Montreal Makes People Feel Welcome With Safe Streets, Happy Places & Green Spaces
See Montreal’s Newest Innovations!
This Streetfilm is a fun walking tour I took with Patrick Murphy to see some of the newest innovations in Montreal. He and his wife created the Youtube channel “Oh the Urbanity!” which has been doing excellent informative transportation/streetscape videos for over 5 years.
My standing piece of advice for those who live in North America who pine to see the best-practice streets of dozens of places in Europe or want to educate colleagues/friends what’s possible: just go to Montreal. It’s much closer. They really have it all.
Their Réseau express vélo (the REV!) grows by the year into a safe and often w-i-d-e bike network for people to get around. They have some of the nicest neighborhoods (with dramatic traffic calming & daylighting) and many phenomenally long open streets & public spaces. Plus they’re in the midst of a transit expansion with Réseau express métropolitain (the REM!) is a fully-automated light rail that already has some stations on line and will be fully operational in two years. Their Metro runs extremely frequently (average wait time during rush hour is 3 minutes!) making it simple to get around only by biking, walking and train.
You will not be disappointed. Below is the fantastic car-free Rue St. Catherine which each year boasts new layouts and interactive exhibits. Here are just a few from outside my hotel. The musical bicycles were constantly being ridden with vigor by children and adults alike.
Diagonal Diverters, Bioswales & Daylighting…Oh My!
Most of the time I spent looking at traffic calming and Low Traffic Neighborhood style interventions (even if Montreal doesn’t call them that). I didn’t document much bicycling but I had to knit this short riding down one of my favorite streets. that I seem to randomly hit at least once per trip. Whether you call them rain gardens, bioswales or green infrastructure this kind of street structure makes the neighborhood beautiful.
And everywhere you go you’ll see eclectic outdoor art projects like in Philadelphia, Austin and Portland, OR. Whether it is murals, traffic-calming implementations, signage, sculptures or whatever. Getting around Montreal and discovering it brings smiles Here’s a tiny bit of what I saw new on this trip!
One exciting thing on Patrick’s tour is he brought me to Montreal’s first bike-protected intersection construction. Unfortunately it was still fenced off and not complete so I only grabbed photos.. But amazingly the next day I was biking with my pal Zvi and happened go by and the crews and fences were gone! So we got to do a sort of quick “Streetfillms Breaking News” bit for social media. The intersection still needs final bits, paint and signage, but was shocking to see it up and running 24 hours later.
A Protected Intersection Debuts for Montreal's Ave Christophe Colomb & Rue de Bellechasse
I’ve long been an admirer of the way Montreal goes all out in Summer. For over three months they close down many of their busiest commercial streets for people to stroll, shop, eat and bike (slowly), In the USA, one of the biggest complaints always seems to center on accessibility for seniors & those with physical challenges. I’m almost sure the majority of these cranks never regularly visit these places. When I went to the vibrant Wellington open street in Verdun it was filled with happy seniors taking advantage with most pushing hand strollers or on e-devices. I took all these photos in 10 minutes. (BTW: Same happens on 34th Ave open street in Queens, NY).
Well if you haven’t watched enough of my obsessions with the greening of Montreal’s intersections, here is yet another quick short I tuned in after we basically biked past a huge, deep daylighting trough in the process of being lined with new curbs after excavation.
The Glory of Montreal Daylighting: Watch one from infancy to "all growed up"!
And finally I leave you with this array of art. Essentially it’s my most favorite art display ever and….well…it’s easy to see why. Montreal artist Cécile Gariépy used 20 panels to take road signs in a different direction in a funny, quirky and clever way to engage the public to consider how we use and share public space! Originally installed in 2023 all along Rue St. Catherine, they have been re-deployed in clumps on the car-free street to my personal joy!
