By including, in 2003, the covering of part of the Ville-Marie expressway on the agenda for the creation of the Quartier international de Montréal, those in charge of the project intended to remedy the environmental problems caused by this trenched infrastructure. disfigured part of the city center. In doing so, Montreal joined the cities that wish to break with the legacy of the major infrastructural equipment projects launched in the enthusiasm and recklessness of the post-war period.
The movement was inaugurated in Portland at the end of the 1960s. There were two opposing visions: to increase the capacity of the highway built in 1943 between the city center and the Willamett River; destroy it to develop a riverside esplanade. In 1971, ignoring the opposition of the Chamber of Commerce and the alarmist positions of some specialists in traffic, the City and the State agree to demolish Harbor Drive for the benefit of the redevelopment of the front of the river in park. Many cities of all sizes, including New York, Boston, San Francisco, Milwaukee, Barcelona, Birmingham, Helsinki and Seoul, have since wiped out completely or buried infrastructure, the many deleterious effects of which are now known to built environments. living environments and health.
In Montreal, the destruction of the Pins interchange (2006) and the Bonaventure Expressway (2016) eliminated extremely restrictive constructions and allowed the development of more user-friendly urban roads, while the covering of a section of the highway. he Ville-Marie highway, near the Champ-de-Mars metro station (2020), made possible the development of the Place des Montréalaises.
The commitment made during the current election campaign by Denis Coderre to cover the Ville-Marie and Décarie highways is therefore not too surprising. Such initiatives are in tune with the times. However, it is paradoxical, even extremely disconcerting, to note that the leader of Ensemble Montréal and many other candidates of his party in the November election at the same time and without restriction support the project of the Eastern REM, a project which is more and more the result of a coup perpetrated by CDPQ Infra with complete impunity and to the detriment of an urbanity already seriously tested. As if the current realization of the REM de l’Ouest should not already call for great caution and that the promise – moreover untenable according to several design professionals – of a signature work was enough to sweep away with the back of the hand all the criticisms, fears and reservations expressed by a large number of citizens, observers and specialists, including, it must be emphasized, professionals from several ministries.
However, the imposing aerial infrastructure supported by pillars of substantial dimensions and surmounted by catenary supports has the shortcomings of all the equipment of the same nature built in the post-war decades, including a congestion of the environments crossed, the generation of noise pollution, degradation of nearby visual fields and a barrier effect that the clearance of the underside of the deck only very partially attenuates. Not to mention that the work to connect the tunnel and the aerial infrastructure recently proposed by CDPQ Infra would have an even more considerable and irreversible negative effect on the section of René-Lévesque Boulevard flanked by the Desjardins and Guy-Favreau complexes.
How can we, after the City of Montreal had spent some 180 million to demolish the Bonaventure Expressway and the Pins interchange, allow CDPQ Infra to disfigure, with billions of dollars, an urban corridor of some twenty kilometers? ? A corridor where there are several thousand homes, parks – including Morgan Park -, many institutional buildings and buildings of heritage interest.
Unconditionally supporting the Eastern REM while proposing the recovery of highways in trenches, is to show inconsistency and a certain insensitivity with regard to the already observable effects of the modal option imposed by CDPQ Infra. Wouldn’t it be time to learn from our past mistakes, even if they were made in good faith? If only to avoid repeating them, this time knowingly… after having denounced and corrected them.