imagine (le) mile-end.

Mar 10

St-Viateur Ouest, deuxième article

Allez voir le deuxième article dans la série d’Émile Thomas à Spacing Montréal. C’est intéressant. Lire le premier ici.

Mar 9

It’s been eight months since this part of Broadway went car-free, and maybe it’s hard to recall just how bad Times Square used to be for everyone walking around. To really appreciate what we have today, you’ve got to take a trip back in time to see the crowded, dangerous mess that used to fester at the crossroads of the world. Naturally, the moment calls for a Streetfilms retrospective.

Mar 8

Déménager en vélo !

C’est ça dont on a besoin!

Il y a une option montréalaise, mais j’avoue que le design de celui-là me plaît beaucoup!

via: Sustainable Cities Collective

Mar 7

Guerilla (pothole) gardening…

I wonder if this would work (for more than a few days)?! It would be a great way to keep people (especially on bikes) safe. And given the amount of potholes we have, it would be a sure-fire way to green up our neighbourhoods fast!

via: Inhabitat

Mar 6

Circulation à Montréal … Quoi faire ?

(image trouvée ici.)

Une très bonne émission (109 Série documentaire) sur la circulation, la congestion et l’urbanisme à Montréal … incroyable cette histoire.

Il y a clairement des pistes à suivre, mais avec cette administration (Tremblay) c’est difficile à croire qu’on va arriver très bientôt.

Voici un résumé de l’émission :

Circulation, congestion et frustration. Avec son réseau routier désuet, Montréal craque sous le poids d’un volume de trafic qui ne fait qu’augmenter. En 20 ans, le nombre de véhicules a augmenté de 86 %, tandis que la population n’a augmenté que de 19%. Dans son documentaire, Pare-choc, le réalisateur Mark Thoburn nous fait vivre la dure réalité des banlieusards, comme Marc Noël, qui rongent son frein pendant 3 heures tous les jours pour se rendre au travail. Sur la route matin et soir, le chroniqueur de circulation Yves Desautels été témoin de la détérioration du réseau routier qu’il explique par l’exode des Montréalais vers les banlieues. Pendant que d’autres villes, nord-américaines, comme Washington, mobilisent technologie et créativité pour moderniser leur réseau, Montréal semble accuser un retard insurmontable.

Pour regarder la vidéo, suivez ce lien.

Ok, ça n’a rien à voir … sauf qu’il y a beaucoup d’imagination.

par Rhett Dashwood

St-Viateur Sans Voitures ?

(photo found here.)

Un article très intéressant sur le blog Spacing Montréal. L’échantillon est clairement pas représentatif, mais bien pour commencer une discussion.

Moi, j’aurais eu des reponses très différentes, mais c’est normal.

Qu’en pensez-vous ?

Est-ce que ce travail est lié au travail du groupe Mile-End Sans Voitures?

Lisez l’article ici.

* PS - Je devrais mentionner qu’il y aura un café citoyen au Café Cagibi le 22 mars sur ce même sujet (19h - 21h). Alors, venez avec vos idées / pensées pour partager avec la communauté !

Mar 5

Dimanches sans voitures / Car-free Sundays

Closing streets on the weekend is a big trend right now in cities across the world. The idea is to give citizens an experience with taking back their streets. It is also a way for the city to provide meaningful public space on those days that people need it most … the weekend.

(image found here.)

San Francisco, New York, Bogota, Guadalajara, Curitiba, Vancouver and many many others are experimenting with these sorts of one day, large-scale street closures on multiple weekends throughout the summer. For some examples, go here and here.

My question is … where would be some good places to try this in Montréal? And I am not talking about the street closures we already have where boutiques and businesses clog the streets with their merchandise and kiosks.

I am talking about closing streets and leaving LOTS of room for people, bikes, talking, sitting, hanging out. Sure, there can be some booths and services, but the focus should be on leaving space for people.

Montréal simply doesn’t do that (or not enough).

The cities mentioned above often pick a different street to close each weekend, or one weekend a month. That way the experiment is tried across the city.

What would be some good sites in Montréal? Or maybe more realistically, in the Plateau?

Mar 4

Reprendre nos rues…

(all photos in this post found here.)

San Francisco is taking some lessons from New York City. They have recently created a number of mini-parks out of street-space that seems like it could be put to better use.

They say on their website:

San Francisco’s streets and public rights-of-way make up fully 25% of the city’s land area, more space even than is found in all of the city’s parks. Many of our streets are excessively wide and contain large zones of wasted space, especially at intersections. San Francisco’s new “Pavement to Parks” projects seek to temporarily reclaim these unused swathes and quickly and inexpensively turn them into new public plazas and parks.

(before)

(after)

How does it work? :

Each Pavement to Parks project is intended to be a public laboratory where the City can work with the community to test the potential of the selected location to be permanently reclaimed as public open space. Materials and design interventions are meant to be temporary and easily moveable should design changes be desired during the trial-run. Seating, landscaping, and treatment of the asphalt will be common features of all projects.

(before)

(after)

For yet another completed project, go here.

What criteria do they use for choosing their sites? :

Sizeable area of under-utilized roadway
Lack of public space in the surrounding neighborhood
Pre-existing community support for public space at the location
Potential to improve pedestrian and bicyclist safety via redesign
Surrounding uses that can attract people to the space
Identified community or business steward

Once a site has been temporarily reclaimed, the city monitors how it is working, whether minor tweaks need to be made, and whether the site seems like a good candidate for a permanent closure.

Here are some projects soon to come.

The City of San Francisco has a least another 12 spots in mind for temporary conversion to these mini-plazas / mini-parks. And they are open to suggestions for others!

Very impressive.

For more details and photos of each of these and other projects, go here.

Montréal ? Le Plateau ? Le Mile-End ?

Mar 3

via: People and Place