighborhoods that car-dependency creates and the type of neighborhoods that medium-density mixed use creates. That's the key thing here. One is rich and vibrant and the other is ridden with problems and is even proven to lead have higher incidences of disorders. Anyway, the documentary will highlight the social problems of suburbs.

Cultural and architectural issues I fail to see – there are plenty of terrible buildings and nice ones in both types of developments. There is a new Walmart Supercentre relatively close to my current location, and I was surprised at the interesting kind of adobe-ish architecture as opposed to a simple steel-sheet box. But this is certainly more an issue of the development goals (Walmart = cheap building to minimize overhead) than the store having a parking lot or not.

Suburbs are designed to be appreciated at the speed of the automobile. Cities are designed to be appreciated at the speed of the citizen. Talk a walk down Taschereau boulevard and then take a walk down Saint-Paul street in Montreal. The vast majority of people would tell you the latter is more attractive, comfortable and even safe. There's a lot more to it than that, but the documentary I linked will go into more detail.

Do more people die from car accidents than from metro accidents? In Montreal tons of people are throwing themselves in front of the metro all the time. I would argue perhaps that those people don’t count due to deliberate jumping, but it is something to think about. I posted here recently some data of fatalities per 100 billion passenger-km for various modes of transport, I believe the number for public transit was higher than for private motor vehicles, though both were quite low.

I don't know what numbers you posted, but numbers from Canada (statcan) and the U.S. (NSC) show that accident/death rates from public transportation are MINISCULE compared to automobiles. In Canada there are over 4000 car deaths per year. The average number of metro deaths, excluding suicides, is less than 1. How many times do you see a car on the side of the road? How many times do you see ambulances there too? How many times do you see crashes in general? I don't know about you, but I see at least 4-5 a year. When's the last time you saw a wrecked metro car? If you said never, come claim your prize.

For air pollution, it seems an issue that has already been solved in most cities. Certainly in Montreal the main issue for air quality is wood stoves and other stationary uncontrolled emission sources than automobiles.

For that which is awrl, awrl is what it is.

True, wood stoves are/were a major contributor to air pollution, but cars contribute a lot too. Our air is "fine" but it isn't "good" either. Look up the numbers for CO2 emitted worldwide from automobiles.. the numbers are quite high.

How does a public transit line “reduce” sprawl relative to a highway improvement? The commuter train to Mascouche and Saint-Jerome sure does seem to be encouraging development of the land, and those areas are certainly sprawl.

Actually this is false. I've taken advanced courses in transportation modeling and I've studied Montreal data at great lengths. We have OD surveys here every 5 years and we do a lot of modeling too. The suburban train lines don't encourage development. Development occurs there regardless. A mode-share occurs where people ditch the car in favor of the train, but that's about it. The induced residential demand effect from a suburban train 30km out is quite small and much smaller than a highway. People that prefer transit in general also prefer living closer to the city. The folks who use commuter rail lines do so out of necessity more than anything else.

Where does land to non-taxable uses cause an issue? That wasted land doesn’t cost much (no services to provide it), and furthermore the mill rate would simply be adjusted. Why is it, though, that such mill rates always seem to be quite low in “sprawl” areas as opposed to “denser” areas?

Suburbs = lots of public parking space, roads, medians and other wasted space that municipalities can't directly tax. High density = more tax revenue pound for pound (and by a LOT too.)

More so, though, is that the presence of congestion is infrastructure failure. Either, some people who want to use some sort of public transit solution that does not exist or is also overcapacity or inefficient, or they just want to drive. Basically your argument is that the cost to society of improving the roadway is larger than the cost of ignoring it. Sometimes, paying more for a given thing is superior to the cheaper option for an intangible reason. But, where is the place of the technocrat in society relative to the people generally? Given that we do live in a democracy, unelected officials should be responsible to the desires of the majority of the population, and the presence of congestion is a clear indication of the desire for improved transport infrastructure. Unelected officials must be responsible to the desires of the majority of the population, and the presence of congestion is a clear indication of the desire for improved transport infrastructure.

A classic argument, but one that fails to take account that we live in a collective society where bad things that other people do also impact the rest of us. Your example is exactly like smoking. Should smoking be allowed? Of course. Should it be heavily taxed and discouraged though? Yes, because of the negative externalities that smoking causes as well as other factors such as the strain on the health care system.

With your logic, why ever regulate anything? Why ban asbestos? Some things are simply proven to be bad and must be discouraged if not banned outright. We obviously can't "ban" suburbs, but we can definitely try to tax them, regulate them and subsidize the alternatives to improve quality of life, the environment and economic conditions for everyone.

Kotar: this is probably the only thing that bugs me a bit, the trash and the trash cans. It's an easy problem to solve too...

1) Put more trash cans; and/or

2) Collect the trash more often

Easy as discarded half-eaten pie!

Pas vraiment

 

il va vendre les terrains par lot pour la construction de résidence individuelle !

Oui, mais c'est beaucoup plus endommageant avoir un méga-centre commercial qu'un regroupement de maisons. Le centre offre des choses aux gens et les incitent à vivre là. Les maisons tout court, c'est moins grave, même si c'est quand même de l'étalement. Autrement dit, le Lac Mirbel aurait eu un effet d'étalement 5-10x plus prononcé.

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On a site note: I just took another look at their web site... I quite literally let out a chuckle when i read this: "Lac Mirabel - A sustainable development"

Définitievement mort et enterré maintenant

Woohoo! Excellente nouvelle! Une victoire contre l'étalement urbain.

I knew it wouldn't last long. Everything's back to normal. Crews are back to work on most construction sites.

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MONTREAL — Calm appears to have returned to Quebec's construction sites.

On Wednesday morning most construction workers returned to work as usual after having left the job Monday and Tuesday in protest of Bill 33.

The proposed provincial legislation would put the placement of workers into the hands of the Quebec Construction Commission rather than the unions.

Militant squads of union members forced workers to leave construction sites earlier in the week. As a result the Quebec Construction Commission received dozens of complaints Tuesday.

But many of those workers expressed relief to be back plying their trades Wednesday.

(...)

http://montreal.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20111026/mtl_construction_111026/20111026/?hub=MontrealHome

I highly doubt that any projects will be halted permanently as a result of this.

The construction firms will have to bear the costs of any delays or damage resulting from infringing on contractual obligations.

Most construction sites won't really suffer much from a few weeks of delays. Even a few months won't do all that much, although the winter will obviously do more harm.

If the Ryugyong Hotel could survive 23 years of construction hiatus, i'm sure our construction sites can survive a few months.

If you ask me though... construction workers will be back on site this week.

En théorie, je me considère pro-syndicat. Malheureusement, au Québec les syndicats réussissent à tout faire pour m'empecher de les supporter.

Si les syndicats sont impuissants et massacrés au États-Unis, au Québec ils ont trop de pouvoir.

Peut-on avoir le juste milieu?!