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Some say it will reduce access to mountain and increase traffic in nearby areas.
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Mayor Valérie Plante came under fire from multiple sides Thursday for her plan to ban most vehicle traffic from Camillien-Houde Way on Mount Royal later this decade.
Montreal plans to shut Camillien-Houde to through traffic by 2027 and turn it into a pedestrian promenade and cycling lane as part of an estimated $91-million revamp of the area, Plante said Wednesday. Bus service, adapted transit and parking will all be improved to make the mountain accessible to all Montrealers, the mayor insisted. Emergency vehicles will be allowed on the new bike path.
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“We cannot accept this,” Steven Laperrière, general manager of the Regroupement des activistes pour l’inclusion au Québec, a lobby group that represents people with disabilities, said in a telephone interview. “When they tell us that the mountain is going to be accessible to all, we have too much experience to accept this answer. Show me. It’s not been proven.”
Nearby areas such as Outremont will probably bear the brunt of the car traffic that can no longer cross the mountain because of the closure, said borough mayor Laurent Desbois.
“This decision goes against everything we have been trying to do in fighting transit traffic,” Desbois said in an interview. “There was no mention of the impact this change will have on the surrounding boroughs. For us it’s a major concern.”
Desbois said he wasn’t consulted by the Plante administration. He called the move “unilateral.”
While Plante acknowledged Wednesday that the decision would undoubtedly “shake up some habits” among motorists, she said it was made with the benefit of future generations in mind. Banning cars from Camillien-Houde will help to enhance air quality, preserve biodiversity and improve the safety of both pedestrians and cyclists, Plante said.
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Eighty-five per cent of the estimated 10,000 vehicles that cross the mountain daily use it as a transit route, according to city of Montreal data.
Once the transformation work is complete, cars will still be able to access Mount Royal Park via Remembrance Rd., Montreal says. Existing parking lots, located at Beaver Lake and Smith House, will remain accessible, with an unspecified number of extra spaces reserved for families and people with reduced mobility.
Plante’s announcement comes five years after a controversial pilot project by her administration that barred cars from crossing Mount Royal. Critics at the time said the city should have consulted the public before imposing the closure.
Some, like RAPLIQ’s Laperrière, challenge the mayor’s assertion that Camillien-Houde’s permanent closure will cut pollution.
“Do you think the 10,000 people who take their car are going to stop taking their car? No. they are going to go around Mount Royal Park,” Laperrière said. “Travelling by car is simply going to take more time, and produce more greenhouse gas emissions and more congestion. So if reducing pollution is the premise here, they are missing the mark.”
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Plante’s plan ignores the main points raised by the Office de consultation publique de Montréal (OCPM), which held hearings on access to the mountain and recommended in 2019 that automobile traffic be maintained on Camillien-Houde and Remembrance while the city plans a park access road with lower speed limits and more space for cyclists and pedestrians. The OCPM called for a route “that is better integrated into the vocation of Mount Royal Park and respects its natural heritage.”
“We’re very disappointed that the mayor and her administration are not respecting the results of the public consultation,” Maxime Jacques, Mount Royal Cemetery’s general manager, told the Montreal Gazette Thursday in an interview. “It’s good that Remembrance will remain a two-way street, but we would have hoped that vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists would have been able to cohabit on Camillien-Houde.”
Along with Notre-Dame-des-Neiges, Mount Royal Cemetery is one of two cemeteries on the mountain. Notre-Dame-des-Neiges representatives couldn’t be reached for comment Thursday.
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Pedestrian safety could become a major issue post-closure if motorists who drive up Remembrance end up cutting through Mount Royal Cemetery — via its southern entrance — in a bid to save time, Jacques said.
“Our fear is that people will use our cemetery’s private lanes as a shortcut, which will definitely have a negative impact on us,” he said. “As a non-profit, we are not equipped to cope with a substantial increase in traffic on our property. We think it will endanger the families who come to pay their respects, our employees and any other visitor who is present.”
Closing Camillien-Houde could also discourage Montrealers who come from the north and the northeast of the city from visiting Mount Royal because of increased travel times, Desbois said.
“In essence, this will reduce access to the mountain,” he said.
Questioned by reporters at city hall on Thursday, Plante sought to allay Montrealers’ fears by saying there is room for her plan to be tweaked. At any rate, construction would only begin after Montreal hosts cycling’s Road World Championships in September 2026.
“It’s important to know we’re very serious about improving public transit access, and there will be more parking for people with reduced mobility and families on the mountain,” Plante said. “We announced the project for 2027, and that gives us the time to make other adjustments. The plan is still to make a huge pedestrian promenade, but we will adjust and we will have conversations with our partners.”
That’s unlikely to appease Laperrière, who says he plans to voice his complaints during question period at city hall over the coming weeks.
“They are pleasing their electoral base by focusing on cyclists, but they are forgetting a major chunk of the population,” Laperrière said. “You cannot deny access like that to people with disabilities.”
ftomesco@postmedia.com
Jason Magder of the Montreal Gazette contributed to this report.
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