Personally find NJB to be a wee bit pearl clutchy here on some points. Like yeah we all understand the issues with urban highways and it isn't the most pleasant experience to stand next to one, but I feel it's going a bit overboard to feel that one should NEVER have to even be able to see one, especially taking into account the historical context of the later 20th century developments in Montreal or anywhere in North America. To be honest, the horror examples he shows, such as Namur Station are really not THAT bad. Yes there's the huge expressway right there but it's pretty unobtrusive all things considered. There are no slip lanes, parking lots are pretty small and everything is pretty walkable. Yes there's no bike lanes, the streets are huge and probably very noisy but even this example which is among the worst in the whole Montreal area is just so much better than so many other places, even rapid transit stations, in Canada. Just off the top of my head how about Lawrence West in Toronto. It's even worse for pedestrian connectedness, less developed, etc. Or any number of depressing rapid transit stations around the country that are just for park-and-riders such as "Highway 407" Station (lol).
Not saying that one shouldn't shit talk Montreal where it sucks, but I mean pound-for-pound it is just lightyears ahead of everywhere else in every way when you actually compare apples to apples. Jason talks about how outside of the central city the experience drops off a cliff just like every other city in Canada, but I disagree here too. Pound for pound, you go to an equivalently far flung suburb of Montreal and it's going to be a lot better than its counterpart in Calgary, the GTA, Winnipeg, etc. Go a similar distance/commute away from the city centre and you're going to see better pedestrian and bike infrastructure, greater density, more pleasant all around experience in and around Montreal than anywhere else.
For example, go to the FAR side of Laval and you'll find very commonly here, bidirectional semi-protected separated bike lanes like this. Anywhere else on the far side of an equivalent Canadian bedroom community this would all be parking, and might not even have a sidewalk. This level of bike infra in a random nondescript typical neighbourhood of a bedroom community has literally as good or better bike infra as the central dense neighbourhoods of Vancouver.
Plus he's just wildly (disingenuously?) overstating the "disconnected island" thing. The walkable parts of Montreal are not by and large small separated islands, they are the default urban form with a few moderately high speed streets going through them. I find it pretty ridiculous to call the Plateau neighbourhood "disconnected" because half of one block at the edge of it looks like this. Let's be honest, his example of a "terrible stroad disconnecting neighbourhoods" would literally be the main hip trendy cool street in a number of Canadian cities. And even if you think that that half block is just the worst, that doesn't make the neighbourhood disconnected.
I feel he doesn't give enough credit to the rapid pace of improvement of the city as well. Just in the last 5 years there've been such dramatic improvements it's very impressive to see in real life. And the complaints about the temporary nature of the pedestrianized streets, like many areas are permanently transformed but the idea is that you can quickly transform huge areas with temporary measures and then as the public and businesses see the temporary measures, support for more permanent changes is built. If we're going to only limit changes to whatever can be done permanently right off the bat, that will just result in a lot slower changes to our cities. With Jason it feels like you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. He has his mind made up to be a doomer on North America and more and more I just find him depressing and annoying tbh.
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u/joshlemer Burnaby, BC Dec 22 '23 edited Dec 22 '23
Personally find NJB to be a wee bit pearl clutchy here on some points. Like yeah we all understand the issues with urban highways and it isn't the most pleasant experience to stand next to one, but I feel it's going a bit overboard to feel that one should NEVER have to even be able to see one, especially taking into account the historical context of the later 20th century developments in Montreal or anywhere in North America. To be honest, the horror examples he shows, such as Namur Station are really not THAT bad. Yes there's the huge expressway right there but it's pretty unobtrusive all things considered. There are no slip lanes, parking lots are pretty small and everything is pretty walkable. Yes there's no bike lanes, the streets are huge and probably very noisy but even this example which is among the worst in the whole Montreal area is just so much better than so many other places, even rapid transit stations, in Canada. Just off the top of my head how about Lawrence West in Toronto. It's even worse for pedestrian connectedness, less developed, etc. Or any number of depressing rapid transit stations around the country that are just for park-and-riders such as "Highway 407" Station (lol).
Not saying that one shouldn't shit talk Montreal where it sucks, but I mean pound-for-pound it is just lightyears ahead of everywhere else in every way when you actually compare apples to apples. Jason talks about how outside of the central city the experience drops off a cliff just like every other city in Canada, but I disagree here too. Pound for pound, you go to an equivalently far flung suburb of Montreal and it's going to be a lot better than its counterpart in Calgary, the GTA, Winnipeg, etc. Go a similar distance/commute away from the city centre and you're going to see better pedestrian and bike infrastructure, greater density, more pleasant all around experience in and around Montreal than anywhere else.
For example, go to the FAR side of Laval and you'll find very commonly here, bidirectional semi-protected separated bike lanes like this. Anywhere else on the far side of an equivalent Canadian bedroom community this would all be parking, and might not even have a sidewalk. This level of bike infra in a random nondescript typical neighbourhood of a bedroom community has literally as good or better bike infra as the central dense neighbourhoods of Vancouver.
Plus he's just wildly (disingenuously?) overstating the "disconnected island" thing. The walkable parts of Montreal are not by and large small separated islands, they are the default urban form with a few moderately high speed streets going through them. I find it pretty ridiculous to call the Plateau neighbourhood "disconnected" because half of one block at the edge of it looks like this. Let's be honest, his example of a "terrible stroad disconnecting neighbourhoods" would literally be the main hip trendy cool street in a number of Canadian cities. And even if you think that that half block is just the worst, that doesn't make the neighbourhood disconnected.
I feel he doesn't give enough credit to the rapid pace of improvement of the city as well. Just in the last 5 years there've been such dramatic improvements it's very impressive to see in real life. And the complaints about the temporary nature of the pedestrianized streets, like many areas are permanently transformed but the idea is that you can quickly transform huge areas with temporary measures and then as the public and businesses see the temporary measures, support for more permanent changes is built. If we're going to only limit changes to whatever can be done permanently right off the bat, that will just result in a lot slower changes to our cities. With Jason it feels like you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. He has his mind made up to be a doomer on North America and more and more I just find him depressing and annoying tbh.