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montreal's cavendish project now an extension without a road, critics say
côte st-luc city councillor dida berku says the suburbs have learned through recent exchanges with the city of montreal that it's now planning for the cavendish extension to be composed of a bike path and tramway, and no mention of a road for cars.
aug 1 2024
4 minute read
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after a year of signalling that it’s backing away from building the cavendish blvd. extension, the city of montreal has told neighbouring suburbs that it’s studying options that don’t involve a road link, a representative of one of the suburbs says.
“we have found out through our queries to the urban planning department (of montreal) that they’re working on alternative options to the cavendish-cavendish link, and the cavendish-cavendish road link is no longer being planned,” côte-st-luc city councillor dida berku said this week.
“it’s a bike path and tramway instead.”
city spokesperson hugo bourgoin confirmed to the gazette on friday that the city is “currently completing a review of mobility needs across the entire sector, including the namur-hippodrome district,” and that a “renewed project, including a tramway,” will be presented once “new solutions” are identified.
meanwhile, berku said cavendish proponents are preparing to launch a petition that will ask the quebec government not to finance montreal’s hippodrome housing development without ensuring that the cavendish-cavendish link is back on track.
she said it became clear to the suburbs that a cavendish road extension is no longer in the cards in a recent back-and-forth with montreal civil servants. “we were told that … the road link itself is no longer being planned,” berku said.
the exchange with montreal’s planning department came after mayor valérie plante’s administration omitted the cavendish extension from the city’s master plan for the namur-hippodrome sector this spring and removed it as a project with dedicated funding from the 2024 update to montreal’s 10-year capital works program.
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a new project in the latest capital works program, labelled namur-hippodrome—cavendish, includes cavendish in name only, berku contends, because there’s no money in it for cavendish. in fact, the project description doesn’t mention cavendish. and it describes the “principal intervention” in the short term as being the redevelopment of jean-talon st. w., where the plante administration plans to add a bike path and a tramway.
the mayors of côte-st-luc, town of mount royal and the borough of st-laurent, whose communities abut the land and railway tracks where the missing cavendish link would be built, have denounced the omission and claim the city has reneged on its obligation to the province to budget for the cavendish extension.
the plan to link the two ends of cavendish in côte-st-luc and st-laurent to relieve congestion on the décarie expressway has been discussed for six decades. however, it became a contractual obligation for montreal in 2017 when it signed an agreement with the quebec government to transfer the 46-hectare former hippodrome-blue bonnets horse-racing track near jean-talon and décarie blvd. from the province to the city for housing development.
the plante administration is banking on what it calls the namur-hippodrome site , and which now includes land around the namur métro station on jean-talon, to construct the city’s first carbon-neutral “eco district” with 20,000 new housing units. this is the project described in montreal’s latest capital works program.
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yet the agreement to cede the hippodrome land to montreal was conditional on the city committing to building the cavendish road link. one clause, for example, states: “the cavendish-cavendish link is a road that falls under its (montreal’s) responsibility and it undertakes to include it in the agglomeration’s transportation plan and its three-year capital program.” (montreal now has a 10-year capital program.)
another clause calls on montreal to take into account “the vehicular capacity of the décarie expressway” in developing the hippodrome land and to include the cavendish-cavendish link.
in 2022, it appeared that montreal would move ahead with the cavendish extension, with the plante administration filing a notice of project with quebec’s bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (bape). the notice of project is still posted on the quebec environment department’s website . however, montreal has stalled on ordering the necessary environmental impact studies to advance the bape process.
the plante administration didn’t respond to the gazette’s questions.
however, the city’s corporate communications office, which confirmed that the project is being rethought, said development has changed the mobility needs in the sector.
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“the new inputs in the sector, the jean-talon/cavendish sustainable mobility corridor, the acceleration of real estate development on the racetrack site and the transformation of the hydro-québec line (for biking) argue in favour of a review of the access routes,” bourgoin said in an email.
“the objective is to offer the best modes of transport on the best routes, in order to accommodate users in the sector. following and depending on the results of the studies and solutions selected, we will identify the bape environmental studies based on a renewed project, including a tramway.”
just this spring, plante said the cavendish road link was still on but developing the hippodrome site wasn’t a priority.
“i want to reassure everyone that what we call cavendish-to-cavendish is still in the plan, so it’s going to happen,” she said in april.
“but what we have to do is (build it in phases). the first phase is to build jean-talon to cavendish north.”
the suburban partners weren’t thrilled with the plante administration’s vision for the cavendish link described in its notice of project because although it includes bike paths, sidewalks, green bands and dedicated lanes for mass transit, it also has just one lane of vehicle traffic in either direction instead of two.
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still, traffic expert rick leckner said one lane is better than none.
“the city just clearly hasn’t kept its word and has gone back on it several times,” he said.
leckner is a member of the business alliance for cavendish extension , which includes businesses in the namur-de la savane sector.
with the royalmount mall set to open soon and condos going up around décarie, leckner said cavendish is all the more necessary.
“a huge compromise is only one lane in each direction,” he said of cavendish.
“but now it seems they’ve taken that out. for the sake of mobility, there absolutely must be a hybrid of public transit, vehicles and a lane for bikes.”
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