Montreal plans to extend Boulevard de l’Assomption passing through the Steinberg woodland, which risks destroying part of this natural environment, to the great dismay of residents of Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve calling for its preservation.
In documents made public Tuesday, the City proposes two scenarios for redeveloping Boulevard de l’Assomption and Avenue Souligny. In both cases, this would require a connection from Avenue Souligny to Rue Notre-Dame along the Assomption axis, passing to the east of the land of Ray-Mont Logistiques, which is building a container terminal there. .
The first option would, however, add a local link passing through the Steinberg woodland, which would thus connect the Souligny and Hochelaga axes. All of this would force the movement of around fifty trees and the removal of nearly 15% of the wooded area.
In return, Montreal would commit to planting a thousand trees in the area to green several other spaces and to creating a “sustainable mobility corridor” on Hochelaga Street by the end of 2025.
The second option would spare the Steinberg woodland. In the absence of detour routes, the City nevertheless fears that this second scenario will create more pressure on neighboring neighborhoods.
In either case, the goal would be to “channel the Port’s trucking movements,” with the transit of heavy vehicles likely to increase in the coming years, according to the administration. Ultimately, the Dickson axis would also be redeveloped between Hochelaga and Notre-Dame streets, with an interruption of road traffic at Souligny avenue.
In short, “option 1 decompartmentalizes the neighborhoods, but encroaches on part of the wooded area,” while option 2 “poses road safety issues in the Viauville and Guybourg neighborhoods,” summarized the head of the mobility on the executive committee, Sophie Mauzerolle, at a press briefing. “It is extremely important, at this stage, that we hear the residents and their concerns,” she said, a few hours before a public information meeting which was scheduled for Tuesday evening.
PHOTO OLIVIER PONTBRIAND, THE PRESS
The head of mobility at the City of Montreal, Sophie Mauzerolle
A long-standing debate
Montreal and Quebec have wanted for years to extend Avenue Souligny and Boulevard de l’Assomption, very close to the Olympic Stadium, in order to divert heavy goods vehicles from the rest of the road network. Some 2,500 trucks leave the Port of Montreal every day, which operates a terminal nearby.
The task is complex, since there are numerous projects in Assomption-Sud – Longue-Pointe, their development involving debates on all fronts. From the Eastern Structuring Project (PSE) to the Ray-Mont Logistiques transshipment platform, including the extension of the Assomption-Souligny axis or even the Hydro-Québec transformation station, projects abound.
As early as 2019, the Office de consultation publique de Montréal (OCPM) looked into the possibility of building a nature park in the area.
The problem is that the land in question encroaches on that of the developer Ray-Mont Logistiques. In 2017, the district refused to issue permits for the construction of the project, but two consecutive lawsuits, which Ray-Mont Logistiques won, finally forced the authorities to issue these permits.
Since 2020, the arrival of the Réseau express métropolitain (REM) had forced the City to cease its public discussions on this issue, due to confidentiality agreements imposed by the Caisse de dépôt et placement. This explains the slow pace of municipal work in recent years.
Concerned local residents
For the citizen group Mobilization 6600, which held a demonstration last weekend for the preservation of the Steinberg woodland, the City’s two proposals essentially amount to an extension towards Highway 25 to “promote the expansion of industry port and logistics.
On the contrary, the organization is campaigning for an option that would not recommend any additional road addition. He demands, among other things, that the temporary road built by the Port of Montreal to allow its trucks to move towards the Souligny axis “simply be made permanent”, without adding other infrastructure.
“Cohabitation between industries and residences, made difficult by the ever-increasing expansion of the Port of Montreal, requires that we not add infrastructure that encourages such expansion,” explains the co-spokesperson of Mobilization 6600, Cassandre Charbonneau-Jobin.
His group “will not accept that the Souligny highway enters deeper into the neighborhood to get closer to our residences, and adds other nuisances,” adds M.me Charbonneau-Jobin.
Another co-spokesperson for the group, Anaïs Houde, recalls that “the health of the neighborhood population is already weakened by port activities and the presence of industries”, arguing that the Regional Directorate of Public Health already recommended in 2019 “the reduction of current nuisances”.
“We fear that the City will use the argument of protecting part of the wooded area to make us forget about the extension of a highway near residences. This seems very bad faith to us,” persists Cassandre Charbonneau-Jobin.