This is 1960s urban planning in all its splendor: the area around the Longueuil metro station is literally surrounded by highways. Half a century after its inauguration, this sector, one of the busiest in the greater Montreal region, remains “difficult to access” and even “hostile” to pedestrians and cyclists. “Car culture” continues to reign in Quebec’s fifth largest city.
However, the City of Longueuil implemented an ambitious project in 2018 aimed at transforming the vast area around the metro station. Town planners draw up an implacable observation on the need to redevelop the district, which is “dominated by asphalt and automobiles”.
This extremely comprehensive plan evokes the importance of “opening up” the sector. Pedestrians and cyclists have a difficult time crossing motorway ramps on narrow sidewalks with no cycle path, brushed by vehicles speeding past.
The 2018 “special urban planning program” lays the foundations of a new “city center”, which would become a living environment on a human scale. The plan mentions the addition of local shops, a supermarket, a school, a daycare and a public park along the river.
The streets that look like highway ramps that lead to the metro station would become boulevards lined with trees, bike paths and wide, well-lit sidewalks — the complete opposite of the current reality.
The City’s plan also calls for the construction of thousands of homes, which would include social and affordable housing. Three towers measuring 30 floors, 26 floors and 20 floors are under construction in the area – including one directly above the metro station – but to date do not include any housing for families to low income.
“Tank culture”
Gérard Beaudet, professor at the School of Urban Planning and Landscape Architecture at the University of Montreal, believes that the City of Longueuil has presented an exemplary program to transform the area around the metro. However, he notes that these beautiful intentions are slow to become reality.
“A program like this requires the municipality to have leadership and very strong political will. We see in Longueuil that the promoters are going all out. We risk witnessing the birth of a second Griffintown, a neighborhood without soul, where mobility is far from optimal,” says the distinguished urban planner.
Quebec cities remain prisoners of “tank culture,” he deplores. The Longueuil metro station was inaugurated in 1967, at a time when it was simply unthinkable to get around on foot or by bike in a “modern” society.
Aerial photos from the period perfectly illustrate the dominant philosophy: we see the highway ramps and the huge parking lots surrounding the metro station located in the open field. Nearly 60 years later, the same highway ramps are making life difficult for pedestrians, cyclists and even motorists, as traffic congestion increases due to the explosion in the number of vehicles.
The number of bicycle trips has also exploded in recent years in this sector, notably due to the Bixi stations installed in Vieux-Longueuil and at the metro. In 2015, no less than 133,000 bicycle trips were recorded in this segment of Saint-Charles Street — attendance which has increased significantly over the past eight years, according to our sources.
Congestion on the sidewalk
On a late September afternoon, when it’s time to go home, hundreds of people leave the metro on foot, by bike or by electric scooter in the direction of Vieux-Longueuil, a kilometer further to the East.
All these beautiful people are elbowing each other on a narrow and cracked sidewalk: rue Saint-Charles is one-way in the opposite direction, for almost 900 meters. Even in the middle of the city, this end of the street is designed like a highway, with its large green traffic signs and its access ramp. Cars and buses speed up… like on a highway.
“It’s really not nice here. It’s dangerous,” says Guillermo Léon, met on the sidewalk of the rue Saint-Charles viaduct which overlooks another highway, below. While we’re talking to him, buses rush past us at high speed, with a deafening noise.
This urban planner walks home from the Longueuil metro station. He has a lot to say about the development of the sector. “We have to destroy all that and do like in Copenhagen: widen the sidewalk, create cycle paths, calm down motorized traffic, plant trees and better light the street in the evening,” says Mr. Léon without hesitation.
A cyclist arrives on his electric bike. He tries to make his way among the pedestrians. Impossible to drive on the street: both lanes of traffic are one-way in the wrong direction.
“This is the first time I’ve been here by bike. And it’s the last one. I’m surprised there isn’t a bike path. There is not enough room for everyone on the sidewalk. I don’t feel safe,” says Noureddine Fard.
Another resident arrives on an electric scooter. Alain Gauthier was pleased to note that a cycle path connects Saint-Lambert, further west, and the Longueuil metro station. It’s when continuing towards Vieux-Longueuil that things get worse: the cycle path stops at Place Charles-Le Moyne. It leads to a sidewalk.
“You have to drive among pedestrians on a sidewalk full of holes and too narrow. And the cars are driving fast in the opposite direction. We must avoid false maneuvers. »
A network that is improving
Mario Grenier, who has been traveling by bike summer and winter for 18 years, notes significant improvements to Longueuil’s cycling network in recent years, but not in the key area around the metro.
“I am relatively optimistic. Even the winter cycle network grows every year,” says this seasoned cyclist.
He rides almost entirely on bike lanes — sometimes marked by a simple strip of paint — between his home, near the Édouard-Montpetit CEGEP, and downtown Montreal. Mr. Grenier has the impression that the City of Longueuil is saving the most complex cycling developments for last, in the vast perimeter around the metro.
The cyclist not only avoids rue Saint-Charles, but also rue Saint-Laurent, which connects Vieux-Longueuil and the Jacques-Cartier Bridge cycle path. Short sections of this major thoroughfare are painted (and bollarded in summer), but motorists, truckers and bus drivers travel at high speeds. Traffic is heavy. Mario Grenier instead takes Boulevard Desaulniers, nearby, which is better suited to bicycles.
On the sidewalk of Place Charles-Le Moyne, background noise comes from the surrounding highways, including the six crowded lanes of Route 132. Urban planner Gérard Beaudet admits with a sigh that he sometimes feels like he’s preaching in the desert. “We know what needs to be done to improve urban planning, but there is resistance on the political level. It’s sad. We can no longer afford to fail. »