Allow me to quote the late Bernard Lang who used this comment to refer to the extension of Cavendish Boulevard : “We don’t need it, we don’t want it and we cannot afford it!”
Well that was several decades ago. The Cavendish extension will occur in my lifetime. But as long as I serve as the councillor for District 2, I will vehemently oppose any discussions around extending Kildare Road to Jean Talon and Decarie. Why? We don’t need it, we don’t want it and we cannot afford it!”
I take my hat off to our city officials who put together an outstanding brief called Transit First: Connecting The Sector in Namur-De La Savane.
The Hippodrome development is the residential heart of the Namur–De la Savane (NDLS) district, which includes part of the City of Côte Saint-Luc, the Town of Mount Royal, and the Montreal boroughs of Saint-Laurent and Côte-DesNeiges–Nôtre-Dame-de-Grace. Enclaved between the Canadian Pacific (CP) rail yard to the west, train tracks to the south, Décarie Boulevard to the east, and a large commercial and industrial area to the north, the development is being promoted as a full, inclusive, carbon-neutral living environment. As is the case for other projects in the area, a major overhaul of the transport infrastructure with significantly better access and egress is required in order to make that work. What is needed is the opening up of major streets such as Cavendish Boulevard, as well as a full range of efficient transit options.
You can read the full brief here. I merely object to item eight, which proposes the extension of Kildare Road.
We do not need a highway running past an elementary and high school (JPPS-Bialik) nor Beth Chabad, which also benefits from a beautiful piece of greenspace they use for weddings in the summer. Buses turn around in that section and children are dropped off at school. The area is already has enough traffic.
Mayor Mitchell Brownstein wanted to share this clarification. "Our brief requests many improved options for movement in and out of our city," he told me. "The recommendation regarding extending Kildare could be through a tramway, and/or pedestrian and bicycle paths. Our priority for cars remains the Cavendish extension, with two lanes in each direction for cars and a tramway in the median down the center linking Saint Jacques to Namur. Imagine if that tramway could go through Kildare to Jean Talon directly as well, either using the perimeter of the rail yards or some other configuration. We also need train stations to make use of the existing Saint Jerome line that passes through our city There is a lot we can do and the four mayors in the region, Mayor Desousa of Saint Laurent, Mayor Roy of Town of Mont Royal and Mayor Montgomery of Cöte des Neiges/ NDG are working together with us to move these ideas forward."
Many years ago the City of Montreal was supposed to extend Kildare. Then Mayor Jean Doré reneged on deal with Mayor Lang who took the matter to the Quebec Municipal Commission. Côte Saint-Luc won a multi-million dollar cash settlement as well as ownership of the area of homes in what was then called North Hampstead Estates (renamed North of Hampstead) near Decarie Square.
Anytime the extension of Kildare came up again thus far in my 14 years on council, it came with a massive price tag attached to it. This simply is never going to happen. Residents of Marc Chagall, Merrimac, Rembrandt, Ilan Ramon and Sir Walter Scott in particular do not want it. Ditto for the congregants at Beth Chabad and the parents, students and staff at JPPS-Bialik.
So please, ignore section eight in our position paper and let’s focus on Cavendish, which this time will be an indirect link through Royalmount!
I have finally accepted this logic. Which east-west street would you accept to join with Jean Talon and why?
Toby Shulman
As a Cote St. Luc resident (albeit not in District 2) and as an urban planner by training, I would say – given your opinion – to either link Mackle (instead of Kildare) to the ex-Hippodrome site as a full road or to make links between either Kildare or Mackle to the ex-Hippodrome site only for pedestrians/cyclists.