[kylemacmac]

Originally Posted by Phil McAvity

...I was simply calling bullshit on another poster's comments about Montreal's (supposed) freeway system. Paying attention helps.

Hi Phil. And everyone else. This is a bit off track, but kinda relevant to the discussion of the Viaducts.

Like many major cities in the 50s and 60s Montreal built major freeways leading directly into downtown. What was finally built was a semi-complete system of freeways, so that one can enter the downtown core from 2 sides directly on freeways, (West and South), but from the North and East vehicles have to travel over surface streets to get to downtown from the freeways in those corners of the city, like Vancouver, local pressure in residential areas of the Plateau and East End stopped the construction of freeways.

The major theme of the local civic election in Montreal right now is transport, and there are push and pull forces going on, with some mayoral candidates calling for the completion of the autoroute network by connecting hwy 720 to hwy 25 in the east, (The Notre Dame boulevard/freeway proposal) while other candidates are very opposed to this plan, some calling for the drastic removal of most of these downtown autoroutes, and transforming one of them into an urban boulevard similar to Pacific BLVD, and a reduction of vehicular capacity on the downtown tunnel with reserved lanes for buses and trams. Just to the West of downtown connecting the 15/20/720 hwys together is the Turcot interchange which handles hundreds almost 300 000 vehicles per day. This interchange is in horrendous condition (chunks of concrete fall from it regularly, and they've given up trying to patch the concrete, and just bolt chain link fences to the structure to avoid the larger chunks falling onto the roadway...like the Sea-to-Sky) Unsurprisingly, the province is trying to fast-track it's replacement. (Which will cost upwards of $1.5 billion) Obviously something has to be done kinda quickly, and they can't exactly remove this interchange as it's the only North-South route from a major manufacturing area to the South of the city, but there's a massive public movement going on to reduce the capacity of freeways and bring some sense back to the city. Meanwhile, extremely corrupt hwy maintenance rackets want to keep the status quo and are paying off everyone in sight to keep the freeways in place. I'm not making this up, and it's not a conspiracy, local politicians are resigning left right and centre over it. The situation is messy and doesn't look like it will end anytime soon.

This is the kind of crap Vancouver would be dealing with if we'd built the complete downtown freeway plan back in the 50s and 60s.

The fact that we don't have an ingrained freeway culture or infrastructure makes it easier to make changes. Compared to what other cities are dealing with, the viaducts are kind of a joke, and keeping them or altering/removing them really wouldn't make much of a difference. I personally think that without the connecting Grandview cut hwy to Hwy 1, the viaducts are a silly 30 second freeway over very central potentially-useful urban land, which the redevelopment of could maybe help improve the absolute worst urban area of Canada. (the DTES) The viaducts don't really serve a purpose beyond moving cars 2kms in 90 seconds, which if changed to 120 seconds, or even 180 seconds, would it be that much of a deal, especially if downtown was improved? (BCPhil...if it takes each and every viaduct user 2 minutes longer to commute, who says they won't want to move 2 minutes closer, on average, or push for other transportation improvements?) The viaducts will be relatively painless to alter/enhance/remove, and why wouldn't we want to at least try to make a positive change in a horrible part of the city, which also happens to be a international sore spot, in our desperately-wanting-to-be-internationally-famous-city?

I for one vote for redevelopment to the area East of Downtown, around the viadcuts, with mixed use neighborhoods, and yes, cars too! But just not moving so fast...and not so in the air.