Category Archives: Unrealized development projects

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Abandoned Public Transit Projects in Montréal

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The Expo Express – 1967 to 1972

Montréal has an interesting history regarding experimenting with different forms of public transit. Interesting in that we experiment often and that we tend to drop entire systems from use rather suddenly. In some cases we literally bury a system entirely and cover it over, seemingly never to be spoken of again. As Canada’s principle metropole for most of its history, our large population base and unique geography has required a wide variety of different public transit and transport systems for different purposes and at different times, and we have quite a collection, most of which is in use. Most were or are traditional, some are keenly re-purposed traditional systems, while others are wholly original yet serve very specific functions. What I find peculiar is that we don’t keep our peculiarities, we destroy a lot of what we’ve built, and I can’t help but see this as a colossal waste of money accrued over a long timespan. It’s idiotic to destroy something which can be improved. We’ve tried many different things but it’s as if we keep looking for a single solution and we should know better, there is none. And yet, we have this history of rather successful experimentation that never manages to make it to its first re-genesis, and thus becomes an expensive flop. Imagine life without Web 2.0, or if Apple had ceased handheld computer development after the failure of the Newton? In Montréal we lack commitment to our new ideas yet feel the old are worn out and thus require replacement. We look to supplement when we ought to compliment and end up sucked into a vicious cycle of frenetic innovation followed by hasty demolition and a broad subsequent remorse we acted so impulsively, so foolishly. And then we forget and do it again.

It’s costly and unnecessary.

At the very least we should keep these oddities and insist that once the money is paid to build, we ensure we get our money’s worth in terms of use. Many of the projects mentioned here simply weren’t in use long enough to demonstrate their viability, or were otherwise derided as antiquated and out-moded prematurely. Thus, all that money spent to build solutions would be wasted, as almost all of these systems have been completely abandoned.


A tram going up the Mountain circa 1940s/1950s

Consider that we once had a massive, comprehensive tramway network in our city, up until a bunch of slick salesmen from General Motors Corporation came up here and convinced the STM’s predecessor organization to abandon the tramway system entirely and replace it with a fleet of new buses. It would have been better for the citizens if the city had complimented the tramway with an extensive bus network, but such is life – and so we buried the tramlines never to be used again. Today we realize trams are just about the only way to effectively reduce vehicular thru-traffic in dense urban environments; they’re crucial and they work. That said, if we ever plan of developing trams again, we’ll have to start from scratch – that’s a lot of wasted coin.

We once had a STOLport (an airport with a short runway for small airplanes, typically located very close to the central business district and used primarily for inter-city flights) for a few years back in the mid-1970s. It was an excellent re-development of a large parking lot built adjacent to Expo 67’s Place d’Acceuil (more or less in the dead centre of this space near the foot of the Victoria Bridge, the airport’s namesake).


Canadian-built Dash-8 landing at Toronto Billy Bishop

It didn’t work out because the only route served by the airport was Montreal-Ottawa, despite the company having enough aircraft to have regular flights to Toronto and Québec City as well. Service was never expanded and so we closed it down and paved it over – with grass and dirt this time – and turned it into an unpopular and generally unused industrial park. Meanwhile, Toronto’s Billy Bishop Airport has expanded operations of late, and is very well used for a variety of general aviation purposes. We created a void in our city by not adequately replacing the once available service, and in this particular case have made business travel to and from Montréal that much more difficult, time consuming etc. Today we argue over how to connect commuter trains to Dorval Airport and talk about twenty minute ‘express’ service between the airport and the city core. Back then the Victoria STOLport could place you within walking distance of the city centre. I think we may have taken a step backwards here. Also of note, Place Bonaventure was originally designed to feature a heliport on its roof, the idea being that helicopters could cheaply move people to and from the airport. A similar idea still operates today in New York City.

This is a key problem – developing transit and transport systems which arguably improve people’s lives and then removing them without appropriately maintaining the previous level of service – and all the while usage trends demonstrate periodic investments in developing the scheme or expanding operations is all it would take to keep them going and working well. By not properly replacing service, the citizens feel as though luxuries they once earned have been removed, and this affects collective morale as it suggests a drop in prominence. Concerning Montréal specifically, it’s not like we’ve become any less important as a tourist hub over the last fifty years, and our city hasn’t shrunk either (it has grown by over a million people in the metro region since the 1960s), meaning we need these transit alternatives now more than ever.


The Turbo Train

We also used to have the Turbo Train. VIA nixed that one about a decade after it entered service because a jet-powered express train to Toronto ‘wasn’t economically viable’, and then replaced these jet-powered trains with slower, conventional diesel models. It really makes me wonder. We had a first generation high-speed train but, much like the Avro Arrow in its quest to break Mach 2.0 in 1957, the Turbo Train was never permitted to travel at full speed (which at 274km/hour could make the Toronto to Montreal trip two hours as opposed to the four-hour ‘express’ time it actually took). And thus, despite executing the idea and making it work, we never pushed the idea into next gear. The Turbo Train could have easily achieved top speeds if it was given an isolated track and simply didn’t stop between Canada’s two largest cities. If we had kept this one going, we’d be profitting from it immensely today, as train ridership is increasing each year and Canada really can’t afford to continue going on without high-speed rail. A well-used inter-city service is a good place to begin building a national network from. Why didn’t people protest? VIA is a crown corporation after all.


The Mount Royal Funicular – check out the sporting gentleman at the rear of the car

We used to have a funicular railway that crawled up the side of Mount Royal from Fletcher’s Field near the Cartier Monument (Tam-Tams). It brought sight-seers to a massive wooden look-out, just off to the East of the current Belvedere, itself constructed in the 1930s. The funicular was in use from 1884 and by 1918 it was suddenly declared structurally unsound and dismantled two years later. Its function would be partially replaced by the number 11 tram line which began on Mount Royal Avenue and wound it’s way up the eastern ridge to the Belvedere and Lac-des-Castors, but the funicular was more of an amusement than public transit service. Today, the Olympic Tower is served by the modern Montreal Funicular, which is unfortunately also no more than mere amusement. Though the original funicular was large and a bit of an eyesore, it was far less invasive than the Camillien-Houde Parkway that currently bisects the mountain. That said, I can imagine a modern funicular would be particularly useful for the students at the Université-de-Montréal.


The Habitat 67 stop on the Expo Express line

A far more useful antique piece of public transit equipment was an express train that functioned a lot like an elevated subway, and it connected the city’s central business district with Ile-Notre-Dame and Ile-St-Helene. It was called Expo Express and you guessed it – it was built for Expo 67. The brains behind the operation figured that if daily attendance was in excess of quarter million visitors the exposition site would require a public transit capability specifically designed to quickly traverse it. Trains began at the Place d’Acceuil located at the foot of the Victoria Bridge in the Cité du Havre and would cover six kilometers with departures every five minutes, going all the way to La Ronde. Each train could carry a thousand passengers, and the system operated in parallel with other systems, such as the Expo Minirail, the Montreal Metro, not to mention the existing roadways and bridges, buses, pedicabs, gondolas (of both marine and aerial variety) and small ferries utilizing the Expo Canal system on Ile-Notre-Dame. You might say this was public transit overkill, but the planners would ultimately prove correct in their belief that utilizing multiple integrated systems running on different schedules and with varying capacities would serve the masses well by evenly distributing them around the site. For tourists coming in by car from outside the urban area, Expo Express would be the first of many different public transit systems encountered by the vast majority of visitors. Expo Express was an integral tool in moving massive quantities of visitors quickly and efficiently in and out of the fairgrounds, and distributing large quantities of people onto smaller systems throughout the park islands. There’s no doubt in my mind, if it weren’t for this comprehensive system, and especially Expo Express, we could not possibly have attained the attendance records we did. Fifty million people in six months is absolutely incredible and an enduring testament to just how well the transit master plan actually worked.

On a closing point, we now have a societal obligation to rid ourselves of our over-dependence on automobiles. We have multiple systems for all the different varieties of requirements for a truly excellent public transit system, but we’re going to have to expand and re-investigate these abandoned projects to see what we might gain from implementing them today.

Think of it this way:

Trams in the urban core replace buses and cars in our streets, reduce gridlock (especially if they operate in segregated lanes) and makes the city more pedestrian friendly.

Métro expansion extends the ‘reach’ of the urban core, increases property values and can serve as a revenue generator for the city (by selling appropriated land for high-density residential or commercial development).

Commuter trains extend the suburbs while maintaining direct, efficient and generally fast connectivity with the urban core.

With the latter three in place, buses can be diverted to provide public transit access in suburban areas. Car use would plummet, and people would have much more money in their pocket as a result (not to mention that people could afford nicer cars that would keep longer, but I digress).

Imagine if we took it a step further, developing a comprehensive inter-island bike path network and expanded Bixi service to all corners of the island? Or by developing a tourist-oriented monorail to connect the downtown core with the Parc Olympique, Parc Jean Drapeau, Parc LaFontaine and Mount Royal?

Is the goal of creating a public transit system not to provide thorough, low-cost access of an entire metropolitan area for the citizenry’s convenience?

What are we working towards here?

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The Line That Ended Expansion

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From 1962 until 1988 a common sight РM̩tro tunnel construction Рphoto found on urbanphoto

News from LaPresse today that Pauline Marois wants to prioritize an eastern extension of the Métro’s Blue Line towards Anjou, with a planned initial development of three stations in the direction of Lacordaire Boulevard from Saint-Michel station.

No word yet on planned delivery of the project, no timeline though a proposed (and certain to increase) budget of just under $1 billion according to Marvin Rotrand, vice-president of the STM and leader of the Union Montréal party.

For comparison, the three station extension into Laval cost $745 million in 2007.

The Métro’s Blue Line is arguably the least effective in the system. Ridership is at its lowest, the trains are shorter and service stops forty-five minutes earlier on this branch. Unlike the other three lines which funnel people from first and second ring suburbs into the urban core, the Blue Line is peripheral and connects two high-density, low-income large residential areas with one of the richest neighbourhoods in the city (in the middle), and not where their jobs might be. Moreover, though it could be useful in funnelling people towards either end of the Orange Line, the number 80, 165, 166 and 535 buses (to name but a few), seem to remain the preferred method to reach the city from the northern inner suburbs. For everything you’ve ever wanted to know about the design, history, architecture, artwork, and technical aspects pertaining to the Blue Line (and every other line, fasset and component of the Montréal Métro), I recommend clicking here for the excellent Métro de Montréal fansite.

The line was originally conceived to extend past the Orange Line in both directions. Marois’ plan is to develop three stations towards the East, and none towards the West (insert mandatory statement about how Anglo needs are being ignored) and eventually build two additional stations terminating at the Galleries d’Anjou. I’m not sure why they’d plan to break the project into two separate developments, but I would assume that the province may want to wait and see if the initial extension drives up usage. This would not be the first time the Blue Line would be built in a separate, disjointed fashion – during the original line’s development, it was proposed that the segment connecting Edouard-Montpetit to Parc be cancelled given that ridership in between would be so low. It seems obvious to me that a five-station extension may actually serve to draw a considerably larger number of people, not to mention potentially allow the STM to re-design bus lines to potentially feed an even greater number of people, so why they’re planning on cutting it short off the bat is beyond me. The current eastern expansion will serve Rosemont, Saint-Leonard and Anjou, though plans dating back to the late-1970s wanted the Blue Line to extend towards the Northeast with a terminus at Amos (likely at Lacordaire Boulevard) which in turn would have also allowed access to the high-density, low-income neighbourhood of Montréal-Nord. This plan was modified when a Métro line under Pie-IX was proposed that would funnel people down to Pie-IX station on the Green Line. Both proposals were still on the table (even appearing on Métro maps) into the late-1980s, at which point the Liberal Government of Robert Bourassa placed a total moratorium on Métro expansion.


Conceptual rendering for a proposed intermodal station under Edouard-Montpetit

The principle reason for this moratorium was, among others, declining revenues and budgets, not to mention the fact that the heavily truncated Blue Line simply wasn’t pulling in new passengers nor did it ease congestion on other parts of the system. Part of the Blue Line’s undoing was that, as mentioned previously, it was still preferential and more convenient to use buses to get to and from the city (the 80 and 165 are two of my favourite bus routes; though they’re generally packed, if you manage to get a window, a pleasant and exciting voyage awaits). This may not have been the case if a planned inter-modal station at Edouard-Montpetit (connecting to the AMT’s Deux-Montagnes line within Mount Royal Tunnel) were completed. The principle technical difficulty was building a train station fifty meters under the existing Métro station, not to mention acquiring high-capacity, high-speed elevators, but the station itself was designed for the higher capacity.

If they had built this crucial component, the Blue Line could have also served to better connect the northern ridge suburbs with the city centre.

Therefore, any move to lengthen the line, east or west, should be done in conjunction with a connection to the Mount Royal Tunnel firmly in mind, so that the Blue Line could finally be used to ease traffic congestion elsewhere in the system.

Also, we’d be wise to voice two other considerations for our elected officials to consider. First, placing a moratorium on moratoriums and segmented construction. If we were to plan Métro development ten or twenty stations at a time instead of in threes or fives, we may be able to save money long-term through bulk purchases of materials, not to mention increasing operational efficiency as the project goes forward. Let’s end this self-retarding piecemeal development and plan continuous lines. The Pie-IX proposal, which would link the Olympic Park with Montréal North through Rosemont, Petit-Patrie and Saint-Leonard, should be given top priority for new line construction. Second, we might be wise to consider inter-lining the system so as to allow trains that start on the Blue Line to transfer onto the Orange, so that one could go from Saint-Michel to Bonaventure, or from Outremont Laval without changing trains. This is a very complicated proposal, but it would allow greater flexibility with the system we already have.


A future expansion map including talked about extensions and proposed lines; of all the different proposal maps I’ve seen, this one still seems very realistic, very useful.

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Phases of Development – Part One {1880-1930}

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A sketch of Montréal from Mount Royal, looking Northeast, with Parc Avenue and Fletcher’s Field in the foreground

Given the expected transformation of the urban core over the next five years, I thought it might be neat to take a look at other broad phases of urban development in our city’s history, to see if we can establish some common threads over multiple generations in an effort to better determine what Montrealer’s look for in city design, what endures and retains an on-going air of sophistication. I figure that which survives is indicative of what our society sees as an ideal, and can thus serve as guide for development moving forward.

So let’s go back to the period 1880-1930. This is a crucial era in human history and constitutes the first era of modern development of our city. If we could visit this era we’d find that though life would no doubt be different in many ways, it wouldn’t be alien to us, and the pace and offerings of urban life may very well be quite relatable. Any further back in time and I feel life could no longer be described in modern terms. Consider that radio, telephones, airplanes, automobiles, long-distance telegraphy, transoceanic cables, cinema, mass transit, ecological conservation, urban preservation, city beautification and public hygiene all truly came of age in our city during this period. Modern conveniences and public expectations of the municipal government took form in this time to a degree we’d find acceptable and available communications and transport capabilities allowed both to be comparatively quick and efficient. Granted there were no satellites nor the Internet, no smartphones nor Métro, but we had systems in place that would ultimately serve to birth these technologies later and occupy their place back then. And given that Montréal was Canada’s economic metropolis at the time, we got to try these technologies early on, and then develop them according to our needs first and foremost.


View of Montréal from the roof of the Windsor Hotel (circa 1878), looking towards Griffintown & Victoria Bridge

The city of 1880 had a population of roughly 140,000 people and by 1930 this number would grow to 818,000 with a total of over a million living on-island. The city in 1880 would have been very compact, not extending much further than current Ville-Marie borough. Between 1880 and 1930, Montréal acquired the following communities through voluntary annexation: Hochelaga (the Ho in HoMa), Saint-Jean-Baptiste (part of the Plateau), Saint-Gabriel (part of Point-St-Charles), Cote St-Louis (again, part of today’s Plateau), Villeray, Saint-Henri, Sainte-Cunégonde (Little Burgundy/Atwater Market area), Notre-Dame-des-Neiges (part of CDN), de Lorimier and Saint-Louis (north-east & Parc-Ex respectively), Rosemont, Ahuntsic, Cote-des-Neiges, Longue-Pointe & Tetraultville (Eastern East End), Bordeaux (in today’s Saint-Laurent), Saint-Paul & Ville-Emard (today’s Sud-Ouest Borough), Notre-Dame-de-Grace, Sault-aux-Recollets (northernmost part of Saint-Laurent Blvd.), Cartierville (between Ahuntsic and Saint-LaurentSaint-Laurent) and Maisonneuve (the Ma in HoMa). Then, we stopped all annexations for over thirty years.


McGill and Saint James Street, way back in the day…

During this fifty year period Montréal expanded its residential tax base to eventually reach the 800,000 population mark in the early 1930s, all the while building its first skyscrapers and transforming the urban centre into the transportation, communication and commerce hub it is today. Large areas were specifically purposed for medium-density residential housing, and it is during this era that a vast majority of Montréal’s current urban housing was built. The venerable and iconic duplexes and triplexes were primarily built during this time, as many of our celebrated and prestigious parks came to be, such as Mount Royal Park (1876), Parc LaFontaine (1874), Dominion Square (1876), Maisonneuve Park (1910), the Montreal Botanical Gardens (1931), Parc Jeanne-Mance (1880s) and Parc Jean-Drapeau’s predecessor, first used by the public in 1874. This era effectively birthed what we know today as the City of Montréal’s urban core and first-ring suburbs, with the obvious exceptions of Westmount and the Town of Mount Royal. The Montréal of tourists and business, universities and super-hospitals, landmarks and institutions, attractions and festivals, all takes place in this area and has since that time. Land usage is high in this sector, density is high to medium for the most part, and the majority of citizens live in this area established up to 1930. In this respect, not much has changed from how and where Montrealers live their urban lives in over eighty years.

Curiously, Ville-Marie borough has been de-populated since 1930, owing primarily to slum clearance initiatives in the 1950s and 1960s, not to mention the construction of massive office towers and re-purposing of land for parking lots up into the 1980s. This trend is beginning to turn around with the many new residential condo towers promised under the Tremblay administration, in addition to the many repurposed 19th century industrial properties in the urban core. That said, the population of Ville-Marie borough is currently only at 78,000 people.


Rue de la Commune, early 1900s

The city back then was completely and thoroughly focused on the port and railway networks which define the borders of today’s Vieux-Montréal and Vieux-Port de Montréal areas. Saint-Hubert airport, the city’s first, would not begin operations until 1930, and it wasn’t until the 1960s that commercial air travel became affordable for most citizens. As such, a considerable amount of commercial, corporate and industrial activity would have taken place in a comparatively small area where proximity – between work, play and rest, the port, canal and the outlying train stations – would have been crucial. Consider things aren’t so different amongst the expectations of today’s urban citizens, and this is chiefly responsible for the city’s success at steady repopulation over the last decade.

Rue de la Commune, far from being the quaint Old World tourist promenade it is today, would back then have been a primary location for wholesale and warehousing activities, not to mention all commerce and regulation pertaining to our vital port operations. It was in every sense a massive market, as it had been for a hundred years prior, and was a dangerous and somewhat sinful part of town at certain times in the day. In fact, the entire area currently known as the Quais du Vieux-Port tourist area was back then a series of grain elevators and cold storage facilities, all very much in operation well into the late 1970s, by which time they were declared obsolete and replaced with new facilities in the East End.Place Jacques Cartier and the Champs de Mars served a far more vital purpose – as the city’s chief public market, leading an expansive collection of such markets throughout the urban core (many of which would be re-built or renovated with 1930s Keynesian-style ‘make-work’ stimulus funding). Again, proximity to farmer’s markets offering locally-grown high-quality market fair have transformed parts of the urban core, and a re-investment by the city in such facilities is demonstrably beneficial to the attraction and retention of urban property owners today.

A public transit network, comprising tramways and later, trolley buses and then diesel buses, would carry hundreds of thousands of people every day throughout this urban area, as we can see in the comprehensive MTC route plan pictured above. It is during this era that the first Métro proposals were floated around given the saturation of the existing infrastructure. Still, it worked and worked well, offering thorough coverage of the city for a modest fare.


Saint James Street, predecessor to Bay Street РMontr̩al circa 1910

Trams were focused on the Craig Street Terminus, roughly the site of today’s Place-d’Armes station & Palais de Congres. Major train stations of the era included Bonaventure, later replaced with Central Station in its current location, Windsor Station, Gare Viger, Dalhousie Station, Westmount Station and the Park Avenue Station, forming a ring of railway stations in and around the city, many of which were directly accessible by the trams. The Mount Royal Tunnel, completed in 1911, would allow for the eventual development of the Garden City styled modernist suburbs further to the West along the Canadian Northern Railway corridor headed towards Ottawa. It is within the area bounded by these traffic, transit and transport systems that our modern city grew.


Not the work of the author – taken before the renovation of the Square in 2010-2012

Tall buildings built during this era included the very first, New York Life Insurance Building (1887) and Aldred Building (1931) both excellent examples of over-riding design concepts vis-a-vis large corporate and commercial ‘landmarks’ constructed at the time. They can be described as hierarchical and paternalist – buildings of the epoch (but especially those built and conceived of in the 1920s) tended to put gather people of a similar pursuit in one place and integrate necessary services for the prospective tenants, with the power and prestige of the individual rising in accordance with the floor of their office. In the case of the New York Life Insurance Building, it’s top floors were dedicated to the largest private law library in all of Canada at the time of construction, and as such the majority of the volume was rented to the establishment law firms of the day, with commercial insurance and banking services at the base. The Aldred Building was designed and conceived as a property for the Aldred Company, an international financier that sought an iconic property for the historic though often over-crowded Place d’Armes.


Bell Telephone Building on Beaver Hall Hill

Other examples of note which left lasting impressions on the urban tapestry were the Bell Telephone Building and Annex (1929), occupying an entire block and fronting onto Beaver Hall Hill, signalling the transition from a ‘downtown’ below the hill to one increasingly occupying prestige properties further ‘uptown’. This process would be completed in the 1960s with the near total abandonment of Old Saint James Street in favour of the new mega projects going up in what can now be described as the Central Business District on René Lévesque Boulevard. This building served as Bell’s head office, the veritable brains of the operation – a massive switching facility – was integrated into the complex by means of the Annex facing University, completed a few years afterwards. In this single edifice one could find the company’s institutional memory, it’s research & development component, it’s brains, heart and soul – all under one roof. It included a company club, a restaurant and cafeteria, a convenience store and medical offices for employees, in addition to employee lounges. En lieu of stock options and a parking spot near the building, this was a pretty good set-up for the corporate climbers of the day. Other head offices of similar concept designed in this era include the Sun Life Building (completed in 1931) and the Royal Bank Building (1927).

This era also witnessed the development of very large block-sized constructions, such as the Dominion Square Building (1930), featuring mixed use office space, parking garage and a shopping arcade and subsequently dominating a public square (you can also consider the head office of the Canada Cement Company on Phillips Square. There was also a tendency to group activities together under a single building, such as the Guy and Drummond medical Buildings (again, here with specialized services for pre-Medicare health services, such as large elevators, incinerators, and even facilities to conduct small operations). There’s also the oddball case of the Architect’s Building (completed in 1930 and demolished in 1955) which as you might expect contained the offices of several prominent architectural firms, including the offices of Ross & Macdonald. Finally, several prestige mega hotels were developed during this time to reflect Montréal’s growing international standing. Hotels such as the Queen’s (1885), Windsor (1878 & 1906), Ritz-Carlton (1912) and Mount Royal Hotel (1922) were all built as highly integrated facilities, including banquet and reception spaces that were frequently host to Big Bands of the era, restaurants and other diverse services.

It seems as though the primary focus of many of these comparatively massive projects was integration of one kind or another – integration to bring the general public into interaction with a space, integration of services for the workforce, for tourists inside landmark buildings, a high-degree of connectivity between the work, play and living environments, and above all proximity to everything you could ever need between office and home.

I could go on at length about the development of universities, hospitals, schools, theatres and other institutions during that time, to say nothing of the grand department stores, but I don’t think it would add anything to what I view as the fundamental driving concept behind construction of that era. They were designed to last because the plan was to create an individual affinity for the building as a result of the conveniences it offered, to associate a building with a space and functions. Unlike later eras which focused on malleability, rental potential and generally speaking the seasonal influences of style and fashion, this era produced the first phase of modern urban high-density permanence. Though re-purposing would have seemed unlikely to the architects of the day, it’s ultimately a surprising testament to the enduring sophistication of these properties that help keep them alive.

Food for thought indeed. How enduring are our more modern creations?

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The Case for Another Olympiad

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It’s been nearly forty years…

I remember watching a conversation recently, featuring the late great Christopher Hitchens and, if I’m not mistaken, Salman Rushdie and Mod-Def. I know, I know, once in a while television redeems itself, though admittedly I watched it for free online and it was Bill Maher after all. In any event, Hitchens said something that caught my attention. He was asking why it is that some people seem unable to distinguish between the ways things are and the way things ought to be. Another member of the panel was attacking Hitchens for what was nothing more than a description of a societal ill. He was not advocating for it, and this was clear to me. That said, I’ve noticed this too. It’s a semi-effective debating technique because it invariably requires the opponent to back up and clarify, which then may either lead to an opening or provide a crucial time to think of his next move. At the very least it can prevent someone from making a quick point in this era of political debate as sound-bytes.

I’ve encountered this argument made time and again when referring to any possibility of holding another Olympiad here in Montréal. Invariably I will be shouted down by those who exclaim, as if I didn’t already know, that Montréal had once upon a time held an Olympiad and that the public generally considers it a disaster given the cost over-runs, the constant problems with the retractable roof and that we can’t seem to find a permanent use for the facilities.

That’s the way things are, but it doesn’t mean we as a people can’t or should not get involved with another Olympiad. We can rather simply choose not to do what we know didn’t work in the past; it’s largely what the organizers of Los Angeles 84 did, and they wound up with the most profitable games of all time. There was a method to their madness which can be repeated.

I’ve also come across the arguments that the games are elitist, exclusionary, overly corporate in nature and serve merely to make rich people feel better about themselves. I disagree. I feel strongly that the games can be a conduit for good in this world – the competition in sport is a better use of a nation’s talents than the development of ever greater weapons to kill one another. It’s more effective at brining people together and focusing their attention on having fun, developing healthy minds and bodies and reminding us of the power of a peaceful world than pretty much any other large international event or organization I can think of.

But of course Olympiads need to be clearly articulated, and should never be used to make some rich off the backs of the many. Among the many early criticisms of the London 2012 Summer Games are the horrendous living quarters provided to imported workers, not to mention over-the-top security and draconian branding and sponsorship protection measures. Suffice it to say, I can imagine many will be studying what London did wrong.

But again, this is not enough of a reason to abandon the project altogether. It should only serve as a reminder that we can and should do better.

There’s no question in my mind the best possible future use for the Big O is as the primary venue for another Summer Olympiad, and as such we should commit to organizing a committee to make regular proposals to the IOC until we get them back. This means a proposal ready to go for every possible future date, even the Winter Olympiads, though I’d prefer a Summer Games simply because they’re much larger and involve many more competing nations. That and our summers are to die for, and we should remind the peoples of the world we don’t live in igloos.

So what’s the case for another games? How can we sell this?

For one, on cost – another Montréal games won’t nearly cost as much as the first one, nor other recent examples, because most of what we need has already been built. Ergo, instead of building anew and tearing down old stuff, we’ll mostly be renovating and rehabilitating existing structures, such as the Olympic Stadium. The facilities we already have access to is rather comprehensive: CEPSUM, the Bell Centre, the Claude Robillard Centre, Montréal Aquatic Centre, Jarry Park & Uniprix Stadium, Saputo Stadium, Molson Stadium, the Olympic Pool, the Olympic Rowing Basin (get the idea). We’d need to build a Velodrome, Equestrian Park and will likely have to convert other existing facilities to handle the qualifying rounds, but I still think we’ve got most of what’s already required.

I wonder whether it’s completely necessary to build a new Olympic Village when we might just as simply purchase the use of a hotel (or several hotels) to serve the same purposes. That or we could develop a new building to serve later as a student dormitory or as a run of the mill condo tower. The point is that we need to be sure such a building is a) designed for Montréal, and not Marseille’s climate and b) has a clear post-games purpose. Such was not the case for our existing Olympic Village. But I digress.

For two, on accessibility and sustainability – all the facilities I’ve just mentioned are already, for the most part, very well connected to our city’s existing public transit infrastructure. This could be the Métro Olympics, and why not? It will be far easier for more locals to visit the games without using their cars than it was back in 1976, and we have a far more developed system than we had back then. Moreover, we won’t have to expropriate much land nor demolish many, if any, buildings, as long as we mandate that all new construction goes up on otherwise underused space, such as our ample parking lots. By setting our own high standards for environmental and economic sustainability, we could have the greenest games ever, and showcase the standards and technologies used to make that a reality. Also, given that the Olympic Park site and all these other facilities are all connected to the Métro and by extension Underground City, well what can I say – the whole city would become part of the Olympic site.

For three, on airports – we have two international airports, one of which is currently barely being used. If we were to reactivate Mirabel for another Olympiad, we would be wise to finish highway 13 and to finally connect Mirabel to the city by means of an express train. This would be comparatively costly, but would secure Mirabel as viable future alternative to Dorval for future development. Doing so would further allow us to prevent massive congestion on island.

For four, on accommodation – our city is better prepared to handle large numbers of tourists today than it was back in 1976. We have many more hotels, we have more convention space and a significant local tourism and hospitality industry which could use the business boost.

In any event, these are but a few reasons why City Hall should maintain an on-going open file on another Olympiad and commit the requisite resources to make this a reality. Unfortunately, I’m certain at least some enthusiasm for another Games would be weighed by the knowledge so many would be seeking to profit individually and opportunistically at the expense of the greater good. If we could just try really hard not to screw each other over, we may have a very profitable, low-overhead Olympiad, and share a possibly great wealth, not to mention sustained international attention all the while providing ample reasons to continue investing in our city and it’s endless potential.

A modest proposal, Economic commentary, History and Culture, Kondiaronk - My Montréal Experience, Let's make this an election issue, Perspectives on the City, Political commentary, Social commentary, Unrealized development projects, Urban Redevelopment, Worth reconsidering

Heat Waves and Watering Bans and Environmental Degradation (oh my!)

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The Beaver – not just a euphemism any more!

Yes, it’s sweltering out. I know. We know. We all know. It happens. It will dominate the local s’news until it’s replaced by exciting Smartphone coverage of the raucous thunderstorms apparently on route to light up the night sky.

The thing here is that I often find the perennial complaining about the heat to be an insincere form of back-handed self-flattery. See? It’s not really that cold up here, it can be downright tropical in fact… And it misses the point. We do have a say in what kind of weather we have, and we could be doing much, much more to help stabilize local climatic and environmental conditions. The way the news tells it, whether NBC, the CBC or the local yokels trying to fill the air before the half hour they dedicate to sports coverage, you’d think we only just became aware weather exists in the first place, and that we had never had a heat wave before, never had major forest fires or droughts. This is subtle refusal to acknowledge human beings are having a direct and often detrimental effect on weather patterns and the environment. Climate change is real – but it also runs both ways.

I refuse to complain about the weather out of principle – do you not remember five months ago when we were freezing? When we collectively put on anywhere from five to twenty pounds of insulation au-naturel so that we don’t otherwise parade around in snow suits and balaclavas? I can remember and I hate the cold, but especially Winter’s such as the last one. Too little snow, far too many bone-chilling days and high winds, not to mention that awful tease we got in mid-March when for a week it was as though we had skipped Spring altogether. Of course I made the best of it when I had a chance – we all did. But I can’t escape the fact that for all this talk and apparent knowledge about the weather and climate and the peculiarities of our regional meteorology, geography and ecology, we seem to forget, constantly, what has happened recently.

Does it not strike us all as odd that every summer now has record breaking heat waves?
That every summer carries the risk of and most cases increasingly destructive forest fires?
Or that the water quality is poor and seemingly, always at record-low levels?
Or how about that the French seem to think us Québecois talk about the weather incessantly?

I know general interest news stories tend to repeat themselves, but it seems to me that something’s not quite right with our weather patterns, in that it seems we’re not getting the clockwork weather systems we once got used to. Winter used to start earlier, Spring used to be longer, and all seasons seemed to have been much wetter not so long ago. And even if we are currently facing a rare meteorological phenomenon, you’d think we be smart enough to employ various measures to protect ourselves. Water levels, wet-lands and heat waves all have something in common – they’re all implicated in ground-water retention, and we have the means, at the very least, to develop new and expand on existing wetlands within the Greater Montréal region.

As I sit here waiting for the inevitable and highly exciting lightning strikes I can’t help but notice my burnt suburban lawn, nowhere near as green and healthy as it’s supposed to be. Ferns and other plants have shrunk, our vegetable patch isn’t producing and as far as I can tell, the phenomenon seems to be adversely affecting my whole neighbourhood, if not a good chunk of the region. The water levels are at ten year lows, watering bans are in full effect as a consequence (though I’m surprised to see who seems to be ‘above the law’) and the news coming in from les régions (indeed, all of rural Canada and the US) is that this year’s harvest won’t nearly be as bountiful as had been hoped. Locally, this not only means higher food prices, but an additional complication to regional economic stability. Never underestimate the primacy of agriculture in our economy, it’s remarkably multi-faceted and forms a core component of the region’s economy.

So then what’s to be done? Something’s amiss when the confluence of two rivers and multiple tributaries in a land overwhelmed by freshwater lakes can’t provide enough water for a city of our size spread out as we are across a very large geographic area. Though I’m by no means an environmental scientist, I would argue that there nonetheless seems to be a correlation between environmental degradation (particularly of wetlands) and the constantly recurring adverse weather and climatic conditions. As I write this a brief downpour has wound down and a temporary humidity has set in. Tweets have indicated the heat wave isn’t expected to break for several more days. We seem to alternate increasingly between dry heat spells and sudden torrential storms, as opposed to a more regular cycle of cooler daytime temperatures and far more precipitation across all seasons.

There’s been talk coming from the local chapter of the Suzuki Foundation recently of expanding or otherwise developing a local green belt specifically to counter-act this problem. And that’s where our furry national symbol comes into play. A simple re-introduction of beavers as part of a larger preservation/conservation and rehabilitation plan would help retain significant quantities of groundwater. In fact, a few beaver colonies strategically located may be able to replenish natural aquifers, meaning lack of rain won’t matter as much given that Spring meltwater could be held over a longer period of time. More trapped groundwater, such as in marshlands, swamps, natural beaches etc, mean more water for irrigation, be it for agriculture or simply keeping the grass green. But it’s all the other goodies that come with building new wetlands – more biodiversity, cooler temperatures, less erosion, cleaner air and cleaner water, to name but a few benefits.

We need to get on this right away. A comprehensive plan for the entire archipelago and metropolitan region needs to be put into action so that we don’t completely destroy the naturally lush and historically bountiful eco-system we’re encroaching on. Low-density residential housing development, both on and off-island needs to come to a halt, and remaining green-spaces need to be treated properly and for what they are – the circulatory and respiratory systems of an interconnected mass of humanity.

Now if only we can convince the powers at be that investing in environmental rehabilitation is worthwhile, for the greater good, over a long term.

I fear it is precisely for those reasons, and the fact that we can’t make a buck off of it, that nothing will come of this.

And we’ll continue to be ignorant as the problem is perennially presented to us as something out of the ordinary. We seem to suffer from collective short-term memory loss, especially when it comes to ecological issues. What do y’all think?

A modest proposal, Economic commentary, History and Culture, Kondiaronk - My Montréal Experience, Let's make this an election issue, Montréal Architecture, Montréal Landmarks, Perspectives on the City, Political commentary, Unrealized development projects, Urban Redevelopment, Worth reconsidering

More Thoughts of Trains and Mirabel

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Mirabel Scale Model

As you doubtless already know, I’m a big fan of Mirabel International Airport, and dream of day when it’s fully operational, ideally as the original plan intended.

I’m also a big fan of eliminating waste and the various inefficiencies that plague our lives and make living in large urban centres unnecessarily taxing. I’d one day like to poach White Elephants…

We have a strange problem in this city – we repeat our mistakes and forget past problems. It seems to tend towards a vicious circle in which too little actually gets accomplished and waste accumulates at an impressive rate costing the citizens immensely. And because this has been the status quo for so long, our ‘leadership’ doesn’t know what else to do.

Mirabel failed for three main reasons. Planned highways weren’t built, an express train connecting the airport to the Central Business District via Mount Royal Tunnel never got off the drawing board, and we, as citizens, allowed failure to be an option vis-a-vis the airport’s fate. Curiously, we built a train station and a rail line, we just never connected the two. Today we have the exact same problem at Dorval.

An on-going dispute between the AMT and the ADM has resulted in yet another airport in Montreal lacking an express train to and from the city. And as opposed to not having the requisite highways, we instead have over-burdened highways in dire need of repair and upgrades. Public transit options are inconsistent, inconvenient or otherwise lacking, though the STM’s 747 service performs admirably on the no-frills end of the spectrum. For all the money and time that has been wasted trying to figure out a solution to the differences between the ADM and AMT’s vision for transit expansion, we’ve come no closer to a solution. Yet, if we had simply directed our efforts at completing the links to Mirabel as planned, perhaps starting with an express train, we’d likely have access to one hell of an international airport right now.

In my opinion, the facilities at Dorval have several problems which will likely get worse as time marches on. It’s effectively topped out in terms of how much more it can expand, largely as a consequence of the rather exceptional amount of growth all around the airport over the course of the last forty odd years. A further consequence of the growth of both airport capacity and the sheer volume of people living and working in and around the airport is the exceptional congestion eating away at the highways around and leading to the airport. All of these forces working together have made airport operations at Dorval unnecessarily complex from a logistical perspective, which is partially responsible for the numerous delays in adequately connecting this effectively urban airport to the city it serves. Railways or subways or mono-rails – no one can reach a conclusion on how best to attach the airport to the central business district directly, and so we soldier on as an apparently global city without an amenity that goes for granted in any other large metropole.

It is based on these reasons that I ask whether it truly is better for a large city such as our own to strive for the convenience of an on-island, semi-urban airport when congestion and political bickering slowly increases the amount of time it actually takes to get to and from the airport. Think about it – the number one complaint about Mirabel was how far it was from the city (a fact exacerbated by the failure to complete highways 13, 19 and 50, which meant that all airport traffic was funnelled through a single highway which also served as a pole for northern ring development) and the further failure to complete the planned city-to-airport express train, designed to cut travel time down to 20-30 minutes from Central Station to the train station built into the main terminal at Mirabel (which, like so many other once-useful things in this city, is today used as a parking garage). Ask yourself how long it takes to get from the city to Dorval as is. Without traffic or too many stops maybe you can get there in 20 minutes using public transit, but we all know to bank maybe three times the amount of time if traffic is expected. The airport certainly serves the West Island excellently, but it doesn’t anchor the far greater geographic area Mirabel only briefly served.

We forget that Mirabel was once fully operational and Canada’s Eastern Gateway, offering direct service to numerous world cities directly, with an impressive number of foreign flag-carriers choosing Mirabel as their preferred landing site in Canada. And for good reason too. It was modern, well-designed, exceptionally efficient and designed to eventually grow to six runways, six terminals, a STOLport and an estimated annual traffic in excess of 50 million people.

With the planned highways and rail lines, in addition to the completion of a ring-road system (such as the connection of highway 640 to highway 30, extensions of highway 10 etc.) Mirabel’s strategic position could have offered service to an immense region, including Eastern Ontario, the National Capital Region, Québec City and the Eastern Townships, as well as the Northern parts of Vermont, New York, New Hampshire – a region in excess of seven million people today, and likely able to drive airport usage up towards that 50 million mark. Though these plans in large part never came to fruition (or else were developed after the airport ceased passenger operations), they’ve nonetheless already been laid out, and they still make as much sense today as they do back then. Dorval is chiefly designed to serve the City of Montreal, not the Greater Montreal Region, and it’s the regional population base, and how they get around, which will determine whether any future attempts to revive operations at Mirabel will be successful. Moreover, given the population distribution around Dorval, we must ask ourselves whether we actually want large aircraft taking off and landing from the middle of a large residential area. If an accident on take-off or landing at a Montreal airport is to occur, wouldn’t it be best the crash happen far from the populated city, ideally in a large open field?

But getting back to my initial thought. We’re still at square one. We’re still bickering about how to attach the airport to the city, though this time the argument is whether a train should serve the airport uniquely or whether it should serve commuters as well. If we migrated back to Mirabel, we’d likely run into the same problem, again. This in turn leads me to question why we have a system wherein the airport authority and the public transit and provincial transport agencies aren’t all working together to a) find mutually beneficial solutions to common problems and b) seeking to ensure maximum connectivity, not only between the airport and city but between the airport and the much larger region it initially served. The question shouldn’t be whether to build a new West Island commuter train or a new train to the airport, but rather how we’ll build both as part of a much more comprehensive strategy. Move to Mirabel and at least the AMT and ADM won’t be arguing about West Island transit options, but this may in turn set the Train-de-l’Ouest project back a bit. What a curious trap we’ve built for ourselves – and all because we chose to accept this notion that Mirabel shouldn’t have been built in the first place.