Canadian Urban Canyons - Page 77

isaidso · #**1521** Posted **Oct 25, 2020, 1:17 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

The generous width always made me think of it as an amazing opportunity for a separated LRT median. From my observation, the most common scenarios are that either a city has an overly-wide corridor that's perfect for LRTs but is very auto-friendly (which is why it has such corridors) and doesn't want to take any space from cars, or a city is dense and transit friendly, but doesn't have any suitable corridors so it has to built everything underground. In this case, the corridor literally already has space dedicated (mostly) to transit in the form of the peak period bus/taxi lanes.

Thoroughfares that are dense like that need a subway. I like seeing LRT on the street but prefer a subway by a long shot. I suspect that the LRT built on Toronto's Spadina Avenue and St. Clair will one day be ripped out and a proper subway built in its place. I understand the budget constraints but both should have been subway right from the get go.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rico Rommheim

Rene-Levesque is begging for a BRT. A connection from Atwater to somewhere in the east-end (Frontenac maybe?, A straight connection to the eventual Pie-IX BRT?) There are rumblings of one on the agoramtl site, but that's it.

Isn't the Orange Line pretty much 50m away from that street?

isaidso · #**1522** Posted **Oct 25, 2020, 1:36 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Mtl

Good point. There are so many pedestrians in downtown Montreal in the underground city that I always found that it took away from the vibrancy of the streets. Sometimes I even wish there was no underground city in Montreal. I surely hope that it won't get any bigger.

Valid points but as downtown Montreal intensifies/more condos go up, Montreal will likely end up with both a busy underground city and busy at grade streets. It bears mentioning that Hong Kong is built on 3 levels (below ground, ground, above ground) in many places. It's so dense it needs all 3.

The underground city in both Montreal and Toronto rightly get maligned as claustrophobic malls but it's a mistake to overlook their value. We shouldn't discard one in favour of the other but improve both. Underground was designed cheaply with little thought given to making them inviting. They could be so much more than they are. Much higher ceilings, clever use of light, better materials, incorporating things other than stores (swimming pools, gardens, public galleries), better architecture, etc. are all needed.

Look at the Moscow subway. That's underground but is 100 times nicer than the average walkway underneath Montreal or Toronto. You get what you pay for. We've just never bothered to spend the money to make these places attractive. We should invest in these subterranean worlds AND improve the public realm at grade. We can and should do both.

Nouvellecosse · #**1523** Posted **Oct 25, 2020, 1:39 AM**

I don't usually think about subways in terms of individual streets but rather more broadly in terms of districts, neighborhoods, etc. (unless there's a single street that forms the centre of a large area such as Yonge). For instance, I think of Montreal Nord as being in need of rapid transit service because of its population size, density and distance from existing services. But I wouldn't say that it has to be on any specific street.

In the case of downtown, there are two lines running parallel about 660m apart with Boul. R-L roughly between them, similar to how Bay sits between the two arms of Yonge. So downtown already has strong subway coverage, meaning that at this point it's more an issue of capacity. If it ever gets to the point when the current system is over strained like parts of the Toronto subway, then another line would be advisable. But that wouldn't require it to be on any specific street, just like how Toronto's DRL had several potential route options, none of which included Bay.

Robertpuant · #**1524** Posted **Oct 25, 2020, 2:16 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rico Rommheim

I'm totally with you on this one. I've never been a fan of the underground city. First of all, let's be real: this "city" is only a collection of interconnected foodcourts and hallways leading to cheap gimmicky stores and massive shopping complexes.

It's layout works poorly as a direct path to any particular destination and doesn't actually connect the two ends of downtown.

Sure, it'll take you from Bonaventure metro to Peel metro quickly enough if you know the way, but who how useful is this actually?

So if the underground city isn't really all that big or as useful as it's claimed (by tourist brochures and city boosters mostly), let's keep it this way and nvest on making the outside walking experience more enjoyable.

Amen.