A first quadrilateral in Old Montreal will be reserved for pedestrians starting in the summer of 2024, announced Mayor Valérie Plante at the opening of the Montreal Climate Summit, which is being held in the Old Port on Tuesday.
Last year, during the first edition of the Climate Summit, Montreal announced objectives for the decarbonization of the city’s building stock. This year, the City will focus on transportation, which accounted for 43% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Quebec in 2020. In the Montreal region, transportation-related GHG emissions increased by 18% between 1990 and 2019, according to a recent report published by the City of Montreal.
Among the measures that the City will put in place to decarbonize transportation by 2040, Mayor Plante announced her administration’s intention to transform Old Montreal into a “kingdom of pedestrians”. “We want to make it more user-friendly and protect it more like other cities have done,” she said during her speech. The mayor cited the case of Vienna, Brussels and Montpellier which have pedestrianized part of their historic district.
Montreal also intends to make Henri-Bourassa Boulevard a “sustainable mobility corridor” with a rapid bus service (SRB) and an Express Bike Network (REV). Currently, this artery has eight lanes of automobile traffic. The new developments will be carried out gradually in sections. Work will begin in Saint-Laurent this year.
The City also aims to transform freight transport into a zero-emission activity. In this regard, the Mayor indicated that the City would adopt a carbon-free delivery strategy by developing delivery services like the Colibri project, but on a larger scale.
Further details will follow.
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