Municipal elections | Central issues in the campaign

With their hundreds of thousands of voters, the populous central Montreal neighborhoods risk deciding the identity of Montreal’s next mayor. Overview of the issues that concern them in this municipal campaign.

Philippe Teisceira-Lessard
Press

Cycle paths

Much ink was spilled over the issue of cycle paths in September, when the campaign officially began. Projet Montréal proudly claims the wide, often unidirectional, cycle paths of its Express Bike Network (REV), set up during its mandate. However, this project is the subject of criticism from traders and political opponents because of the parking spaces it eliminates. Denis Coderre’s team has also promised to reduce the width of the REV on part of rue de Bellechasse, in Rosemont – La Petite-Patrie. “There are cycling enthusiasts and I am one. But we need cohabitation, ”he said, during a press conference organized in front of the track.

Valérie Plante and Projet Montréal accuse Denis Coderre of endangering the safety of cyclists by wanting to reduce the space devoted to them on the asphalt. “The REV is here for good,” assured François Limoges in a telephone interview, who wants to become mayor of the borough of Rosemont – La Petite-Patrie. It is used, it is used well, and it is safe. Projet Montréal accuses the former Coderre administration of having, during its mandate, inaugurated kilometers of cycle paths without structure to physically separate bicycles and cars, by having a simple sign painted on the ground. Mouvement Montreal, party of Balarama Holness, promises to “review the functioning of the existing multidirectional cycle paths”.

Cleanliness

The cleanliness of the streets of Montreal was at the heart of acrimonious disputes between Denis Coderre and Valérie Plante. The first claims that Montreal has become dirty in the past four years, while the second accuses its opponent of denigrating the metropolis by making this speech.

Difficult to measure, the appearance of the streets of the metropolis has suffered from the pandemic, said Billy Walsh, of the Association of Commercial Development Companies of Montreal, in an interview with The Press. Garbage collection was too infrequent on pedestrianized streets and thousands of masks are now thrown away every day, he says. If we try to isolate the pandemic effect, he thinks that “in general, on commercial arteries, the city of Montreal is a clean city”. “I say: in general,” continued Mr. Walsh, who did not want to make a comparison between the Coderre years and the Plante years. “What we notice are specific issues on the day of the collection. It is as if the follow-up work is not done. ”

Cost of real estate

If the issue of the cost of residential real estate affects the entire island of Montreal, prices are particularly startling in the central districts of Montreal. In 2020, the average buyer bill swelled by 7% in these sectors.

The two main candidates for mayor have very different approaches to the problem. Denis Coderre believes that we must “boost the supply” by promoting the construction of thousands of homes by private developers, as he said before the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal in mid-October. After opening the door to buildings that protrude from the top of Mount Royal, he stepped back and now advocates “soft and intelligent densification”. Ensemble Montréal is also proposing the creation of a whole new district on the edge of the St. Lawrence, around Quai Bickerdike.

Projet Montréal, for its part, believes that more supervision is needed in real estate construction to force developers to build family, social and affordable housing. “We do not give the keys to the city to developers,” said the outgoing mayor, who passed a regulation to this effect earlier in 2021. Balarama Holness promises to further toughen this framework by closing any exit door for them. developers who would like to avoid including this type of housing in their project.

Aerial structures and viaducts

The candidates have been cautious about the issue that fascinates all defenders of urban heritage these months: will downtown Montreal be disfigured by the aerial section of the REM de l’Est on Boulevard Ren- Levesque? If Valérie Plante, Denis Coderre and Balarama Holness have come out in favor of the project overall, they delay when the time comes to position themselves on the presence of high rails. Denis Coderre is perhaps the most fervent supporter of the Eastern REM and refuses to criticize it. “You have to work with the process,” he said. Valérie Plante, for her part, frequently points to a declaration adopted by her elected officials to the municipal council which sets “winning conditions” for the realization of the project. On Monday, she argued that she was still not convinced of the impossibility of an underground REM in the city center. “All of the information is not there at this time,” she said. We will see what [les membres du] advisory committee [vont] to propose. If they tell us that they are considering the aerial after having properly evaluated the underground, then we will defer to them. “We will work so that it does not disfigure Montreal, we promise you that,” said Mr. Holness at the LCN debate last week.

The more general question of aerial structures has subtly returned to the public debate this year. In Old Montreal, Denis Coderre proposes to transform the raised part of Notre-Dame Street East into a pedestrian park, like the High Line in New York. Projet Montréal, for its part, proposes to start thinking about the future of the Rosemont – Van Horne viaduct, which links Petite-Patrie to Outremont. The structure is at the end of its life. “It’s an issue. We are going to rethink it, ”said the candidate for mayor of the district François Limoges. However, he refuses to comment immediately on the configuration that the replacement structure will have.