That was one of the conclusions to come out of an information meeting held by Ministry officials at Victoria Hall on Monday evening.
The massive project involves the replacement of the Ville Marie’s elevated concrete sections, from the Turcot Interchange to Greene Avenue, with a highway at ground level or on embankments. It’s part of a larger undertaking the MTQ is launching this year.
The Turcot Interchange south of the Decarie Expressway, as well as connecting interchanges as far as Montreal West and as far south as de la Vérendrye Boulevard near Verdun, are also being torn down.
Four aspects of the Ville Marie segment of the project will have a particular impact on Westmount. Topping the list, Selby Street will be shut permanently and the few existing residential buildings will be demolished.
Greene Avenue will also become a two-way down to St. Antoine Street, the entrance from Greene to the eastbound lane of the expressway will be closed, and the Ville Marie’s eastbound Atwater Avenue exit will be reconfigured.
“In terms of impact of this project, it is clear that for our residents there will be some winners, and some losers and it elicits some major concerns, not only for the result, but also for a seven-year project which we will have to be living next to,” Mayor Karin Marks said following a presentation given by an MTQ official and a question period for residents.
Marks added that she was “not convinced” that some of the answers provided by the MTQ “are ones that really will be comforting to people … Several people are also saying this could be an opportunity to improve the quality of the environment and to increase the focus on public transit,” she said.
“I think in today’s environment we really have a responsibility to say not only let’s improve things for the cars, but let’s put the focus on public transit first and put the car in second place, and I’m not convinced that this project really comes at it from that point of view. And I think that’s what you’re hearing from our residents tonight.”
This will be the second time that Selby Street has been threatened with being wiped out of existence. Forty years ago, during the initial construction of the Ville Marie Expressway, local opposition to the project was sufficient to keep Selby from being erased completely.
City Councillor John de Castell, who currently lives on the small remaining section of the street, said he had been uncertain about the fate of his home, until it was confirmed by MTQ officials speaking at the meeting.
“It’s not the last of Selby, but the last of habitable buildings on Selby,” de Castell told the Examiner shortly after hearing the news.
Among the constraints the MTQ will have to deal with while completing the project, they need to maintain the flow of traffic on the expressway while the work is underway.
“If we don’t do that, this traffic is going to transit into the local residential area and that’s going to create a real mess,” said Alain Dubé of the MTQ. He said the ministry will have to close Selby Street to make room for the new expressway’s construction.
Sound barriers will be erected in some places along the sides of the expressway. “On the north side, the project will result in the reduction of one to 15 dBA,” said Dubé. He said a sound screen will be built on the south side and that air quality is also expected to improve. Answering questions from residents on the topic, Dubé suggested that the MTQ will not be erecting sound barrier sections everywhere along the north side of the completed expressway.
“We would have created a situation where we would have exceeded the interventional level, which I think is 65 dBA,” he said regarding an area west of Greene Avenue.
“So there will be no improvement?” a resident asked.
“From the actual situation? I would have to say no,” Dubé answered.
Another resident of the area west of Greene claimed that Marks recently told her and others that the City’s sound barrier “was cancelled as a result of the lowering of the expressway. Now that’s not going to happen. We’re not going to be benefited by that. We’re going to be disadvantaged by all the noise that is going to go on for something like four to five years … For you to say at this moment that you don’t know that the sound barrier is necessary given what’s happened is just incredible.”
Marks replied, “That’s not what I said. What I said the last time was that the MTQ were in the process of deciding what they were going to do and that the first information we had was that the Ville Marie was probably going to be lowered, that it didn’t make sense for us to go ahead with the sound barrier until we had that information …
“What we have right now says that a part of the community will probably benefit from it being lowered, a part will not benefit, and a part will probably have it being worse,” said Marks.
On a more positive note, she said environmental hearings to be held over the coming year may influence the outcome of the scenario.
The MTQ was accused of putting the interests of motorists before those of cyclists and pedestrians. “Bicycle paths are primarily for recreational purposes and do not address the origin/destination volume of traffic for which you are building your infrastructure,” said one man.
“So regardless of the number of bicycle paths, which we all welcome and would like to have, the impact on the traffic volume is practically unaffected for all intents and purposes. So the question still remains what are we doing here as far as the people, as opposed to cars or commuters or travelers, are concerned? And frankly from what you’re presented tonight, we do not see very much attention to the people element. It’s mostly for the automobile.”
