Leaving your
ride behind

>> Car-Free Day gets transportation
wonks thinking about other options

GO BEYOND A FEEL-GOOD DAY: Richard Bergeron

by PATRICK LEJTENYI

The annual Car-Free Day—which is today, Thursday, Sept. 20—has become an annual tradition, annoying commuters while giving us all an opportunity to ponder our dependence on fossil-fuel-burning vehicles. And while the quality of air in the city’s downtown core does indeed improve for a few hours, the six hours (between 9:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m.) that cars are banned from McGill College in the west to St-Urbain in the east, de Maisonneuve in the north to René-Lévesque in the south, is hardly a revolution in transportation. Ste-Catherine will be closed between Jeanne-Mance and St-Urbain all day, so irritated drivers will take a slightly more circuitous route to work, and the drive home won’t change all that much. So, what’s the point, really?

“I’m ambiguous about it,” says Plateau city councillor, environmentalist and Projet Montréal leader Richard Bergeron. “It lets us have a good conscience, like we’re Boy Scouts. There’s a lot of hoopla, but there is an intrinsic weakness to it.”

He does note that the day has been useful in promoting awareness about global warming and air pollution, but there has yet to be a sustained, meaningful follow-up to encourage Montrealers to explore other methods of transportation.

Tramways and tolls

Not that there is a lack of options. Raphaël Fischler, of McGill’s School of Urban Planning, says making Montreal streets more pedestrian and biker friendly should be an urgent priority. While not a fan of pedestrian-only streets, he does say that measures like widening sidewalks, repaving streets and other traffic calming measures can add to a city’s livability. “Duluth is a good example to follow,” he says. “It’s not closed to cars, but the car is not the sole master of the space, and pedestrians are not scared little animals.”

One controversial measure that has garnered some curious glances is the massive, 250-kilometre, $10-billion tramway system Bergeron has long proposed. Fischler says he is “against a massive investment of funds because we have so much to invest in our existing infrastructure. We need to renew our fleets of subway cars and buses, we need to upgrade and modernize our equipment, we need to maintain and improve the quality of service—a tramway just isn’t reasonable at this point.”

Sidney Ribaux, founder of local green group Équiterre, however, thinks a system with a more limited scope is feasible. “I think a tramway is appropriate for certain areas, like along Parc, Henri-Bourassa, Pie-IX and Côte-des-Neiges,” he says. But he also says things like reserved bus lanes would be an excellent, and cheap, first step in reducing Montreal’s collective fossil fuel footprint.

One idea Ribaux likes is the reintroduction of tollbooths for off-islanders. Ribaux says tolls would bring in some $300-million annually, and the funds raised could be put towards transit upkeep. “It would solve a lot of problems with congestion,” he says. “Five to 10 per cent of drivers don’t have to be crossing the bridges by car. It’s win-win for everybody.”

Bergeron, Fischler and Ribaux all agree that the current public transit system, while far from broken, needs more money and new ideas to keep up with the times. The Société de Transport de Montréal will be introducing eight hybrid electric/diesel buses next year, but Ribaux says articulated buses, currently serving some off-island suburbs, would be an additional bonus.

Peaceful co-existence

As for Car-Free Day, Ribaux says he would like to see it be a “bit more aggressive, maybe a bit longer. But it is an important event to get people to think about transportation issues.” Fischler says that, “Rather than just pushing for a car-free day, or a car-free year, we should ask for a balanced transportation day” (while noting that the title of such a day needs some work). “But Car-Free Day is a great way to make one notice the impact of a car on a city by its absence.”

And even Bergeron, despite his misgivings, says the day does have its benefits. “It helps us look at [different ways] of ending the hegemony of the car,” he says.

Fannie Dulude, meanwhile, will celebrate the official, international Car-Free Day on Saturday, Sept. 22, in her own style. Her group, le Collectif Montréal à vélo, will be staging a die-in at 5:30 p.m. at Phillips Square. “We want to take back the street for a minute, or five, or 10,” she says. “We’re just going to lie down and think about how quiet a city can be without cars.”