Traffic problems, poor signage for construction sites and unsanitary conditions: downtown Montreal continues to face many challenges, despite its “resistance” to the pandemic, notes the association of merchants in the sector, which offers various possible solutions .
The duty obtained an embargoed copy of a 92-page study commissioned by the Société de développement commercial (SDC) Montréal centre-ville unveiled on Monday. This falls within the context of the Alliance pour le centre-ville, which was created with the aim of determining a series of actions to be prioritized to ensure the vitality of the city center at the end of the pandemic.
The heart of the metropolis has also stood out from several other major urban centers in the country in its ability to recover from the health crisis, which temporarily reduced the traffic of its businesses, tourism and the presence of workers in office towers, among other issues. Thus, while Vancouver today has traffic in its downtown area equivalent to 76.6% of what it was before March 2020 and this percentage reaches 86.1% in Toronto, it climbs to 111.9% in downtown Montreal.
“It means that we have more people today than we had just before the state of health emergency,” rejoices the general manager of Montreal downtown, Glenn Castanheira. “We have a city center that is achieving quite exceptional performances,” he says, highlighting in particular the resumption of tourism this summer in the metropolis, as well as the gradual return of workers to office towers. According to him, the presence of 60,000 residents downtown and businesses working in various sectors are among the key elements that may explain why the heart of Montreal has stood out from other urban centers in the country since the start of the pandemic. .
Daily challenges
Beyond the “resistance” of downtown Montreal to the health crisis, this geographic sector still faces many challenges, recognizes Mr. Castanheira. The study commissioned by Montréal centre-ville has also made it possible to analyze the practices of many other cities around the world in order to bring to light interesting avenues to help the downtown core of the Quebec metropolis correct some of its weaknesses.
The report thus sheds light on the general maintenance problems of the roadway, street furniture and trees located on public roads in downtown Montreal. City-run trash cans regularly overflow, and garbage and recycling collection is done in broad daylight on commercial thoroughfares, the report notes. Elsewhere in the world, waste collection takes place at night in several city centers, while New York has adopted a regulation which obliges owners to maintain the sidewalks in front of their residence or their business, underlines the document.
With regard to the many urban construction sites, “the management of the problems they cause is debatable” in downtown Montreal, concludes the study, which recalls the importance of ensuring greater cleanliness of these sites, in more to review the signage, which is not always adapted “to the realities of the city center”.
Better manage parking
However, it is the challenges related to mobility and parking management that most concern Glenn Castanheira. Currently, the time that motorists lose driving around in downtown Montreal to find a place to park their vehicle is helping to slow down road traffic, which is already hampered by the many construction sites in this area. In fact, “up to 30% of traffic in city centers is thought to be the result of vehicles looking for a parking spot,” the study says.
Downtown Montreal has 48,000 on- and off-street parking spaces downtown, “but it is difficult, if not impossible, for motorists to know where they are,” we read. Thus, Montréal centre-ville is proposing to draw inspiration from various European countries which have implemented a “dynamic staking” system which allows motorists to know in real time, on signs located at different places on the road, the number of parking spaces available in various key locations.
This initiative already exists in Old Montreal, but it deserves to be improved to solve technical problems as well as to be extended elsewhere in the city center, according to this report. The establishment of a system of “pooling” of private parking spaces outside office hours would also be part of the solution, believes Mr. Castanheira.
“But what we retain above all from this study is the need to recognize the strategic importance of the city centre” in order to give it the attention and powers necessary to help it respond to the challenges it faces. clean, raises the general manager of Montreal downtown. In concrete terms, granting special status to downtown Montreal could, for example, make it easier to obtain subsidies from the various levels of government to contribute to its long-term development, while stimulating the creation of a master plan. which would determine a clear vision of the future of this key sector of the Quebec economy, explains Mr. Castanheira.
It would also be a way of recognizing that downtown Montreal plays a role that goes beyond the borders of the agglomeration. “Downtown Montreal is not just the heart of the island of Montreal,” says Mr. Castanheira, “it’s downtown Quebec. »