“It’s different from the skate park. Here you enter a flowyou have to be really focused,” says Julien Birabent after having completed the bumps with his surf skate (skateboard with double-jointed front bindings) to the roller track (pump track) located in Argenson Park, in the South-West borough of Montreal. “It’s like therapy for the body,” adds the young man met by The duty.
A roller track is a loop of bumps and turns that allow roller sports enthusiasts to gain speed without pedaling. You can ride it on a bike, skateboard, inline skates, or scooter.
The widespread craze for cycling (traditional or mountain) and other wheeled sports explains the popularity of roller tracks, according to Arnaud Lombard-Dionne, project manager at Vélo Québec. “It’s a complementary project [à ces pratiques] which allows the development of transferable skills in a mountain context, he explains. These are often very inclusive facilities that bring together beginners and experts of all ages.
In Montreal, the creation of a roller track capable of accommodating 45 people at a time was announced in the borough of LaSalle. Another is also planned at Parc Beaubien, in the borough of Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie, whose inauguration date is to be announced. The duty was able to find around thirty of them from one end of Quebec to the other.
Julien Birabent’s enthusiasm is not shared by everyone, however. In L’Île-des-Soeurs, the upcoming construction of a roller track is causing discontent. A petition has even been launched to have it installed elsewhere.
Petition against the project
Estimated at over $1 million, the L’Île-des-Soeurs roller track project is set to be built in Adrien D. Archambault Park, near the Domaine Saint-Paul woods and Lac des Battures. In addition to the asphalt track, the site will include a shade structure, a repair station, a drinking fountain, 15 bike racks and a relaxation area with furniture and a platform.
The roller track project dates back more than four years, when the Office de consultation publique de Montréal recommended the application of a Special Urban Planning Program (PPU) in this part of the island, after noting a lack of community facilities. After conducting a survey of residents, the City retained the idea of a roller track, even though the project for a sports complex including an indoor pool and skating rink had garnered more votes.
At the planned installation siteThe duty met Elyse Morin, the instigator of a petition against the project that had collected, at the time of writing, more than 2,400 signatures. “We realized that people didn’t know that this project existed. Then when they found out about it, that’s when the idea for the petition came about,” she says.
Mme Morin is surprised that this construction project could see the light of day next to the woods, knowing that the latter is an “exceptional forest ecosystem”, protected by decree since 1990. “At the Argenson park, it was already a land that was not green. It is under electric pylons, on the edge of Highway 15 and the railway line. It is not a place like here,” she believes.
“It’s a mature forest mainly home to maples, ash trees and lime trees. There are wetlands, 16 species of flowers under precarious status,” emphasizes Philippe Tremblay, a member of the Saint-Paul woodland citizens’ committee.
The petition’s signatories are not necessarily against roller paths, but rather want the construction project to be relocated to a location on Nuns’ Island that would not pose any risk of damaging a protected environment.
“Minimize” the repercussions
The creation of the roller track will have to preserve “almost all of the native trees that are there,” assures the Verdun borough. “Right now, it’s a vacant lot, undeveloped, unstructured, with contaminated soil. We’re going to decontaminate, we’re going to plant there. It’s going to be a four-season collective infrastructure for all generations,” explained Verdun Mayor Marie-Andrée Mauger at the borough council meeting on July 2.
M’s teamme Mauger says he wants to “minimize” the biological repercussions of installing this roller track. “The asphalt surface will only occupy a small 1000 m2 of the area of the land on which the runway will be built, which has a total area of 8917 m2. So about 11%,” the Verdun borough indicated by email to Duty.
At the moment, it is a vacant lot, undeveloped, unstructured, with contaminated soil.
The borough says it is working with a consultant to improve the concept and take into account “the issues and concerns” of residents.
Addressing the need for an “enclave neighborhood”
Although this new trail is located less than four kilometres from the one at Parc d’Argenson, architect François Racine, a professor in the Department of Urban and Tourism Studies at UQAM, believes that such a structure is necessary in an island neighbourhood. “It’s not easy for a 12-year-old to get to the pump track neighbor. The advantage of neighborhood equipment is that you don’t have to plan the outing,” he adds.
For Mr. Racine, however, this project remains “concrete and very mineral.” “The only thing I can say is that it is not very good for heat islands. Even if it is a fairly green area, it still risks having an environmental impact,” he confides.