Thursday, April 12, 2007

An Urban Planner's Wet Dream


I woke up this morning, and discovered thanks to the Montreal City Weblog, that the reintroduction of tramways and the 'boulevardisation' of the Bonaventure Autoroute is closer to becoming a reality. The entire 12th floor of Concordia University (save for the Poli-Sci kids who occupy the smaller section of the floor) just has a spontaneous orgasm.. i could hear it. Okay, maybe i'm the only one in that respect, but this is the type of stuff we urban planning students dream of.

The first proposed tramway is to begin at Dorchester Square and loop around to Berri-Uqam metro. All the while passing the Cité Multimedia, Griffintown, The old port, and the new CHUM mega-hospital. It's a great first step for the city, but this line would seem quite short and not that beneficial to Montrealers, catering mostly to tourists. The benefits of tramways is that they have large capacities and are extremely cheap per-passenger when compared to metros. The city should take advantage of this and have the first proposed line strive for something a little more extraordinary.

One again, thank-you to the Montreal City Weblog, you've helped make my day!

2 comments:

Blork said...

The areas around Griffintown and Cité Multimedia desperately need quick and direct links to downtown, for sure.

Unfortunately, this is Montreal, which means it will cost twice as much as they budget for, take three times longer than even the most pessimistic are willing to guess, and when it opens it will be horribly flawed.

So start saving your change. By the year 2040 you'll be able to take a very slow tram from Boul. Rene Levesque to rue Notre Dame, where you'll have to change lines and wait 30 minutes for another tram that will take you as far as rue University, where against all reason it will terminate. And it will only cost you $40 a ride!

What, me cynical? ;-)

Jeannetto said...

Yeah I can tell your excited, it is the only thing you`ve talked about the last 3 days.