New Transportation Paradigm The Need for a New Transportation Paradigm for the West Island David Fletcher, West Island Community Member Objective: This section provides a quick sketch of the past development trends in the West Island and makes the case that the “baby boom” paradigm of residential development has created a situation which is environmentally untenable. Lacey road networks and low density housing makes environmentally friendly transportation more difficult and has presented recurring threats to community green spaces. If Montreal is to meet the outlines for carbon dioxide emissions set out in the Kyoto protocol, some major transportation and paradigm changes are required. Several of these possible strategies are addressed. With the “Baby Boom” phenomenon of the years following the World War II, the transformation of Montreal Island got under way. After the long restraint of the depression years and then the war years, Canada underwent a extraordinary spurt of economic growth. Population grew as new immigrants arrived and a new generation of young parents took advantage of the bright post-war outlook to raise their families. New houses, new communities were constructed and new paradigms devised to accommodate the expanding numbers. “Baby-boom” development As development of the West Island accelerated after the opening of did not include the Trans-Canada Highway in the mid-1960s, the rural landscape comprehensive planning for began its transformation into suburban, bedroom communities with future generations accompanying shopping malls, commercial centres and industrial parks. Mature forests, streams and wetlands, interspersed with farmers fields, and replete with all manner of wildlife gave way to the economic and social imperatives to create a built environment. Schools and hospitals, houses and road networks sprouted where once trees and fields had been. And it seems that little thought was given to comprehensive planning for future needs, certainly not across municipal boundaries. The problems besetting the West Island now were clearly not anticipated by those looking to the needs of the “baby boom” generation. Before the MUC, each In the days before the Montreal Urban Community was created, community pursued its each burgeoning West Island municipality was free to pursue its own planning style own style of urban planning. Within a loose framework of existing country roads, that would be developed into main arteries — roads such as Pittfield, Sources (St, Rémi), St. Jean, St. Charles, Gouin — and a number of new projected arteries such as Pierrefonds Blvd, Caring for Community 12.1 New Transportation Paradigm Brunswick and de Salaberry Blvd, a lacey network of roads, largely intended to discourage through traffic, was put in. (In newer communities elsewhere on the Island the same new street layout paradigm was also followed. And the shift from the customary grid, as any glance at a street layout map will bear witness, was swift and abrupt. However, most of this style of planning was concentrated in the hitherto largely undeveloped West Island where it became the norm.) In West Island communities, low density, single family dwellings, set in natural surroundings, were the order of the day. Promotional materials in Dollard des Ormeaux, during the 1960’s, invited prospective home owners to make “Wonderful Wooded Westpark” their community of choice. The model presented was of a family community safe for the raising of children who would have plenty of place to play. The traditional, rigidly applied, rectangular street grid of the older central city, more easily negotiated by traffic, was, particularly in the new western suburbs, consigned to history. Public transit did not While all this development went on, little was done to think through extend into the West the potential future public transit needs that would emerge in these Island until the 1970’s communities. Indeed until the early 1970’s, when the MUC came into existence, Montreal Transit Commission (MTC) service did not extend into the West Island. The Two Mountains and Rigaud train lines offered a less than comprehensive service, and bus service consisted of an unreliable and incomplete private system operated by the Brisebois Bus Company using school buses. The automobile, by default and by necessity, became the conveyance of choice — a Hobson’s choice, indeed. Poor transit planning and a disjointed, circuitous road system, which is ill adapted to anything but the private passenger vehicle, has left West Island communities a difficult — but not impossible — legacy to work with. Creative solutions to present transit needs, that do not create further problems in the process, are feasible and must be actively and urgently pursued. For a host of reasons, these solutions must not involve further road building. It should be noted that even in 2002, housing development in areas such as western Kirland still places basic amenities at an inconvenient distance to those without access to an automobile. Brief History of the Green Coalition The Green Coalition has its roots in efforts, dating from the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, to preserve the last of Montreal’s rapidly dwindling natural green spaces. As citizens across the West Island became increasingly alarmed at the transformation and degradation of the landscape from its predominantly rural and natural character, they formed up into action groups in their municipalities. Caring for Community 12.2 New Transportation Paradigm Municipal councils found themselves confronted by such groups throughout the West island. Citizens were to find, however, that the value they placed on a country-like atmosphere and open, natural spaces was not often shared by their elected councils. The imperatives driving decision-making at city hall were narrowly fiscal, with the focus being almost exclusively on increasing the tax base through development in order to keep property tax rates down. Quality of life was equated with the creation of an artificial, sanitized, built environment and keeping as much money as possible in residents pockets. Most mayors and councilors treated natural spaces as unworthy of preservation and suitable only to be transected by roads and exploited through development. In 1987 Saraguay citizens In Saraguay, a district in the extreme northwestern corner of started working to save Montreal, Sylvia Oljemark and her mother, Mary Jackson, were Bois Franc among the first to take up the fight against the ravaging of the remaining natural spaces. The efforts of the Saraguay Citizens Group were instrumental in preserving the Bois-de-Saraguay, getting action on the cleanup of the Bertrand Creek and bringing about the first phase in the creation of the Nature Park network between 1979 and 1982. The initial acquisitions included the creation of the Bois-de-Liesse Nature Park through which the Bertrand flowed. In 1987, the Saraguay Citizens group made its first efforts to have the southern half of the Bois Franc forest, ranked third in ecological value within the Montreal Urban Community (MUC), included in the Bois-de-Liesse Park. Efforts to save greenspace Elsewhere, other vocal and determined initiatives to control were spread throughout unbridled development followed. An epic list would be required to Montreal enumerate all those groups and individuals who contributed to the campaign, and only some of the key groups amd players will be listed here. Among them, “Préservation Environnement Pierrefonds” was formed under the leadership of Diane Fauteux, “Interaction Pointe-Claire” was led by Diane Noël and “Comité Environnement Ile Bizard,” was led by Nicole David-Strauss. In Senneville, the “Environmental Committee Senneville Citizens Association” was led by Michael Van der Linden and Liz Morgan. In Ste.-Anne-de-Bellevue the cause was taken up by the “Citizens to Save Ste Anne’s Forests” led by Gabriella Rheinhold, Peter Ilott, Richard Robert, and, in Kirkland, by Linda Trickey. Among the leaders of “Greenspace Beaconsfield” fighting for the Angell Woods were Cheryl Yank, Doug Smith and Anne-Marie Parent. In 1988, the “Citizens for the Bois Franc” was formed in Dollard des Ormeaux to spearhead the battle at city hall to preserve the Bois Franc forest, which was located in that municipality. Among its initial organizers was Vi Trivett, David Fletcher, Helena Fletcher, David Jordan and Daniel Stein. Virtually every community had an active core of campaigners battling for the protection of their Caring for Community 12.3 New Transportation Paradigm cherished natural spaces. It was in 1988, under the inspiration and instigation of Sylvia Oljemark that all these groups began to pull together to make common cause under the banner of the “Green Environment West Island.” In the following year, this umbrella had evolved into the Green Coalition, which assumed a broader mandate than West Island green space preservation and reached out to environmental groups throughout the province. In March, 1990, the Green Coalition became a federally chartered organization devoted to all manner of environmental issues. Despite efforts from Still, the Green Coalition’s most pressing issue remained environmentalists, the new preservation of Montreal’s rapidly dwindling green spaces. These city of Montreal inherited remain, today, in 2002, as key objectives to be resolved with a greenspace deficit Montreal City hall and its constituent boroughs. In January, 2002, the newly merged city inherited a serious deficit in quality, natural green space from the MUC. Through a full decade, starting in June 1992, the MUC maintained a freeze on half of a $200 million spending commitment undertaken on December 20, 1989. The reason cited by MUC Chaiman,Vera Danyluk, at the time, for the moratorium on green space spending was the economic downturn of the early 90’s. The moratorium Even with the resurgence of the economy through the intervening preventing greenspace period, no additional green spaces were purchased. Twice, in 1996 acquisition was extended and in 1999, the spending moratorium was renewed under the twice by the Bourque persuasion of Pierre Bourque’s Montreal city administration.