Taylor Noakes {.} Com

Abandoned Bldg on Laprairie in the Pointe, credit to John Bryce Davidson

The following is a list of heritage sites in the City of Montréal which are all in danger of passing a point-of-no-return of sorts with regards to any potential redevelopment. Unless action is taken, more or less immediately, many of these buildings may have to be destroyed, and so goes with them crucial cultural heritage sites, not to mention many potential business and educational opportunities as well. All of the sites on this list have the potential to be redeveloped so as to serve a cultural function, in addition to providing revenue streams. But as the buildings and locations herein lie abandoned, they not only stain the urban fabric, but lead to lower property value, not to mention morale. It is exceptionally important that the people of the City of Montréal exercise some sort of say over what happens to these sites, because at the very least, it’s simply bad for business to tolerate too many open lots, empty buildings and stalled development potential. We want to be attractive to investors and want a better, more socially conscious gentrification of the urban core. Finding new roles for the following old buildings will help re-invigorate several key sectors of the city and, I feel, help renew a sense of civic pride amongst the general population. In essence, we need to invest in ourselves in order to stabilize markets, spur re-development and ‘steer’ the real-estate sector with urban-planning and urban-preservation best practices clearly in mind.

Thus, the Use It or Lose It list, 2012 Edition. Hopefully we’ll have some progress in a year’s time. Entries are in no particular order.

1. The Empress Theatre. Empty since the early 1990s. Multiple stalled projects to redevelop building as a performance venue and cultural centre, currently owned by the City through the CDN-NDG borough. There were talks of holding public consultations about what to do a few months back, not sure what, if anything, has come of it. Situated across from Girouard Park in NDG on Sherbrooke Street West, prime location for a new condo tower. I’ve mentioned before that if the city were to work out some kind of deal with the owner of the small commercial building and parking lot next to the theatre, the site could be redeveloped with a condo tower built into the Empress, which could possibly be a source of funding for the theatre’s multi-million dollar renovations.

2. The Victoria Rink. Parking garage since the 1930s. This is quite literally the place where the modern game of hockey came together as a professional sport, and is also the site of the first ever Stanley Cup game. It stands just north of Boul. René-Lévesque between Stanley and Drummond – the length of almost all professional hockey rinks are roughly the same distance. There’s been talk of doing something with the building from a few enthusiasts but so far it’s still a parking garage. I doubt there’s much if anything left from the original building aside from the walls, but it’s location is important, given the site is underused (as an aboveground parking garage) and is adjacent to a large open lot extending towards Ste-Catherine’s Street, again – prime location for high-density residential or commercial real estate development. Embarking on a project to re-develop the Victoria Rink as a heritage hockey rink and museum is what most would propose doing with the site, though I’d add the possibility of housing an official Habs museum and further, using the space as a much needed medium-sized downtown venue.

3. LaFontaine House. Abandoned since the mid-1980s as a result of the Overdale fiasco. Though the house of one of Canada’s Founding Fathers is still standing, it’s not in very good condition, and I doubt there’s much left worth preserving in the interior. The current owners of the property (in effect, the entire Overdale block right across from Lucien-L’Allier Métro station) are keen to provide the house for use as a museum or interpretive centre, but that requires an obvious source of funding and a party interested in embarking on such an endeavour. If a renovation were to occur, I can imagine an end-product somewhat akin to the Shaughnessy House (at the Canadian Centre for Architecture). Given how few Golden Square Mile mansions and manors are left, and the historical significance of LaFontaine, you’d figure this is a no brainer, but so far it seems to soldier on as a squat. And on that note, the Mount Stephen Club is now closed, and the scuttlebutt is that it may be turned into a boutique hotel or otherwise integrated into a new hotel built on the side of the adjoining parking lot, both of which may be a particularly innovative solution to our on-going problem regarding dilapidated old mansions. Now the question is whether there’s enough interest to convert the Redpath Mansion and a few other old homes along similar lines.

4. Maison Saint Grégoire. Abandoned since the late-1980s, early-1990s I think. Located at 1800 Boul René-Lévesque West diagonally across from the CCA. Not an overwhelming impressive building, as a result of the boulevard’s expansion in the 1950s, the row-houses were torn down revealing the rear of the building. It was once an old folk’s home run by a religious community, but today, if it’s used at all, it’s as a squat. Any number of things could go here, and given the size of the site you could potentially put in a medium sized residential or commercial tower, possibly integrating into the existing structure. But given the institutional nature of the area, if may make more sense to try to encourage it’s use for education purposes. The building seems to be in good shape from the outside, and if we really anted to, I’m certain it could be transformed into a large homeless shelter without too much cost to the tax-payer. Of course that in turn wouldn’t do much to help the gentrification of the Shaughnessy Village area. Quite a conundrum, as the site has a lot of potential given a tall building at that spot could provide some exceptional views.

5. The Eaton’s Ninth Floor restaurant. Moth-balled for future use since about 1999. Apparently this place used to be a huge favourite for the downtown office crowd, offering traditional English and French cuisine at decent prices in an opulent Art Deco dining room modeled after one on the passenger liner Normandie. If nothing else it ought to be available as a reception space, but I still can’t fathom it wouldn’t work as a restaurant once more. Art Deco is always en vogue and we have an excellent collection, but letting this space slowly degenerate is the worse kind of fate. The City, in my opinion, needs to use it’s resources and connections and make a restaurant work on this site, or else find someone interested in establishing a downtown ‘establishment’ restaurant – we’re sorely lacking.

6. Notman House. Last I heard there was an ambitious project to make this the city’s start-up hub, but the last few times I passed by it didn’t seem as if much was happening. I seem to recall seeing the for sale sign outside. In any event, if it pulls through, this would be an excellent use of the site. If not, we really ought to have a dedicated Notman museum in this city. Perhaps something as broadly defined as the Notman Photography Museum of Montréal, but either way, the massive quantities of high-quality Notman photographs of the Montréal of yesteryear should be more accessible, if for no other reason than to educate the public about photography in general and let people see what life was like here over a hundred years ago. A vital link to our past, Notman’s photographs are particularly interesting because they give us a good sense of late-Victorian era and early-Edwardian urbanism – Notman took many city perspective photographs, documented parks, plazas and squares, not to mention our architectural and engineering achievements of the era. I say it’s significant because, like it or not, a considerable portion of our city was developed in the era Notman was most active, and many enduring aesthetic qualities and design decisions are captured in his photographs.

And then you have the rest of the list. Grain Silo No. 5, a major achievement and enduring landmark of industrial architecture, unused for almost twenty years. The most recent proposal I heard was to turn it into a massive data centre. Probably as good a use as any other, but I’d love to see some actual life return to this sector. Unless the Port of Montréal plans a major expansion of this area to accomodate growing maritime traffic, or develop a proper cruise/passenger terminal somewhere in the Old Port, then the options are somewhat limited moving forward. There’s a lot of diverse activity in the area known as the Cité-du-Havre, which is roughly everything East of Bridge and South of Wellington, including the Bickerdyke Pier. That said, there’s little to unify the area, and the large land allotments to light industrial activity may soon lead to residential re-development. Personally, I think our city could use a neighbourhood where port functions, commerce and high-residential developments could interface so as to create an urban neighbourhood of the kind the word Havre evokes in my mind.

I’ll have to come back and expand on this later, so stay tuned for a follow-up article. Consider these sites as threatened to one degree or another: the Imperial Theatre, the Royal Victoria Hospital, the Atwater Library, Fort Senneville, the Montreal Children’s Hospital, the Rialto Theatre, the Griffintown Gasworks and Saint James United Church all come to mind as places we need to seriously consider for City-sponsored redevelopment.

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Windsor Station, looking north along Peel, 1926

I regularly take the AMT’s Deux-Montagnes line to commute to the city from Pierrefonds, and like many other commuters, I’ve noticed something – a significant lack of space. The Deux-Montagnes line is regularly over-capacity; it’s not so much that there aren’t any seats, it’s that there’s barely anywhere to stand. And this is apparently the same for most of the AMT’s other lines as well. While the agency moves forward, albeit slowly, on the development of new lines to serve new areas, it hasn’t done much to alleviate over-crowding on the existing lines. As such, the commute isn’t terribly pleasant, and the infrastructure within the city designed to handle the commuting masses has left a lot to be desired for quite some time. It’s woefully inadequate and lack of planning today will only lead to a worse situation tomorrow.

Gare Centrale seems to be over-capacity in general. Massive cues to board VIA trains now regularly stretch the length of the station, and during rush hour congestion is even more severe as throngs of office workers huddle around waiting for up to twenty minutes in order to ensure they get a seat on the commuter trains. It’s beginning to seem very clear to me that concentrating all inter-city and commuter traffic in the same space isn’t such a great idea, especially if we recognize the growing trend in the use of passenger and commuter rail options in Montréal.

As it happens, there was once a magnificent train station but a few blocks away from Gare Centrale, a station very well integrated into the urban transit and traffic fabric inasmuch as the urban core it was designed to serve. Today it is little more than commercial office space, an underused public square and a seldom used convention space. The Bell Centre stands between Windsor Station and the open-air platform that is the Lucien L’allier. If only we hadn’t been so myopic in the past, we could have endeavoured to secure investment in rail travel. It is after all a cornerstone of our local economy, as true today as it was when we were the commercial capital of the entire country.

It occurred to me, as I was walking through Place Ville-Marie to make my way to the station, that fifty years ago we accomplished a magnificent feat of engineering and architecture, by building a heart of the Underground City and one of our most vital skyscrapers and office complexes above what had previously been an ugly, exposed railway pit.

If we could do that fifty years ago, surely we could do the exact opposite today. What if we were to resurrect Windsor Station by running the CP tracks which currently terminate at the Bell Centre, under it, and build a new platform under the station and arena in much the same fashion as Gare Centrale?

The first issue would be the Métro tunnel for the Orange Line which runs parallel with the tracks, so such a tunnel would have to start just to the West of Guy in order to avoid having to build under the Métro tunnel. Building a new train tunnel alongside it may be practical, and being able to remove the Guy and Lucien L’allier viaducts would improve the somewhat dour aesthetics of the area, not to mention allow real-estate developers the chance to build new buildings aboveground. Given Cadillac-Fairview corporation’s interest to build new condo towers and office space at the site, you’d figure it’s high time the multiple implicated parties collaborate to ensure Windsor Station can rekindle it’s former use as a major point of integration in the urban traffic scheme. Certainly, new residential and office development would be more attractive if the aim was to, in essence, create another PVM, though from below.

As it happens, this particular area may become the next major focal point for urban re-development in the City of Montréal. Consider not only Cadillac-Fairview’s proposal, but the open lots at Overdale, the parking lot across from the Bell Centre and the decrepit old buildings south of Saint-Antoine. Establishing a massive new train station in the middle, with an appropriate expansion of underground tunnels, passageways and access to other points in the Réso system, would stimulate growth in the area around in a manner similar to the way PVM anchors much of the CBD. It’s a natural extension, and the area could use the stimulus of people power.

Granted, it would be costly, it would take time and we’d have to overcome some significant obstacles, but the long term implications of alleviating over-crowding at Gare Centrale, expanding the Underground City and newly desirable land in the urban core, ripe for redevelopment, is worth the investment given the long-term return.

And the added advantage is that by not doing this, by leaving things as they are, we ensure no new development will take place in this area, or at least it won’t nearly be as impressive, important and fiscally sound. The status quo is inefficient because the status quo doesn’t suit our current nor future needs. By developing a whole new train station and subsequently spreading out commuter and passenger traffic between two inter-connected stations, we can increase the area of economic activity stimulated by the increasing group of people who fall into this category. In addition, we right a historic wrong, secure the use of a landmark and subsequently provide an economic stimulus with significant indirect stimulus spin-off. Transformative is an understatement.

Something to think about. There are about seven large tracts of land around the site which seem to be ideal for redevelopment, as office towers, condominiums, mixed-use developments etc, and all of them could be very easily inter-connected. That’s got to encourage the city inasmuch as the construction and real-estate development sectors in this city. A little bit of ingenuity and the will to invest in a much needed mega project of the kind that was once matter-of-fact in Montréal could help spur an urban development scheme of epic proportions.

I guess the question is how to get all the specific parties into the same room so as to pitch the idea.

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John Ralston Saul at the LaFontaine House – credit to Gabrielle Cauchy of Dimedia

The house above is all that remains of the once residential Overdale block, which was torn down in the 1980s in the name of urban renewal. You’ll likely know it better as a parking lot with kebab stand adjacent to Con-U’s fine arts pavilion. Thankfully this house wasn’t destroyed outright, though after years of neglect I can’t imagine there’s much left to save.

The reason eminent Canadian philosopher John Ralston Saul is standing in front of this house is because it was once the home of Sir Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine, a man of national importance to any self-respecting Canadian and Québecois. This is the man who, along with Robert Baldwin, helped establish responsible government in the 1840s, becoming the de facto Prime Minister of United Canada in 1848.

That’s right; nineteen years before John A. Macdonald became the first Prime Minister of the Dominion of Canada, LaFontaine the passionate and zealous Patriote, follower of Papineau, was running things at a proto-federal level. If he and his accomplishments were better known in this country, by Canadians of any socio-cultural background, I’d argue we would at the very least feel a bit more comfortable with ourselves, and maybe have a bit more pride too. LaFontaine was a great man who overcame many obstacles and fought viciously to establish a Canada in which the only nationalism was pan-national, open to all minorities, in every sense a post-modern nation. He insisted on speaking French in the assembly and worked tirelessly with Robert Baldwin to establish a new nation of diverse peoples. We owe the country we have today in part to this man. He was one of our distinguished founding fathers.

And we, the citizens of Montréal, have let his house fall into disrepair.

Granted, a park and a tunnel are named after him, but neither will tell you anything about the man, his era or ideas.

The house has been on Héritage Montréal’s threatened list for some time, and city officials have been exceptionally slow to act. The lot has been purchased for $28 million and there are plans to develop a 40-floor condo tower, though a city spokesperson suggests its nothing more than an idea for the moment. One of the partners has suggested that he would like to convert it into a museum, but further stated it must turn a profit.

A for-profit, private museum dedicated to one of Canada’s most important historical figures eh?

For some reason it just doesn’t jive well in my noggin – maybe I’m too closed-minded.

In any event – for the time being the house is still standing and the Overdale block remains a big gaping hole in the urban fabric. It’s been this way so long people just assume it’s how it’s always been. Hard to think there was once a neat little community there.

But it still bothers me that we simply don’t try harder, and that our city officials have been all too interested in not getting involved for almost thirty years.

What will it take for people to recognize and promote their proud heritage? And why are we always so inclined to ‘let the market handle things’, especially the physical remains of our shared history, culture and identity. Some voice in the back of my head is telling me capitalism and the housing market really doesn’t care much for the life and times of one of our finest early leaders.

Food for thought; for a nation so chronically convinced it lacks a character, I wonder why we’ve never endeavoured to protect, preserve and promote the very real links we have to our past.

I’ll be keeping my eyes on this one.

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The photo above is of two examples of the CF-105 Arrow, also known as the Avro Arrow, a supersonic jet fighter designed, built and tested here in Canada in the mid-late 1950s. It was a milestone in Canadian aviation and a great success for our high-technology industrial sector. The project was abruptly terminated in the late-1950s by the Progressive Conservative government of John Diefenbaker, who saw the project as emblematic of Liberal ‘big-government’ spending. Moreover, with the advent of long-range ballistic missiles and the launching of Sputnik (and subsequent Space Race) at the end of the 1950s, there was a widespread belief that ground and space based missiles would determine the strategic balance of the future. Thus the Arrow, the Iroquois engine and Velvet Glove missile system programs were all scrapped (literally, the aircraft were cut to pieces, engines smashed, blueprints burned in bonfires).

Avro Canada Ltd would go belly-up by 1962 as they had thrown almost all their efforts behind the project. Efforts to sell the Arrow or elements of the design to foreign nations were in fact prevented by Diefenbaker’s government (a Tory gov’t preventing free-market capitalism and over-regulating our high-tech and defence sector industries, funny) and many of the chief engineers would find work throughout the United States and Europe working for other major defence consortiums. Among others, former Avro employees would help design fighter aircraft in the UK, France and the United States, in addition to designing the Apollo Command and Service module. Indeed, as you can see from this Wikipedia entry Avro was involved in myriad state of the art technologies and were global aviation leaders.

A long time has passed since the Arrow program was cancelled. In its wake Avro would be sold to Hawker Siddeley (a British corporation), Canada acquired inferior American-built interceptors two years later (which employed nuclear weapons, not a popular move in Canada) and later, Canadair would take over construction and testing of Canadian-built versions of American-designed fighter models, including the Hornets we use today. It has been more than fifty years since we were so bold to dare develop our high-technologies sector by direct government investment and support as we once tried with the Arrow program.

And today, an opportunity has presented itself, one we seem to be very interested in squandering outright.

I don’t need to tell you about the multiple inter-related controversies surrounding the Harper government’s intention to procure 65 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters (check this out for all you need to know), but I will mention this; the plan currently involves leasing engines and weapons, providing service and maintenance contracts to non-military (perhaps non-Canadian) contractors and is already significantly over-budget given how few aircraft we’re to receive. Trudeau’s defence department ordered 138 Hornets between 1982 and 1988, and most of these aircraft subsequently underwent a total overhaul, update and modernization program about five years ago, leaving us with approximately one-hundred serviceable and still lethal aircraft. Furthermore, Canada has always used twin-engine, long-range fighters to defend our territorial sovereignty. The F-18 provided additional benefits, given that it was aircraft-carrier capable (meaning Canadian pilots could deploy from American carriers in time of war) and could fulfill multiple roles, such as interception, strike, close-support, reconnaissance etc.

The F-35 is an inferior aircraft to the F-18 in many ways, and what’s most maddening is that the F-35, at best, could only be a tactical alternative to F-18 (ergo, we deploy F-35s to bomb Libya and leave the F-18s to defend our airspace). Back during the Cold War this is typically how we operated, using two-types of multi-role aircraft, one for tactical missions and the other being used for more strategic defence roles. While the F-18s will need to be replaced by the end of the decade, replacing them with an unproven, still largely experimental and expensive fighter is obscenely irresponsible. Now while Canada has been involved in the F-35 project for some time, we have no legal responsibility to procure them, and it just so happens a more modern version of our current aircraft (The Super Hornet) is available, proven and could even be built here (given Canadair/Bombardier’s previous involvement in aircraft construction). That, or we could be bold and build precisely what we need in large enough numbers we can then re-coup production and R&D costs by selling surplus aircraft to friendly foreign nations.

What I don’t understand, however, is why a Conservative and apparent patriot like Stephen Harper isn’t chomping at the bit to realize a new Arrow. Frankly, you’d think this is stuff his wet dreams are made of.

What a hero he’d be for Canadian industry! What a great Canadian, correcting a terrible mistake from his party’s past. If only his head was in the game. What’s generally accepted is that the Arrow was the ideal fighter for Canada, and Canada is still just as involved protecting its airspace and conducting, and so we still require an aircraft with similar capabilities.

The recent discovery of a set of two Arrow ejection seats in the UK has re-ignited the persistent rumour that an intact Arrow may have been smuggled out of Canada and flown to the UK, possibly with Hawker Siddeley’s acquisition of Avro Ltd. In the years since the project’s cancellation, bits and pieces of Avro’s projects have turned up across Canada, including the Avro Car, the Avro jet-powered truck and many pieces belonging to the Arrow and Orenda Iroqouis engine projects. Enthusiasts have been trying to generate enough funds to re-assemble a working Arrow with the engines for years now, but without significant capital it is unlikely said enthusiasts will go much further than scaled-down wooden mock-ups. Stage props really.

Even if we don’t build new versions of the Arrow, at least give us the chance to build something for ourselves, to demonstrate our expertise and innovation. Our nation needs to be given goals, and the citizens must feel a tangible pride for what their nation accomplishes. Failure to involve yourself in the affairs of the People in this manner is negligent. So again I ask is it wise to allow our nation to procure the F-35? And would we rather deal with the consequences of that purchase, or create our own solution?

At the end of the day, you can’t assume you’ll get much vision from free-market enterprise. Someone must instigate a nation’s dreams.

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So I’ve been having a lot of discussions about Mirabel over the last few weeks, thought I’d share some ideas.

1. We still need it. Montréal is a major international tourism destination in addition to being a key port of entry for immigrants and refugees. Our city is growing as is interest in our city, this is undeniable. As we stimulate our development and continue on our path to becoming a truly global city, we will require an airport that can handle a steadily increasing number of passengers. Such an airport will grow, by necessity, to serve a steadily increasing population base and will stimulate industrial development around it. It is for these reasons primarily that Montréal must shift its focus away from Trudeau and back towards Mirabel. Trudeau is at capacity, Mirabel is only one-sixth of its planned size. What else is there to do? Moreover, it would be advantageous to re-purpose Trudeau to handle cargo flights and aircraft manufacturing and maintenance, given the existing concentration of industry and infrastructure adjacent to the airport. Mirabel, by contrast, is located in a rural area with plenty of room to grow. Built away from the city, Mirabel can operate twenty-four hours a day and a purpose-built infrastructure can be implemented so as to make access to the airport efficient and effective across the metropolitan region. Similar infrastructure redevelopment in Dorval is proving exceptionally difficult to implement.

2. The lack of access that led to Mirabel’s demise is either currently being implemented, in use, or otherwise still on the drawing board. Highway 50 from the National Capital Region (population 1.4 million) is about to be completed, I believe, as far as the intersection with Highway 15. The AMT runs trains between Montréal and Mirabel, on a track which can access the Deux-Montagnes Line (and by extension Gare Centrale), in addition to the Parc Intermodal Station. The train station at the airport has already been completed. We’re closer to realizing high-speed rail access to the airport than we realize – the problem is that we’re focusing on the wrong airport. Completing Highway 50 so that it connects with Highway 40 near Repentigny will allow a Northern bypass to mirror the now completed Highway 30 Southern bypass. And what better way to justify the construction of a new South Shore span than by simultaneously completing Highways 13 and 19? This way, the Montréal metropolitan region would be served by four East-West Highways intersected by a similar number of North-South Highways. A ring-road would be created, and Mirabel would finally be able to adequately serve the metro region, providing the catalyst and focal point for new highway development. And that’s just the highways. While the Fed claims high-speed rail is an expensive dream, there’s no denying the very real demand within our own metropolitan region – so let us lead the development by starting on a smaller scale. A bullet train running between the Downtown of Montréal and Mirabel will lead to the creation of a high-speed rail link between Mirabel and Ottawa. Then it will be expanded from Mirabel to Québec City. A train travelling at 120km/hour could run the distance between Ottawa and Mirabel in about an hour. At a slightly higher speed the trip from Mirabel to Downtown Montréal could be made in as little as fifteen minutes. All of this would improve transit and transport throughout the region, and expand our airport market to a considerably larger population, perhaps more than five million people across three borders. Let’s pay for it now so that we may profit from it tomorrow.

3. Low jet-fuel prices and longer-range aircraft made stopping at Mirabel unnecessary in the 1980s and 1990s and gave rise to Pearson Int’l Airport in Toronto as chief Canadian gateway due to the rise of Toronto’s economic prominence and rapid population growth. Today, fuel prices are high and unstable; though aircraft have grown in size considerably, so Mirabel may once again be in position to wrestle away the title of Eastern Gateway from Toronto. This is the kind of economic competition our State requires, and perhaps Toronto may be better off re-focusing it’s efforts on trans-hemispheric travel. Who knows? I’d just like to see what would happen if we pushed ahead with Mirabel to take business away from Pearson. It’s what capitalism is all about right? Better public transit access to strategically situated airports able to adapt to new technologies will define the gateways of tomorrow, and for this reason Mirabel is superior to Pearson in many respects. Let’s see what the free market has to say about it. Again, Pearson, though large, is nearing capacity and constrained from large-scale growth by what has already grown up beside it. And we can’t grow unless we have the infrastructure to allow for growth. So whereas the citizens of Toronto may one day have to plan an entirely new airport even further away from the city centre, all we have to do re-connect our airport to our metropolitan ‘circulatory system’. The advantage will soon be ours.

4. Mirabel wasn’t designed to fail – we let it fail. Fixing it is still a possibility, but we need to act quickly so we can save what’s already been built. We don’t want to have to start from scratch at some point in the future because we lacked foresight today – that’s criminally negligent economic policy. We spent a lot of money in the past and haven’t seen a decent return on our investment. So, invest anew – but invest in fixing the problem, once and for all. Whatever the initial cost, it cannot compare to the potential return a fully operational Mirabel would provide in terms of direct revenue and indirect economic stimulus. There are no mistakes, just innovative solutions. If we were really smart, we’d recognize that planned regional transit and transport projects can be brought together under a larger plan to provide the access necessary to make Mirabel a viable solution to our airport problem. Ultimately, it’s all inter-related and could stimulate key sectors of our local economy.

We were once a daring and imaginative people, we had bold ideas and planned on a grand scale. Somewhere along the way we became convinced we were no longer capable of performing at the same level, and settled into a holding pattern of society-wide malaise. Today we are restless, and we are daring to ask how we came to be, and where our former power came from. Of late, it seems that we’ve regained our swagger, our attitude. So let us push those in power to dream big once more, and push for the long-term, multi-generational city-building we were once so good at. We have it in our blood, but our pride is still damaged. Let us regain our spirit by turning our past failures into tomorrow’s successes.

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2009 AMT proposal for Métro extensions - not the work of the author

There’s been a fair bit of talk about extending the Montréal Métro of late in the English Press. Typical; now removed from the halls of power the English media spends its time twiddling their thumbs and dreaming about what could be, while Angryphones come out of the woodwork to demand Métro access to the West Island. I’ve said it before and I’ll say a million more times – no West Island residents should expect Métro extensions until there’s a West Island city, one with a tax-base as large as the cities of Laval or Longueuil. That or the West Island communities seek voluntary annexation from the City of Montréal. Then, and only then would the citizens out there be in a position to demand Métro access. I personally think a Highway 40 corridor Métro line from De la Savanne station to Fairview (and possibly as far as Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue) would be an excellent way to cut back significantly on vehicular traffic on our major highways. However, such a new line should be mirrored on the eastern side of the island, such as with the recommended Blue Line extension to Anjou. That said, residential development on the eastern side is oriented on a more North-South axis than on the West Island, and thus the proposed Pie-IX line (running from Laval or Montréal-North south to the Centre-Sud/HoMa district) would likely handle more passengers than any West Island extension (but only if it in turn were connected to East-West lines at multiple points).

While an unfortunate number of people have complained the 2009 MTQ proposal (above) is ‘too focused on the East End’, I look at it as focused primarily on where the population density seems to be high and increasing. There are more than 400,000 people living in Laval and another 700,000 people living on the South Shore (spread out over several municipalities, with an estimated 230,000 people living in Longueuil alone). Moreover, there are 85,000 people living in Saint-Laurent borough and another 125,000 people living in the Ahuntsic-Cartierville borough. In total, the proposed extensions as demonstrated above could potentially serve almost 1 million people directly and indirectly.

So while it is nice to dream about ideal systems that serve the entire metropolitan region, or at least serve the City better, we need to consider what the government is proposing seriously.

What’s unfortunate is that this plan now seems to be in jeopardy, given that the respective mayors of Longueuil, Laval and Montréal had to take out full page advertisements in the local press some months ago announcing why their city should benefit from expansion. I’ve said it before – sicking the mayors against each other isn’t going to achieve much. The entire system needs to be expanded until the whole region is eventually covered. In essence, we need to follow the same planning philosophy used to design the Paris, New York, London or Moscow subway systems, wherein the project is considered incomplete until near-total coverage is achieved. We won’t grow nearly as quickly unless the Métro develops in such a fashion so as to increase transit efficiency within the region. Montréal’s successful urban communities wouldn’t be nearly as successful as they are if it weren’t for the fact that they have Métro access. It is crucial for expansion and development.

In sum, we need to start planning as a unified metropolitan region wherein the interests of all citizens are considered simultaneously. Métro line development cannot be a reward for political loyalty. We’ve come a long way from the nepotism of the dark ages under Maurice Duplessis, so when the provincial government finks out and pits the suburbs of Montréal against the City for an individual line extension, the citizens of all communities must demand an end to such ridiculous partisanship. We can’t continue on like this. This is why our city is broken.

And just a reminder – completing the project illustrated above is pegged at 4 billion dollars. Cost of the new Champlain Bridge has been estimated at 5 billion dollars. Is it me or would it not be smarter to use that money to complete the proposed Métro expansion, and then spend a billion dollars renovating and improving the existing Champlain Bridge? A new Champlain Bridge will accommodate about 156,000 vehicle crossings per day. With this expansion, the Métro would be able to accommodate over 1.5 million passengers per day, which in turn will free up space on the highways, bridges, tunnels, buses and commuter trains, possibly even allowing some buses to be re-purposed to new routes, further improving the public transit system here in Montréal. To me it’s a no-brainer. What do you think?

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Neither of these are of my own design; judge for yourselves:

I found this one a while back, seems like an interesting idea. It incorporates three rapid-bus systems plus a Parc Avenue light rail system, with a considerably larger Métro system in general, though with considerable focus on the higher-density regions closer to the downtown core.

The following proposal for system improvement doesn’t involve any non-Métro systems, but has considerably more lines and stations. Also notice how all three airports are connected, and how the downtown would be connected by four parallel East-West lines and seems to indicate a type of network-sharing system where multiple lines would use the same track. Further, consider the number of junction stations:

I also like this proposal because it very clearly allows access to all four corners of the Metropolitan region. Keep it in mind – this system is nothing more than a dream, though its always encouraging to see random people envisioning their ideal Métro system. If only our elected officials would get the picture and pursue a more ambitious expansion program. Imagine what could be if we were building at a rate of 26 stations every 4 years. We did it without blinking between 1962 and 1966.

October 27th update:

Another find!

Looking at this plan I can’t help but remark on the similarities in the three designs, as it seems to have borrowed from each in addition to the current MTQ plan and elements of very early designs. Among other things, closing the Orange Line loop, extending further into Laval and Longueuil, following bridges and highways, extending the Blue Line East to Anjou, connecting Ile des Soeurs and additional East-West lines to cover the downtown and a Pie-IX line are all featured in these three designs. The first plan is highly reserved and realistic whereas the second is bold (though less accurate than the others), and the third seems constrained by the dimensions of a Métro map poster. That said – check out that Brown Line – it goes everywhere! What a great idea, a ‘sight-seer’ Métro line running from Brossard through the CBD and onto the airport. I also like the idea, oft repeated, of having additional multi-line hubs East of Berri-UQAM, such as at the Olympic Stadium, and of course the second plan’s design to link all the airports with the urban core. What’s striking is that it doesn’t seem to me like any official plan would even consider the possibility of building entirely new lines and hubs; these plans are realistic given that by 2012-2013, the metropolitan population is going to reach 4 million, and the citizens will no longer be able to rely on their cars to get around the metropolitan region. Public transit will require a massive investment in order for large cities to remain operationally competitive, we just cannot afford the same carbon footprint in the future. Thus, it makes sense to begin a massive development project and wildly expand the Métro, as soon as possible. Any of these designs are feasible as long as we demand it, but we must demonstrate clearly and effectively that we will not stand for anything less than the world’s finest Métro system. It is our responsibility, it is our heritage and a credit to our high-tech industries, but it must be kept at a perpetual ‘state-of-the-art’ status if we’re to make any money off it. The citizens need better than what is currently provided and Métro development needs to become a principle priority for the Mayor. If we were as motivated to build a Métro system today as we were fifty years ago, we could attain total metropolitan coverage within forty years, maybe sooner. That kind of long term steady investment is exactly what we need to keep our economy stable and create real, insurable employment. Public works and infrastructure projects worked in the States with the New Deal, so there’s no reason why we can’t do the same basic thing today on a localized scale. Building a massive new Métro could be money in the bank.

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Close up of the Bell Centre from Boul. René-Lévesque and Rue de la Montagne - not the work of the author.

So here’s the deal.

This building pisses me off.

I know that may seem like a strange reaction to have to a building, but what can I say – the home of my favourite team is an unfortunate eyesore and a continuing annoyance for smart development and urban planning in Montréal.

The problem is this – twenty some-odd years ago people were convinced that the era of rail travel was likely over in North America. Both CN and CP were in dire financial straights, VIA ridership was at an all-time low, and the AMT had yet to be created. So when it came time to build a new, state-of-the-art arena for the Montreal Canadiens, the site chosen was on top of the CP tracks leading out of Windsor Station, which by that time had ceased all passenger operations anyways. A half-assed attempt at building a commuter rail station into the complex resulted in a grandiose platform and little else. The area has been a mess ever since. The Bell Centre failed to form a nucleus of new activity and the area south of St-Antoine quickly eroded away.

Today the Bell Centre is over capacity and regularly selling out. The Canadiens have out-grown it and have been speculating about a new arena. Moreover, the Bell Centre is a shitty concert venue, and a new rink with better acoustics is certainly in order for a city such as ours. The question is where to put it.

At the same time, passenger rail traffic has increased dramatically, both CN and CP have rebounded to become two of the largest railways in the entire world and the AMT and VIA are both under pressure to provide better service. Calls for airport express trains and a high-speed line between Montreal and Toronto grow every year, and it is becoming apparent that the plan to save Windsor Station from outright demolition was exceptionally wise – we may need to use it again.

Complicating this issue is Cadillac Fairview’s proposal to develop condominiums and an office tower around the Bell Centre, seemingly designed to be integrated into the featureless facade of the arena.

Regular reader EMDX provided this graphic of an overhead perspective of a train viaduct designed to connect the track leading from Lucien l’Allier around to Gare Centrale, something which has been floated around for a while now, and that Cadillac Fairview had also proposed as part of a plan to build a new train station south of Windsor Station.

But if the Bell Centre were simply torn down, we wouldn’t have to build a viaduct, which runs the risk of further cutting up the urban tapestry and creating a larger divide between the CBD and Griffintown, which is in the process of being redeveloped. In addition, we could return Windsor Station to its former grandeur and actually use it as a train station, while land liberated by the demolition of the Bell Centre would still allow for Cadillac-Fairview’s tower plan, should that ever get off the ground.

But perhaps the best part of this little scheme of mine is that there is a great deal of potential for a new arena, and I can imagine it would be the kind of thing that might be able to anchor a neighbourhood and lead to exceptional redevelopment. This could be the case of the Canadiens management were to consider purchasing the former Canada Post sorting facility in Griffintown along Rue Ottawa. See for yourself by checking this bird’s-eye view. The adjacent lots are all 1970s light industrial and are prime for redevelopment. Furthermore, it’s just a couple of streets down from uber-trendy Notre Dame West and the plot of land, currently owned by Canada Lands Corporation, is considerably larger than the Bell Centre site, possibly allowing for a much larger arena, not to mention more parking space. CLC is looking to rid itself of the building, and such a development, specifically on that site, may allow for a complete re-genessis of the area.

I really wish I could get someone in Canadiens management to consider demolishing the Bell Centre and making this move – it would give a whole new meaning to the term ‘nos amours’ in my eyes. An urban-planning conscientious professional hockey team – how much more Montréalais could it get?

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