Montreal’s Urbanist Transformation: 9 Steps Towards A Better City

Nite · #1 Posted **May 15, 2023, 4:50 AM**

Montreal’s Urbanist Transformation: 9 Steps Towards A Better City

craigs · #2 Posted **May 15, 2023, 5:14 AM**

If only there were a thread for city discussion videos, like, say, a "City Discussions Video Thread" or something.

Wigs · #3 Posted **May 17, 2023, 12:04 PM**

I appreciated the video. It's not a drone or tourist video, but an informative video of how Montreal is making their city more pedestrian and cyclist friendly.

MolsonExport · #4 Posted **May 17, 2023, 1:08 PM**

some good ingredients for the recipe for making cities more livable and vibrant. It helps to have great bones to make the beef stock, and Montreal has that in spades (more so than any other Canadian city, and more than all but a small handful of big American cities [NYC, Boston, Philly]).

safe to say that Montreal is a trillion years ahead of where I live (London, Ontario), where they are still enamoured with car-centric development (stroads, stroads, stroads, and more stroads, and the awful effect on the urban fabric).

Wigs · #5 Posted **May 17, 2023, 1:48 PM**

yeah London, Ontario makes Hamilton look more urban. A really good bus system (HSR) with high ridership (pre pandemic numbers anyway) helps as does Hamilton's older fabric (Hamilton was a top 10 city for almost every Canadian census)

I'm glad to see your hometown being a leader for Canada to follow in the 2020s. REM is exciting as well.

isaidso · #6 Posted **May 18, 2023, 5:56 AM**

As rapidly as Toronto improves, this is one area where Montreal is well ahead. When we do make progress it's often a case of 2 steps forward, 1 step back. The re-design of parts of Bloor from a 4 lane road to a 2 lane road is a good case in point. Instead of seizing on the opportunity to create generously wide sidewalks the city caved to motorists and built street parking. And on a subway line, no less.

I suspect it will be another 10-20 years before Toronto gets serious about pedestrianizing our city so we can realize our urban potential. Hopefully, Montreal's success will embarrass us into doing this properly. A case of a some healthy competition lifting all boats? Well done Montreal.