Cavendish Boulevard | A connection where the car will not be queen

The City’s project gives pride of place to pedestrians, cyclists and public transport

Bruno Bisson
The Press

The City of Montreal has submitted a project notice to the Government of Quebec to connect the two sections of Boulevard Cavendish, a project costing nearly $200 million. A project eagerly awaited in the West Island for half a century and feared for just as long in the municipality of Côte-Saint-Luc.

According to the 32-page document filed by the City, the connection of the north and south sections of boulevard Cavendish will be done by passing under CN and CP railway tracks, which have always been the main obstacle to the completion of this artery, between the Montreal borough of Saint-Laurent, to the north, and the municipality of Côte-Saint-Luc, to the south, which has 35,000 inhabitants.

The “railway crossing concept” is not final, but includes “several options under study”. In all cases, these options provide for “an underpass under the tracks, due to operational and safety constraints relating to the operation of rail yards”.

In addition to connecting the sections of the boulevard, just west of the boundaries of the municipality of Mount Royal, the city’s project provides for a road connection to avenue Royalmount which will open up the industrial sector of the municipality. This sector will need it doubly with the upcoming construction of the Royalmount real estate megaproject, at the intersection of highways 15 and 40.

The other major element of the project is the construction of a new street following the current private right-of-way of Pacific Avenue, which borders the railway tracks. This new street will link Cavendish Boulevard to Paré Street as well as to the site of the former Montreal racecourse, which is set to be a vast residential project, in the borough of Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de- Grace.

One boulevard, two vocations

However, it is the development concept adopted for the connection of the boulevard itself that deserves the most attention. It aims to reconcile the diametrically different vocations of two sections of road bearing the same name and which are only separated by about a kilometer in distance, but which could equally well coexist in parallel universes.

To the north, in the borough of Saint-Laurent, boulevard Cavendish serves a large industrial area crossed by highways 40 and 520, where big-box stores, wholesalers and businesses predominate. The residential function is completely absent. The boulevard with six traffic lanes – three in each direction – looks like a high-volume industrial artery, heavily used by trucks and often congested during peak periods.

In the south, it’s another world. Boulevard Cavendish essentially crosses inhabited areas. And not just a little. These are residential towers that rise on either side of the boulevard up to Fleet Road, in Côte-Saint-Luc. Beyond that, the residential density decreases around the boulevard, but not the vocation of this artery, whose layout is more like that of a local collector than an urban boulevard.

The City of Montreal has therefore opted for the construction of a wide urban boulevard, with a strong presence of vegetation, sidewalks and cycle paths on each side of the boulevard, traffic lanes reserved at all times for public transport and only two traffic planned for automobile traffic (one lane per direction).

In addition, on the southern portion of the connection, trucks would be strictly prohibited, in accordance with Côte-Saint-Luc regulations which prohibit transit trucking on Cavendish Boulevard and where only local deliveries are permitted. Trucks from the industrial sector would therefore be diverted by the new streets planned in the direction of Mont-Royal and the borough of Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.

Urban legend

It remains to be seen whether these developments will be enough to overcome the legendary reluctance of the population, and of the municipality, of Côte-Saint-Luc, whose tranquility is partly preserved thanks to its isolation to the north and whose residents fear a significant increase of car traffic.

The project to connect the ends of Boulevard Cavendish was included in the development plan of the former Montreal Urban Community in the early 1980s, but was the subject of projects or concepts, never completed, from the 1960s.

Over the years, at least nine development variants for the project have been developed to achieve a “preferential connection scenario that further promotes active and collective transportation”, according to the notice published by the City.

The publication of this project notice officially launches the environmental assessment procedure for the project. According to the schedule presented, the impact study will be filed in 2023. The Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement will conduct a consultation on the project at the end of 2023 or the beginning of 2024. Construction must begin only in 2027, and the works will last at least five years.