Montreal Trades Expressway for “Urban Boulevard”
Montreal has begun tearing down its part of a mid-century expressway to make way for a greener, more transit- and pedestrian-friendly boulevard, reports the Montreal Gazette. The Bonaventure Expressway, an elevated 11-lane highway built for Expo 67, will give way to the street-level Bonaventure urban boulevards, a combined nine lanes of traffic separated by a series of green spaces. Montreal’s new, $142 million entryway is scheduled for completion in mid-2017, just in time for the city’s 375th anniversary.
It’s good they’re tearing down the elevated expressway. They’re ridiculously expensive to maintain, especially with Montreal’s ‘freeze and thaw’ seasons. However, they’re only reducing the number of moving lanes from 11 to 9. This is still obscenely over-engineered for 25,000 vpd, even with a few signals.
How much was the fed’s share? The province’s? I doubt either of those senior levels of governments are financially helping the City of Vancouver replace the viaducts. I’m happy to be corrected here, if anyone knows the facts.
“senior government contributions” are listed as a funding source in the 2015 staff report. Note that what was approved was a two year work package, one outcome of which is to report to Council the final funding strategy, presumably including the results of various negotiations.
http://vancouver.ca/files/cov/2015-Staff-Report-Removal-of-the-Georgia-and-Dunsmuir-Viaducts.pdf