autoroute 10 Autoroute 10 (Bonaventure - portion au nord du canal (boul. urbain))

[Cataclaw]

I disagree wholeheartedly.

 

b- better street grid connectivity for some drivers, worse for most pedestrians, cyclists, and south-shore buses

 

Not at all! How would it be worse for pedestrians? Instead of walking or cycling under a noisy and aging concrete elevated road with little local interest (that also physically and psychologically separates two areas), people will now cross at pedestrian crosswalks lined with shops and buildings. That seems like a significant upgrade to me!

 

c- new land - bordered by 8 lanes of traffic - open for development, to compete with canada post project land, Griffintown proj land, Lowney land ... basically cheaper and less polluted land

 

Bordered by 4 lanes of traffic per side, actually. How is this different from any avenue in New York City? Parc Avenue has 8 lanes and 80 storey skyscrapers. If you've ever walked around, there is tons of pedestrian activity! Also, last i checked, René-Lévesque has just as many lanes and is bustling with pedestrian, automobile and cycling activity. Not to mention the skyscrapers.

 

d- better quality of life for a neighbourhood...a neighbourhood in the south shore no doubt

 

That argument makes no sense. A neighborhood physically separated by an elevated highway would be reconnected. We're talking visual improvements, improvements in street-level activity (new buildings, stores, parcs). That's a clear and definite improvement!

 

e- East and west connection already exists and is easier + cleaner, and Bonav doesn't have to go down to facilitate development towards the south...just ask Devimco

 

East-west connection exists but is certainly not "cleaner" or "easier". The whole area around Bonaventure is aged and decaying. This project would eliminate a concrete eyesore, replace it with a new freshly paved boulevard, new sidewalks, new streets, new public squares, new parcs, new trees, etc. This project will unquestionably make things cleaner and nicer, not the other way around!

[Cataclaw]

Similar project in San Francisco:

 

The Embarcadero elevated highway before/after:

 

You tell me that isn't an improvement and a better quality of life for everyone.

 

I understand the fear... change can do that. I remember there was some opposition to the Parc/Pine project, but now today everybody loves the new intersection. It's cleaner, nicer, greener, friendlier, and the automobile traffic flows just fine.

Modifié 21 juin 2010 par Cataclaw

[MtlMan]

 

I remember there was some opposition to the Parc/Pine project, but now today everybody loves the new intersection. It's cleaner, nicer, greener, friendlier, and the automobile traffic flows just fine.

 

Entièrement d'accord avec toi Cata. Je pense que cette revitalisation sera époustouflante et qu'on ne regrettera que de ne l'avoir pas effectuée avant.

[IshmaelJones]

Instead of walking or cycling under a noisy and aging concrete elevated road with little local interest (that also physically and psychologically separates two areas), people will now cross at pedestrian crosswalks lined with shops and buildings. That seems like a significant upgrade to me!

At the moment, cyclists and pedestrians cross 4 lanes of traffic (then cross under 6 hwy lanes) to get from Nazareth to Duke...the new blvd will have them cross 10 lanes at-grade. This situation, along with the idling car fumes and rushed crossing times, seems like a much more physical and psychological barrier to me. Are you really putting the shops along the crosswalks? Audacious and visionary, yes, but it may impede car traffic just a little.

 

How is this different from any avenue in New York City? Parc Avenue has 8 lanes and 80 storey skyscrapers. If you've ever walked around, there is tons of pedestrian activity! Also, last i checked, René-Lévesque has just as many lanes and is bustling with pedestrian, automobile and cycling activity. Not to mention the skyscrapers.

If NYC had the kind of available, cheap land that exists in Griffintown (aka a possible expansion towards the south), they would probably opt to build on it rather than sandwiched between four lanes of traffic on each side. I think developpers here in mtl are just as smart, and would prefer cleaner land that costs less and in an area with a higher demand. At this rate, your central islands will only be "bustling" once the other projects are built and populated...smell ya in 50

 

A neighborhood physically separated by an elevated highway would be reconnected. We're talking visual improvements, improvements in street-level activity (new buildings, stores, parcs). That's a clear and definite improvement!

These are dated arguments that have been proven to be misleading. First off, there is nothing separating the two neighbourhoods except zoning regulations, where griffintown was redzoned industrial (for the last 45 years, until recently) and recollets zoned commercial residential to welcome the MM city. If the highway was at-grade, you would have an argument cuz no one can cross, but in this case, the urban blvd would more closely resemble an at-grade highway than the present situation given the fact that they impose an extra 6 lanes to cross.

You wanna talk visual improvements, have some guts and take a look at what they did with the High Line in NYC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Line_%28New_York_City%29

 

The whole area around Bonaventure is aged and decaying. This project would eliminate a concrete eyesore, replace it with a new freshly paved boulevard, new sidewalks, new streets, new public squares, new parcs, new trees, etc. This project will unquestionably make things cleaner and nicer, not the other way around!

Ah, now we fall into the nitty-gritty. Aged and decaying? Let's agree to disagree...besides the JCCB corp just announced a major facelift for the Bonaventure starting yesterday (ah how the levels of gov love to not communicate). Eyesore? Subjective much....check the posts above to see what Joe Baker (former dean of Universite Laval's school of architecture) said in this wknd's gazette http://www.montrealgazette.com/opinion/Rethinking+Bonaventure/3173931/story.html

Unquestionably make things nicer and neater? You obviously didn't read the air quality report ... but take a look if you want to understand how the marketing you have been subjected to contrasts with the reality we all face.

[Cyrus]

Bonaventure will still remain, only the last 650m will be at-grade.

 

We sometimes get the impression that a lot will change with this, but the express entrance into town will still be there, it'll just be at-grade.

 

If you're traveling at 70km/h on that stretch of the Bonaventure, you'd normally traverse that distance in 33 seconds. With a new boulevard max 50 zone, you'd traverse that same distance in 47 seconds assuming the lights are well synchronized. We're talking a difference of 14 seconds, something you wouldn't even notice at all. If you spend 40 minutes driving into town, 14 seconds more or less won't change much.

 

In exchange for the 14 seconds of driving time, we get:

a. A grand entrance for the city

b. Better street grid connectivity

c. New land opened for development /w potentially some highrises

d. Better quality of life for a neighborhood

e. Connecting east and west and allowing downtown to expand to the south with greater ease

 

I say it's worth it. If they replaced Bonaventure with a 1-lane road and a bike path, i'd cry foul too, but we're just bringing the road to street level and preserving the number of lanes over 650m of road. From a driver's perspective, it isn't that big of a change!

 

The SDH's plan said the travel time would increase by 5 minutes

 

It is a much bigger PITA to use this if you want to access the Ville-Marie eastbound or come from Ville-Marie westbound.

 

I don't see how the neighborhood's quality of life increases by making them stuck in traffic, this would seem to be the reverse

[Cyrus]

At the moment, cyclists and pedestrians cross 4 lanes of traffic (then cross under 6 hwy lanes) to get from Nazareth to Duke...the new blvd will have them cross 10 lanes at-grade. This situation, along with the idling car fumes and rushed crossing times, seems like a much more physical and psychological barrier to me. Are you really putting the shops along the crosswalks? Audacious and visionary, yes, but it may impede car traffic just a little.

 

Right now you can cross easily under the highway... it is grade separated so you can pretty much cross at your leisure without any signal except on the two service road intersections on either end... I have no idea how anyone could prefer an at-grade intersection and having to wait a long time for a crossing signal and then run like hell... maybe a little girl at night might not feel comfortable under there, but in this case - solution would be a better light not a different road...

 

The capacity of the new road is 1/2 that of the existing expressway, which has congestion issues on the inbound side. Yet the area is supposed to be densified = more traffic?

 

 

Not at all! How would it be worse for pedestrians? Instead of walking or cycling under a noisy and aging concrete elevated road with little local interest (that also physically and psychologically separates two areas), people will now cross at pedestrian crosswalks lined with shops and buildings. That seems like a significant upgrade to me!

 

What about the railway though, wouldn't the area still be "psychologically separated"?

 

I miss the Parc-Pine interchange, it was crumbling in its final years, but now it takes a lot longer to get through that mess especially at rush hours...

 

-------------

 

In a lot of ways the Bonaventure concept seems similar to what Edmonton did some years ago with "Gateway Boulevard" (Hwy 2 north into Edmonton) and "Calgary Trail" (Hwy 2 south out of the city). It is two one-way streets, about 4-5 lanes wide each, with a couple of at-grade intersections and retail in the center median which is very wide. It looks like maybe they wanted to run a collector-express freeway through there and then got cold feet and sold the land...

 

map view

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Gateway+Blvd,+Edmonton,+AB,+Canada&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=52.815565,135.263672&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Gateway+Blvd,+Edmonton,+Division+No.+11,+Alberta,+Canada&ll=53.448653,-113.492417&spn=0.019603,0.066047&t=h&z=15&layer=c&cbll=53.463745,-113.492051&panoid=ckcpzKvi8dsW0ys4GM16yw&cbp=12,335.28,,0,10.5

 

Even though Edmonton is only a city of ~800k population that lives all over the area (not just to the south) and that road is quite big (bigger than even the "new" Bonaventure AFAIK), it is normally known as a planning failure today because it jams up... The city is currently working on building interchanges at the worst intersections (23 Avenue right now, and I think 19 Ave right after)

 

Now it isn't so bad because they have built the ring road, a excellent freeway that is wrapping around the city, just south of Gateway so you can hop on that and bypass, to Terwiligar, Whitemud, Yellowhead etc

Modifié 21 juin 2010 par Cyrus

[SKYMTL]

Similar project in San Francisco:

 

The Embarcadero elevated highway before/after:

 

You can't equate the Embarcadero with the Bonaventure. No way. The Embarcadero Freeway was damaged by an earthquake in 1988 or 1989 (can't remember which one) and stood vacant for YEARS before it was put to demolition. In that time, several byways and alternate freeways were constructed to take up the overflow.

 

Not so with the Bonaventure. Here we are seeing a quick, free-flowing autoroute demolished and pedestrian's lives being put at risk. Do you realize how many Montreal drivers will be more than happy to blow through the traffic lights proposed?

 

How does anyone in their right mind think this will allow for additional development in the Griffintown area? Will this act like a magic wand that will put and end to all the NIMBY organizations, lack of services and general disuse of that sector? Methinks not.

 

Like it or not, even the major developers are scared out of their mind when it comes to that area. Just look at the large redevelopment project by Devimco. Scaled back and I am sure soon to be put on hold. No amount of pointless "urban boulevard" invesement will make one lick of difference other than to clog our alread overused and under constructed streets.

[Davidbourque]

dans ma tête, cette autoroute devrais être enlevelie, passez sous le mont royal et aller retrouver la 15 pour que cette foutu autoroute arrête d'emprunter sur son trajet l'autoroute 40 et créer un jam permanant entre les 2 15...

 

une fois cela fait, après tu te fais une belle sortit d'autoroute qui désert le centre ville en beau boulevard urbain.

 

mais bon, c'est un phantasme. trop de choses vont faire que cela ne se réalisera jamais.

 

Mais pour quelqu'un qui arriverait du nord, l'accès au centre ville serait vraiment simplifier

[Cyrus]

Yeah, the Embarcadero demolition was much less expensive, Mother Nature did it for them

 

But of course, if we wait just a bit longer, we will have the same for Bonaventure

 

dans ma tête, cette autoroute devrais être enlevelie, passez sous le mont royal et aller retrouver la 15 pour que cette foutu autoroute arrête d'emprunter sur son trajet l'autoroute 40 et créer un jam permanant entre les 2 15...

 

une fois cela fait, après tu te fais une belle sortit d'autoroute qui désert le centre ville en beau boulevard urbain.

 

mais bon, c'est un phantasme. trop de choses vont faire que cela ne se réalisera jamais.

 

Mais pour quelqu'un qui arriverait du nord, l'accès au centre ville serait vraiment simplifier

 

Il y a eu un projet autoroutier a travers le Mont Royal dans le fin des annees 50 - debut 60... de quitter l'autoroute Decarie, puis passer a travers le montagne pour finir sur la rue Rachel a l'autre cote... le grand hic etait, parce qu'il y a deja le tunnel pour le Canadien National, il faut passer en haut ou en bas, et aussi il faut fournir un ventilation adeqat, ce que n'etait pas fait pour le tunnel ferroviaire (en lieu ils ont decide d'utiliser des trains electriques). Quand on considere les immenses infrastructures de ventilation sur la Ville-Marie, ainsi que le cout de cette autoroute, et c'etait un simple "cut and cover", c'est un peu effrayant pour un con tribuable

Modifié 21 juin 2010 par Cyrus

[jesseps]

It better come down or I will bring it down!

 

Man this city needs to stop fearing change.