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A tramline
named desire
>>Projet Montréal dreams big as
it unveils its ambitious rethink of our public transportation system
MOVING
PEOPLE CLEANLY: Projet Montréal’s downtown vision, in
blue
by
PATRICK LEJTENYI
Montreal hasn’t had a tramway system for
almost five decades now, but Richard Bergeron has been calling for one
ever since he founded the municipal Projet Montréal party in
2004. As a former strategic analyst with the provincial Agence
métropolitaine de transport, Bergeron is particularly
well-qualified to offer alternatives to the city’s current
transportation mess. Last Saturday, at a Projet Montréal
meeting, he unveiled one: a huge, ambitious network of tramways that
would criss-cross the island, involving some 250-kilometres of track,
to be built over 20 years at a cost of $20-billion, financed by the
provincial and federal governments. It’s no small dream, but he says
it’s an essential innovation if Montreal wants to avoid a complete
collapse of the current public transport system.
Bergeron has become increasingly impatient over Mayor Gérald
Tremblay’s on-again, off-again enthusiasm about returning tramways to
the city. In February 2006, the mayor visited Paris and waxed
enthusiastically about tramways, saying he wanted a 7.5- kilometre rail
built along Parc Ave. within four years. “When he said that, I was the
first one to say, ‘Bravo, we should do that right away,’” says
Bergeron. “But when he came back, the balloon had certainly deflated.”
He says Tremblay has kept back-pedalling since, and Bergeron is fed up.
“We’re offering this vision to the public,” he says. “If the city wants
to take an interest, so much the better.”
The plan is impressive in scope. Bergeron envisions some 45 kilometres
of track for the downtown core alone, with lines running east-west
along Pine, Sherbrooke, René- Lévesque, Notre-Dame and de
la Commune, and north-south on Atwater, Guy, Peel, University, Bleury,
St-Laurent, Berri and Papineau. The Guy track would extend up
Côte-des-Neiges, while the University track would extend south to
the port and over the water to Nuns’ Island and Île Jean-Drapeau.
Bergeron says the project’s first phase will concentrate there, with 25
kilometres of track laid down along Parc down to
René-Lévesque, over to the Bell Centre and Berri Square,
and east along Notre-Dame.
According to Bergeron, the tramway is a way for the city— which,
according to Projet Montréal’s figures, saw its car population
increase by almost 11,000 a year since 2002, while its human population
decreased by 22,500 per year in the same period—to not only curb its
greenhouse gas emissions, but also to change its character and
relationship to its residents. “We want to re-appropriate the city,” he
said on Saturday.
Not surprisingly, Bergeron looks to France for tramway inspiration. The
cities of Nantes, Bordeaux, Strasbourg and over 100 others have
rejuvenated their city centres by installing tram lines, he claims,
removing cars and making streets pedestrian friendly. But even American
cities like Buffalo, Houston and Dallas (“Those are in Texas!” he
exclaimed Saturday. “The home of cowboy hats and George Bush!”) have
installed slick new tramlines.
And because the tramcars are electric, Bergeron says, running them
won’t produce noxious fumes to choke Montrealers. He hopes the cars
will be built either by Bombardier or Alstom—he isn’t sold on either.
“My p’tit coeur de québécois initially wanted to give the
contract to Bombardier, but I’ve changed my mind,” he says, especially
since it was awarded the metro-replacement contract without having to
submit a bid.
The mayor plans to unveil his own transportation plan later this spring. |
