Before the pot, the flowers. There are plenty of advantages to living in Pointe-Saint-Charles, one of Montreal’s historic neighborhoods where the Filles du Roy were once housed before finding a husband.
We are just south of downtown Montreal. Next to the Lachine Canal, its linear park and its magnificent bike path.
The commercial offer is unique and diversified. Stop by for gelato at Florence, jerk chicken at Boom J or the best croissants in town – in my humble opinion – at Mollo. Among others.
And we are very proud of the mobilization of citizens in our corner of town, which in 1968 gave birth to the Pointe-Saint-Charles community clinic, an inspiration for the CLSCs that have since spread throughout Quebec.
And what about Building 7, an exceptional self-managed space for which citizens fought for 15 years. Since it opened in 2018, you can handle wood, repair your bike, pet a rabbit from the farmhouse and do your grocery shopping. Among others.
Yeah, there’s a ton of reasons why I’ve lived and loved this neighborhood for 16 years and been singing in my shower, “ We don’t care about all the rest of Canada, we’re from Point-St-Charles (we don’t care about the rest of Canada, we’re from Pointe-Saint-Charles), the anthem composed by the neighborhood’s Irish workers and immortalized in the magnificent documentary The Point.
And now, the jar. Living in Pointe-Saint-Charles means accepting that one’s living environment is cut in two by a railway line in service, that rush hours are terrible because motorists storm the streets of the neighborhood to get to at the Victoria Bridge. It’s seeing, hearing and feeling the vibrations of huge 18-wheelers that take to the residential streets of the sector, which is still partially industrial.
And since the beginning of the summer, it also means realizing that we are now condemned to live with the incessant noise of the Réseau express métropolitain (REM) trains, which will cross the neighborhood and will soon connect Brossard to Montreal’s Central Station. Twenty-four hours a day. At high frequency.
The impact of the train, still being run in, is already being felt everywhere, if we are to believe a survey recently conducted by the Pointe-Saint-Charles development corporation, Action-gardien. Almost all of the 250 citizens questioned said they were disturbed by the noise of the new train, both inside and outside their homes.
In recent articles, my colleagues Vincent Brousseau-Pouliot and Henri Ouellette-Vézina have shown that the problem is not just conceptual. Both have carried out sound tests in the surroundings and have seen that the decibels accumulate there quickly. Too fast. Enough for Public Health to worry about.
For my part, since I sleep with the windows open at night, I have the impression of being next to an old suspension train in Brooklyn, not a brand new electric train that was promised “imperceptible”.
And don’t get me started on the irritants of the construction site that has been going on for years!
What is most difficult to digest in all of this is that the population of Pointe-Saint-Charles – socially and economically marginalized for a long time – suffers all the disadvantages of this new public transport project without enjoying any advantage.
For the moment, the promoter of the REM, the Caisse de depot et placement du Québec (CDPQ Infra), has not planned a station in the district in full demographic growth. There is a hypothetical plan for a station at Peel Basin, but it is only a vague idea for the moment.
The nearest station, that of Griffintown, the neighboring district, will open “by 2027”.
And the noise problem? CDPQ Infra says it is undertaking further sound testing to see if noise mitigation measures will need to be put in place at a later date. As if the testimonies of an entire neighborhood were not enough to take action immediately!
“Once again, we are the left behind,” laments Margot Silvestro, artist and ultra-known community organizer in the Pointe.
Citizen movements at La Pointe, says Mme Silvestro, are no longer what they were. A former working-class district where a certain social homogeneity reigned, Pointe-Saint-Charles is today one of the most diversified sectors of the metropolis. The richest rub shoulders with the poorest. The English-French duality is obvious. “We have seen since the pandemic that mobilization is weaker, but the REM risks changing things. Regardless of their social class, citizens suffer the same inconvenience,” says Margot Silvestro. There is a beginning of common anger that rumbles in housing cooperatives as in luxury condos. A beginning of common cause.
And if history teaches us one thing, it’s that when the people of Pointe-Saint-Charles stick together, they are legendary for their efficiency.