Posted at 12:00 p.m.
It takes a certain political courage to address the issue of car-free neighborhoods when you are mayor. You need even more when you’re mayor of Laval, a city where the majority of the population (according to a survey) believes that a parking space is synonymous with quality of life.
But that doesn’t stop Stéphane Boyer from dreaming. The mayor of Laval is part of the new generation of elected municipal officials who stand out from their predecessors by their desire to do things differently. It must be said that they no longer have much choice: they must manage the effects of the climate crisis and the excesses of previous generations who have developed without thinking too much about the consequences on the environment. Whether in Longueuil, Granby, Gatineau, Quebec or Sherbrooke (and Montreal, of course), the newly elected officials face major challenges: the housing crisis, urban sprawl, the cost of infrastructure, etc.
Stéphane Boyer is therefore throwing a stone into the pond: the idea of car-free neighborhoods, a neighborhood on a human scale where the density would allow residents to do almost everything on foot or by bike: drive the children to school or daycare , shopping, going to the doctor… Cars would be parked on the outskirts, which would limit concrete surfaces – heat islands – and, therefore, road maintenance costs. In the end, it is the quality of life that would benefit: less pollution, noise, and a greater sense of community.
Car-free neighborhoods differ from eco-neighborhoods, where homes are built that meet high environmental standards, but which are sometimes erected in the middle of a field, far from existing infrastructure. Car-free neighborhoods, explains Stéphane Boyer, rely instead on the reengineering of infrastructure and the development of the neighborhood.
We no longer realize it, we are used to it, but bitumen occupies a large area of our living environments.
A few figures: the road network is 15% of the territory of Laval and Longueuil, 21% of that of Montreal.
We often hear motorists complain that in addition to paying for their car, they finance public transport infrastructure with their taxes. But the reverse is also true: people without cars not only finance the construction and maintenance of roads, but they also pay for parking spaces that they do not use. Hundreds of thousands of squares of asphalt that could be converted into green spaces or homes.
Stéphane Boyer proposes two models for car-free neighborhoods: the first on the initiative of a promoter, the other on the municipality. Both require the same basic ingredient: political will.
The mayor of Laval cites the example of the Vauban district in Freiburg (Germany), an inspiring model according to him. No question of making the reader feel guilty, but rather of explaining that there are other ways of living, which are more ecological and which, in the end, bring greater economic and social well-being.
Realistic or utopian?
Lucid, Mayor Boyer recognizes that the biggest obstacle remains our resistance to change. Changing the car culture remains quite a challenge. This book is an excellent pretext to start the discussion.
Extract :
By eliminating local streets, parking spots and garages, we would save a lot of space. The distances to be covered between each building would thus be reduced. Therefore, it would be easier and faster to cover them on foot or by bicycle. Rather than finding streets and parking spaces, there would be pedestrian walkways lined with trees, flowers and gardens. Without cars on the streets, the neighborhood would not only be quieter, but also safer for children to play there, it would be more pleasant to walk there, to read a book on a public bench or to take a drink on a terrace. The streets would also be livelier.
Car-free neighborhoods: from audacity to reality
Stephane Boyer
All in all
128 pages
Who is Stéphane Boyer?
Before being elected mayor of Laval in 2021, Stéphane Boyer was a municipal councilor for Duvernay–Pont-Viau. He published a first book, A world of differences (2009), on her experience in South Africa as part of the Canada World Youth program.