Unfortunately for all of us, Montreal seems to have descended to the level
of a coffee shop economy in which expensive cups of coffee are status symbols
for people whose personal finances are often in a tight way.
Recently, I wrote about the need to make the public investments to put our
downtown into shape by buying up some of the more strategic empty lots and using
them either for new park space or for the building of public housing. Today, I
want to look at generating economic activity and wealth in the western part of
town and on an island-wide level.
Reviving
the west end economy
Commercial: Back in the bad old days of ex-mayor Jean Drapeau, our
city was cut in two for the excavation of the Decarie Expressway trench and
since then business to the west of the highway has largely languished.
While it is not practical to cover over the Decarie Expressway, it would be
relatively simple to hide it and to thus knit our city back together again. All
that is necessary is to build an extra section of bridge on each side of the
Decarie overpasses (especially at Sherbrooke Street) and to then either erect
buildings (à-la old London Bridge) or put in park space backed by barriers high
enough to make the highway invisible. Once the highway "disappeared" and the
city became one again there would be no obstacle to the expansion of commerce
and business activity continuing to flow west instead of hitting a wall at
Decarie.
Meanwhile, the businesses on and around the Decarie service roads heading
north and south would also benefit from having the highway hidden. It would be a
very simple matter to clamp on an extra lane of roadway (attached to the highway
walls with cantilevered supports) that could be used either as bicycle path or
as host to additional greenspace.
Residential: In order to boost economic activity and bring down the
average costs of maintaining the city it is also necessary to attract in more
people - both to share the load and to support local business and commerce. The
most obvious location to attract thousands of higher end taxpayers, investors
and spenders would be the Glen Yard site currently earmarked for the new McGill
hospital. Clearly, high value land should be used for activities that directly
or indirectly generate the taxes that finance hospitals and other such publicly
funded institutions. Given its superb location at the intersection of Westmount
and eastern NDG the Glen Yards site, with its easy access to both the Vendome
Metro station and the downtown Ville-Marie highway, is a perfect location for
residential development.
Ten-thousand or so new high end condo dwellers in the west end would both
boost the economy and throw a massive injection of extra taxes into the Montreal
public economy. The McGill hospital could be better built on the Blue Bonnets
site at Jean Talon and Decarie - a site that has access to the same Metro line
(Namur) and similar or better highway access. In addition, having the hospital
there would force the provincial government to ante up for the much needed
Cavendish/Royalmount road link which would also re-route much traffic from the
Trans Canada to Decarie, thus lessening congestion at the major intersection.
Boosting
the island-wide economy: For any society or economy to function well, each
generation has to make the effort to leave some substantial legacy for the next
unless a wearing down and eventual collapse is to be accepted. Sometimes it is
investments in canals or railways or roads or airports or dockyards or cultural
and recreational facilities and sometimes it is simply my parents' generation
fighting to save the world. Sometimes it is simply a question of building on the
shoulders that they have set us on and sometimes it is a question of rebuilding
or repairing that which previous generations have already built for us.
Sometimes it is simply a question of finishing the job that our predecessors
failed or forgot to complete.
Unfortunately, since the epoch of ex-mayor Drapeau and his establishment of
the modern Montreal tradition of ignoring infrastructure maintenance in favour
of frills, little has been done in terms of maintenance and our city is falling
into disrepair. One way to boost the Montreal economy would be to undertake a
massive program of road and water main rebuilding. This would have the same
positive effect on our economy as any other kind of construction boom and would
also help us to grow our tourist economy while making us generally feel better
about ourselves. Obviously, our leaders would have to convince the federal and
provincial governments to come up with a large chunk of the money necessary to
implement such a scheme.
However, the single greatest guaranteed boost for the west end and for the
Montreal and regional economy would be the completion of the Decarie Expressway
(15) with a direct link to the Laurentian Autoroute (15) to the north. The
tunnel under Ville St. Laurent to connect the two together would get vehicles
north and south without unnecessary delays related to detouring onto the
TransCanada while the TransCan itself would be freed from most of its traffic
congestion. The tunnel link has already been studied and approved by the
Ministry of Transport but no one seems interested in actually getting it dug.
The Decarie/Laurentian tunnel would eliminate uncounted lost hours in pointless
idling and back-ups, lessen commuter trip times, save business money, get us all
around faster and more efficiently and make our supporting road systems function
more smoothly - which would in turn give our economy a much-needed shot in the
arm. And, since better flowing traffic generates less pollution, making the
traffic flow better would also help to achieve environmental
objectives.
Does anybody have a shovel? Let's start digging.
Comments: jeremy.searle@sympatico.ca.
