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

[Fortier]

Fantasms are good Look at the place of the automobile in our culture... listen to any song with lyrics, the singer is singing about a car, or a girl but never anything else

 

Gary "Cyrus" Numan?

[MTLskyline]

[Cyrus]

Sure cars have a place in our culture. But so does the subway, and just about anything else. Songs have been sung about everything imaginable.

 

How about in film? Every movie involves cars in some way, often as the whole plot of the movie or just as a main part of some scenes (chase, etc). Even the "chick flick" you see with your girlfriend, there is still a car scene

 

When was the last time you saw a public transit movie?

 

 

Yeah yeah, okay ONCE

[Cataclaw]

How about in film? Every movie involves cars in some way, often as the whole plot of the movie or just as a main part of some scenes (chase, etc). Even the "chick flick" you see with your girlfriend, there is still a car scene

 

When was the last time you saw a public transit movie?

 

Yeah yeah, okay ONCE

 

Cars are in movies because they're a popular form of transportation. There are countless movies with bus scenes, subway scenes, airplane scenes, etc.

 

Hey guess what, every movie ever made has a scene with walking in it. Does that mean walking is an integral part of our culture too? I guess so!

 

Come on man. Now you're just being silly with this. You're starting to sound borderline fanatic here.

[monctezuma]

When was the last time you saw a public transit movie?

 

 

Yeah yeah, okay ONCE

 

[MtlMan]

Alors quoi, on va décider de l'avenir d'une ville, d'une vision pour le développement durable et de la possibilité de créer tout un nouveau quartier, tout ça en se basant sur le fait qu'il y a des tounes et des films de char?

 

Come on.................

 

[Fortier]

Y'a des centaines de films avec des scènes dans le métro...

[gelu88]

 

[...]

 

 

Look at Vancouver - Vancouver has a terrible road network, but has lots of sprawl and serious affordability problems.

 

And yet what do you know, Vancouver is consistently rated among the most livable cities in the world.

 

And you know what other cities have atrocious traffic? Paris, Vienna, and pretty much every award winning european city.

 

There are cities that have freeway like roads that you would find very appealing, the problem is they are in cities called Atlanta, Houston, Phoenix, all places that score very low when it comes to livability and sustainability. Cars work on a different scale than Humans, and thus any city designed mainly for them seems like a wasteland the moment you step out of your car.

 

Great cities are able to tame their cars, not become beholden to them.

[Cyrus]

And yet what do you know, Vancouver is consistently rated among the most livable cities in the world.

 

And you know what other cities have atrocious traffic? Paris, Vienna, and pretty much every award winning european city.

 

There are cities that have freeway like roads that you would find very appealing, the problem is they are in cities called Atlanta, Houston, Phoenix, all places that score very low when it comes to livability and sustainability. Cars work on a different scale than Humans, and thus any city designed mainly for them seems like a wasteland the moment you step out of your car.

 

Great cities are able to tame their cars, not become beholden to them.

 

Cars work on a different scale than humans? What is the car but an inanimate object, the person inside is what matters...

 

What is livability in a city where you can't afford a house or condo, the population of homeless people is huge, serious drug issues and crime... Vancouver is a beautiful city in the right places, and a very ugly one in the wrong ones.

 

There are several major autoroute projects in the Ile-de-France (Paris) region ongoing, and of course, they built the Periph on top of the old fortification walls area, but it is true the Periph has atrocious traffic jams...

 

Talking of Atlanta, Houston, Phoenix, what's the "livability" problem? OK when it is 105 in the shade it is perhaps... time to go inside to your A/C. But those cities have been growing at unfathomable rates in the past 20 years and have seen their populations (especially in their metro areas) skyrocket. How could they not be "livable" if people are flocking to these places to make their lives from all over the US (and the rest of the world)? Someone else was talking of Atlanta's "urban sprawl", but Atlanta has serious population growth. How many people are they taking in for each km^2 of sprawl compared to Montreal region? Probably comparable...

[Cataclaw]

Cars work on a different scale than humans? What is the car but an inanimate object, the person inside is what matters...

 

What is livability in a city where you can't afford a house or condo, the population of homeless people is huge, serious drug issues and crime... Vancouver is a beautiful city in the right places, and a very ugly one in the wrong ones.

 

There are several major autoroute projects in the Ile-de-France (Paris) region ongoing, and of course, they built the Periph on top of the old fortification walls area, but it is true the Periph has atrocious traffic jams...

 

Talking of Atlanta, Houston, Phoenix, what's the "livability" problem? OK when it is 105 in the shade it is perhaps... time to go inside to your A/C. But those cities have been growing at unfathomable rates in the past 20 years and have seen their populations (especially in their metro areas) skyrocket. How could they not be "livable" if people are flocking to these places to make their lives from all over the US (and the rest of the world)? Someone else was talking of Atlanta's "urban sprawl", but Atlanta has serious population growth. How many people are they taking in for each km^2 of sprawl compared to Montreal region? Probably comparable...

 

I've been to Atlanta every year for the last 4 years, and i spent 2 weeks in Houston 2 years ago. Aside from that i've been to 41 U.S. states and almost every major city. So what i'm about to say is not something random and unfounded -- it is based in experience:

 

Lots of sprawl-cities like Atlanta have excellent little downtown areas that are pleasant and livable. The problem is, these core areas are incredibly small. You walk in any direction for 10 minutes and you've left the core and suddenly you're surrounded by parking lots, fields, highways and single-family homes surrounded by large fences. Once you exit the core, you're in a different world entirely: one where you must get around by car or you'll be walking for hours.

 

In Montreal you could walk from the beginning of Sherbrooke in the ouest all the way to the industrial areas in the east and still be "in the city". You'd still be walking on shop-lined streets with bustling activity. Not so in Atlanta and other cities.

 

You might point out that NYC has an even crazier urban intensity but they have tons of highways and roads there too. Well, the key is balance.

 

NYC metro has a population in the 8-digit range. There are tens of millions of people living there, and over 8 million in city-proper. Over a million alone on the tiny island of Manhattan!! When you consider the huge density, the number of highways they have is actually modest. NYC's per-capita highway density is actually fairly low.

 

So again, it's about having a balance. Too many roads and you end up with an unsustainable and sprawl-prone city like Atlanta, too few roads and your economy suffers along with tourism, just the right number and your city prospers.

 

Please understand that i've never been an anti-car advocate. I strongly support the construction of A-30, A-25 and even the A-19 extensions. However, that being said, there is a very strong logic behind maintaining an ideal balance. People have been studying roads and cities for decades (and even centuries) and the consensus is that an optimal balance is necessary. You just can't have too many roads and you just can't have none either. Period.

 

I leave you with an example of a city that unquestionably has a road problem, one that has a good balance, and one that has too few roads:

 

Too many roads: Rochester, NY. This city has a ring-road built to autoroute standards surrounding its core. It's the periphery road with the shortest radius in the world! 500 meters! Can you believe it? You walk 6 blocks and you're already at the other end of the loop! This road has placed a huge grip on downtown Rochester, which is suffering badly. The road itself is virtually unused (i've driven on it, i've seen it for myself). Such a road is simply unnecessary. As a result, city officials have laid out plans to tear down the loop starting with the eastern part in order to let the city breathe.

 

Possibly too few roads: Vancouver. I know many people would disagree with me, but hear me out first : I feel that mass transit, though it is good in and around the core, i find it somewhat lacking in other parts. I think Vancouver has two options to correct this problem: Build more transit, or build an extra highway. At the moment, they're building a lot of extra transit with plans on the table to expand their network even more, so an extra road might not even be necessary if they continue like this. Time will tell, but Vancouver is experiencing solid population growth and issues might yet arise in the future.

 

Just the right balance: Montreal. And the proof? Look at our city. We have vast stretches of pure urban fabric. Look at a satelite view of Montreal then look at a satelite view of Pittsburgh. Montreal is continuous mass of city in all directions. Even our suburbs are fairly urban. Take a walk in many parts of Longueuil or Brossard or Laval and you'll notice a distinctively urban vibe going on. Our sprawl is very modest by North American standards. Now, i'm not saying our network is perfect, there are certainly improvements to be made (such as A-30, A-25, Turcot, adding lanes to the 15/20 between Turcot and Champlain, holy crap) but our huge offering of transit options is what gives us tremendous success. Road, bike, foot, metro, bus, train... we have all of these options in relative abundance. Go Montreal!!