http://www.montrealgazette.com/vision+Turcot+Interchange/2727142/story.html
Turcot interchange, built in the 60s, started disintegrating in 2007. Now, three years later, they still haven't come up with a plan to rebuild the darn thing. But, some brilliant minds at Concordia came up with a wacky idea, thankfully still in the conceptual stages only.
Possibly due to increased pressure by environmentalists and other special interest groups, the people in charge seem to be interested by Concordia University urban studies professor Pierre Gauthier and architect Pierre Brisset's idea of building a smaller interchange will somehow cause people to take public transit, reduce pollution and generally be better for everyone.
Here's why I find their idea utter bullshit, on a certain level.
Let's start off with the purpose of a highway. Why do we build hundred-feet-wide paved expressways? Because there are so many cars on the road, ordinary two lane roads are no longer sufficient to efficiently funnel traffic from A to B. The number of cars on the road are still increasing, and yet, they want to make a new expressway that's smaller than the one before? I agree the environment is important too, but let's focus on the essence of things and take things one step at a time. Let's start with this one:
If you're going to spend millions of taxpayers' dollars on something, can you please make sure that that something does what the fuck it is supposed to do? How is spending that much money on a smaller expressway going to accomplish the task of moving traffic more efficiently from A to B?
Their answer is that, by reducing the expressway's size, and thus making it more of a pain to get around, people will ditch their cars and go with public transit, and this reduction in traffic will in turn make it more efficient to go from A to B, as well as saving the environment.
My God, if you want to save the environment, good for you. I admire you for your noble belief. But, fuck man, don't do it by wasting money to build something inadequate for what is required of it. Illogical is the only word I have for it. And, believe it or not, their entire plan depends on public transit options like the tramways, shuttle buses, new metro lines etc, that are as of now, not even close to coming to the drawing board, let alone reality. With this many variables still undecided, and knowing how city hall works (or how it doesn't) it's just another disaster waiting to happen.
At best, we're going to have astronomical cost overruns. At worst, we're going to have astronomical overruns, and a clusterfuck of a transportation problem in this city.
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Montreal should take example on Berlin. I heard they've got their transporation issues taken care of.
ReplyDeleteIt's not a plan to spend money making it smaller, it's about saving money and using the rest to boost public transport. The plan is intelligent, there are a shit load of people who don't need cars to get to work. The only reason why this won't work to its full capacity is that there isn't a metro on the West Island. Since you didn't mention any of this, I suppose you didn't properly read and interpret the article.
ReplyDeleteWow, the Confused One who thinks this is serious finally managed to click on the right comment link. XD
ReplyDeleteWow, the gay one who thinks this little hypocritical fag isn't serious manages to write another stupid comment. About 90% of all the comments on this half-ass blog contain horrible grammar/logic/content. You dumb shits have nothing to say, you guys make CRAZY DAVE look intelligent in comparison. I wish more of the people who find this place pitiful would comment too, would be more fun to have an army.
ReplyDeleteTHIS BLOG IS PITIFUL. You cry about the reform, the IB, how we're graded, how dumb some exams are, etc.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I want to say is that you're going into IB science next year. That makes you such a little hypocritical asian fuck. Do you realize how every white kid who's not a little anglais enrichi like you HATED the IB, but somehow, managed not to complain about it, even if they got grade 20% under yours? Here you are needing a blog to vent all your ANGER against the thing that makes you do what you love most: work your little genitals off.
Bitching about the way you're graded is hilarious in and of itself. You complain about how the average of a group is low (I'm bringing up old articles here but whatever) and yet I'm sure you got perfectly good grades. Why should you be mad? You're not an angry person at school. You just walk around thinking your a badass, while everyone laughs at you.
The reform GIVES you percentage. got 81? in most classes, that became an 84. It's shit like that that helped you get into IB science.
So, in the end, if you're going to complain about everything, make it pertinent and make sure you don't become a hypocrite in the process.
I think somebody had nothing to do over Easter.
ReplyDeleteI don't see how he can be clearer: They are spending money to build something inadequate, hoping that something else—which isn't even being planned yet—will compensate for the inadequacy of the first, and hiding that fact by promoting how "green" it will be.
How the fuck can you assume it's inadequate. Right off the bat, it's a bunch of students who thought of it. It's not some foreign consultant who charges Montreal 20% more than anywhere else he would be doing his shitty urban planning. You're assuming it's inadequate for no good reason.
ReplyDeleteit's inadequate because the size of it as it is now, is already at times inadequate. Just ask the motorists.
ReplyDeleteif they build it even smaller, it's guaranteed to be inadequate, unless of course public transit takes up the slack. Which leads to the point of the article: it's a bad plan because it assumes that public transit will take up the slack, especially when the public transit options required to be able to take up the slack aren't even being planned yet.
or...they're using YOUR money to build something inadequate in order to force you to use more of YOUR money for public transit.
ReplyDeletePublic transit is a lot cheaper than traveling by car, and is a lot more convenient if you have access to a bus that brings you to school/work.
ReplyDeleteit's no just about using the money day to day for public transit. it's also about the millions needed to implement the public transit options that don't exist yet.
ReplyDelete