Rue Notre-Dame: a bad project
Etienne Coutu
Press, edition of Thursday, December 13, 2007 The writer is
urban designer, a graduate of Columbia University (New York, 2002), and an intern architect.
It may seem ungrateful to criticize a proposal that seems to be unanimous. Especially when a remedy for a problem that we deplore over 30 years and has never ceased to worsen: traffic congestion in the Notre Dame have become so monstrous and their consequences for the surrounding neighborhoods, so stifling that we would be willing to accept any project, provided it is done now.
Surprise! The plans of the Ministry of Transport are ready to be implemented. Obviously, since this is the same project as it appears today drawers, five years later. In all its details, it is precisely the same project as the City of Montreal had an abortion in 2003, claiming to want an urban boulevard. Since then became entangled in a host of possible designations being careful to avoid the word "highway". Nevertheless, the project remained the same, with sections in trench, tunnel, and depression in a slab built.
The City has finally caved in to the highway project MTQ. It has abandoned its traditional applications, including the reconstruction of block ends destroyed 30 years ago, and has misrepresented its pious promises to create an urban boulevard worthy of the Ringstrasse in Vienna. If we got there, that he was out of question for the MTQ to compromise: the City, penniless, had resigned and therefore has given up. Would she coined this abdication, like his opposition to the bridge on Highway 25?
Mountain Russian
The main criticism that can be sent to the proposal on the table is that over a third of the project was either trench or depression. It will look like a roller coaster, particularly devastating in its transitions. The continuation of the Ville-Marie would be open cut to rue Frontenac. It then goes back over the Railways to one end surface, before plunging deep within the exchanger Pie-IX and the slab of the new Morgan Park-Resorts.
Should we wait until there are 600 tons of concrete poured to realize the mistake they made? Could we not consider this route in a future perspective, and not vis-à-vis the daily requirements of companies likely to be driven from here 50 years. Invest much effort and public funds to accommodate the transportation of hazardous materials, handling and trucking from the port in a project valued at $ 750 million, does not confirm the continuation of these activities in strategic locations that could serve the future development of the inner city of Montreal?
We are probably the last place on earth where they still build roads to eight lanes along urban streams. Elsewhere, the banks are subject to urban revitalization projects, creatively integrating activities as diverse as multiple and constructions of high architectural quality. A fine example of a new waterfront ("waterfront" in French) is currently under development in Toronto. It will transform post-industrial landscapes that have much in common with what we see here, along the Rue Notre-Dame docks underutilized remains of port activities, multiple tracks and warehouses.
As there is now a "compromise" between the City and the MTQ, nobody dares to question this project. It is feared that the money go allocated for other purposes, on other roads. And this is not the competition is lacking, while most major arteries at the same time reach the end of their useful life, whether the Turcot interchange or even the Metropolitan Boulevard. Not to mention all the overpasses, which has been neglected maintenance, for which the Committee recommends Johnson an upgrade over a decade with an investment of half a billion dollars per year.
To be consistent to the people and our commitments to the Kyoto Protocol, should rethink this project to a more human scale and be realistic. Some recommendations: reduce the number of costly engineering works, new construction along the banks, in a vision integrating both better access to the river and implementing innovative solutions focusing on public transport in the heart of the project.
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