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Revised plans for the University of Montreal's billion dollar Outremont railway yard project, which were made public in Park Extension last week, give no indication that the City of Montreal and the university are going to follow an independent public consultation commission's suggestion to connect Park Extension into the campus by extending at least one local street. During an information meeting held at the William-Hingston Centre on June 18, Guy Breton, the university's executive vice-rector, said the U of M is satisfied with changes Montreal made to the university's initial plan, which was the subject of Office de Consultation Publique de Montréal hearings in Park Extension last year.
A 20-year project
In a report last summer following the hearings, the OCPM said the university should consult within the next year with the Borough of Villeray/St. Michel/Park Extension, as well as with the community groups who expressed views, after which the university should re-submit revised and more detailed plans for the opening phase of the $1 billion, 20-year project. The U of M plans to complete the first phase by 2011. The OCPM was critical of the university's original plan, which they suggested focused too much on the Borough of Outremont's requirements and neglected the needs of the other surrounding boroughs.
Nothing in revised plans
The OCPM's commissioners suggested the plans should be modified to include an opening eastward all the way to Park Avenue, as well as to prolong campus roadways northward to Wiseman Street and Outremont Avenue in Park Extension where they currently meet Beaumont Avenue. The report also said that a plan to consolidate railway tracks in the northeast area of the site risked cutting off Park Extension and other neighbourhoods and should be revised. However, according to a set of revised plans outlined last week by Sylvain Ducas, a City of Montreal urban planner who is responsible for the Outremont yard dossier, there is still no provision for extending any Park Extension street.
Borough was also in favour
The Borough of Villeray/St-Michel/Park Extension had also been in favour of the measure. "They're not opening up streets for cars to go through between Park and Outremont," said Councillor Mary Deros, who had been counting on the disenclavement of Park Extension as an encouragement for the local economy. "There will be modifications for Park Avenue. They will open walkways for pedestrians and bicycle paths … Perhaps our cars won't be going through their area, but at the same we won't have the people that will be driving into that newly-developed district to come on our streets, either."
Planning continues
In an interview with NPEN, Ducas said the streets from Park Extension could still end up being extended into the campus, since the City of Montreal has still not finalized its plans. "It's just the beginning of the planning," he said. "With this ongoing planning process, we're going to look at other ways to improve this situation. We don't have any specific solution now. What we propose is to do it in collaboration with the borough to look at the other issue to see if there are any other solutions." According to Ducas, the only street that could be extended from Park Extension is de l'Épée. "We propose to look at it in deeper detail to see what we can do in this area," he said.
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