Montreal Cavendish project now a stretch without roads, suburb says

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A year after saying it had given up on building an extension to Cavendish Avenue, the City of Montreal has told neighbouring suburbs it is studying options that don’t involve a road connection, a suburban representative said.

“By asking the Montreal city planning department, we found out that they are looking at alternatives to the Cavendish-Cavendish link, which is no longer planned,” said Dida Berku, a Cote-Saint-Luc city councillor, this week.

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“It’s a bike path and tramway.”

While the road connection for cars and trucks has not yet been officially declared dead, Bercu said, “It is now very clear.”

“We’re told … that the road connection itself is no longer planned,” she said of a recent dispute with Montreal civil servants.

The exchange with Montreal’s planning department comes after Mayor Valérie Plante took office. The Cavendish extension was omitted from the city’s master plan for the Namur-Arena district This spring, the project was scrapped as a dedicated funding item in Montreal’s 10-year capital works plan update to 2024.

Bercourt argues that the new project in the latest capital works plan, called Namur-Arena-Cavendish, includes Cavendish in name only because there is no money for it. In fact, Cavendish is not mentioned in the project description. It describes the “main intervention” in the short term as the reconstruction of rue Jean-Taloncy, where the Plante government plans to add a bike lane and a tram line.

The mayors of the boroughs of Côte St-Luc, the Town of Mount Royal and St-Laurent, whose communities and rail tracks lie where the Cavendish extension is to be built, denounced the oversight and claimed the city had reneged on its obligation to provide the provincial government with a budget for the Cavendish extension.

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Belcourt said supporters of the Cavendish project are preparing a petition asking the Quebec government not to fund the Hippodrome residential development in Montreal while it ensures the Cavendish-Cavendish link is restored.

The plan to connect the two ends of Cavendish at Côte-St-Luc and St-Laurent to relieve congestion on the Décarie Expressway has been discussed for 60 years. However, in 2017, Montreal signed an agreement with the Quebec government to transfer 46 hectares of the former Hippodrome-Blue Bonnets racecourse near Jean-Talon and Décarie Blvd. from the provincial government to the city for housing development, which became a contractual obligation for Montreal.

The Plante administration is counting on Now known as the Hippodrome of Namurwhich currently includes land around the Namur metro station at Jean-Talon, to create the city’s first carbon-neutral “eco-district” with up to 20,000 new homes. That’s the project described in Montreal’s latest capital works plan.

However, the agreement to cede the arena land to Montreal was conditional on Montreal’s commitment to build the Cavendish Highway. For example, one clause states: “The Cavendish-Cavendish connection is a highway for which Montreal is responsible and for which Montreal commits to include it in its transportation planning and three-year capital plan for the Montreal metropolitan area.” (Montreal now has a 10-year capital plan.)

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Another clause requires Montreal to consider the “vehicle capacity of the Décarie Expressway” when developing the Hippodrome land and incorporate the Cavendish-Cavendish connector.

In 2022, Montreal appears set to move forward with expansion of the Cavendish project. Plante administration submits project notification In partnership with the Quebec Public Environment Agency (BAPE). Project announcement is still open Published on the website of the Quebec Environment DepartmentHowever, Montreal has been slow to order the necessary environmental impact study to move forward with BAPE.

Plant City Hall and the city’s civil service did not respond to questions from The Gazette.

This spring, Plante told reporters at the unveiling of the Namur-Arena plan that the Cavendish line remained open but that development of the Arena site was not a priority.

“I want to assure everyone that what we call the ‘Cavendish to Cavendish’ project is still on the drawing board, so it will happen,” she said at the time.

“But what we’re going to do is (build in phases). Phase one is to build Jean-Talon to Cavendish North.”

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this Suburban partners not happy with Plante administration’s vision for the Cavendish Link described in the project notice, because although it includes cycleways, Sidewalks, green belts and public transport lanes, Only one lane in each direction Instead of two.

However, traffic expert Rick Leckner said having lanes is better than having none.

“The city has clearly not kept its word and has broken its promises multiple times,” he said.

Leckner is Cavendish Promotion Business Alliancewhich includes businesses in the Namur-De La Savane region.

With the upcoming opening of the Royalmount Shopping Centre and the construction of condominiums around Décarie, Leckner said the Cavendish has become even more necessary.

“The big compromise is just one lane in each direction,” he said of Cavendish.

“But now they seem to have taken that away. There absolutely has to be a mix of public transport, cars and cycle paths in order to get around.”

lgyulai@postmedia.com

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