In December 2011, a former Grid blogger, Yosef Robinson, wrote a piece about the reconstruction of the Turcot Interchange, a major highway junction in Montreal, Canada. The original proposal came about as the aging infrastructure was beginning to crumble. The project faced fierce opposition, as it planned to widen the interchange (going against everything we [...]

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Montreal is transformed by the seasons. During our hot summers, bars and terraces overflow with people, festivals bring crowds to the streets, and public spaces brim with locals and tourists. Winter is a different story. Large public spaces that are vibrant in the warmer months, like Place-des-Arts and Place Jacques-Cartier, are virtually abandoned when the [...]

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I travel to the United States. Like most Canadian cities, Montreal sits just one hour from the American border, and just six hours (by car) from New York City. However, it is not all that easy a trek to make. One can, of course, drive. However, as I am not a car-owner, my remaining options [...]

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As in many cities, Montreal has a need to create neighborhoods in which residents are able to age in place. Many of Montreal’s suburban areas are places where families settle in, children grow up, and parents continue to live their lives until they become elderly. Unfortunately, this environment may become difficult to those entering old [...]

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A year ago, I lived in the Plateau-Mt. Royal neighbourhood of Montreal, Canada. One of the most densely populated parts of the city and a former working class neighbourhood, over the past few decades it has arguably become the hippest part of the city, with countless restaurants, bars and cafés and many beautiful parks. My [...]

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As a part of its plans to invest in sustainable transportation, Montreal has built several bicycle lanes over the years. However, traffic signals for bicycles have yet to follow in many neighbourhoods. Although there are traffic lights directed towards drivers and pedestrians, traffic signals on many streets do not “speak” to cyclists. While traditionally cyclists [...]

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Montreal is awash with bicycling advocacy groups. In recent months another group has formed: the Montreal Bike Coalition, an initiative of the Mile End neighbourhood community organization “Ruepublique” (literally, public street). The Bike Coalition aims to connect all the grassroots cycling organizations and citizen cyclists, with a focus on utilitarian cycling, while not replicating the [...]

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A big Global Site Plans welcome to our newest blogger, Devon Willis from Montreal, Canada. Devon Paige Willis is a native Montrealer and recent graduate of McGill University where she did her B.A. in Environment and Political Science. She discovered a passion for urban and transportation planning in her final year, during which time she [...]

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In low-density environments, carpooling has long been touted as a sustainable transportation alternative. However, in practice it is difficult to realize. Rarely do multiple people have the same origin and destination – and even when they do, this does not hold for every day of the week. This is attributable to our increasingly flexible work [...]

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Montreal, Canada is a winter city. From November to March (and sometimes even April) the city grows cold, the days are short and it snows – sometimes a lot. Even so, in recent years cycling in winter months has increased dramatically, according to Vélo Quebec. As I write this post, it is a beautiful 6°C [...]

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June 2012 will forever hold a fond place in my heart, as it signalled the beginning of so many great things. In June I received my degree from the University of British Columbia, embarked on my first full summer in Canada’s Okanagan valley, and started writing my first blogs for The Grid. I have since [...]

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Geoff Manaugh’s BLDGBLOG book attempts to frame the world as consisting of architecture, resultant of design choices, as legible texts similar to a work of literary fiction, and perhaps most importantly, open to the possibility of rebuilding. With his personal interests at the fore (including a penchant for novelistic allegory and acoustic quality of space), [...]

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When need for energy peaked in the recent decades and the world’s energy resources decreased simultaneously, the word sustainability became very popular. From transportation to food; textile to furniture; brands show their compassion for nature by putting a “green” in front of their products’ name. “Green House” is often uttered by urbanists and architects who [...]

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It has been a wonderful experience writing various blogs pertaining to urban planning issues in the Montreal, Canada area, as well as learning the advantages of professional logo design.  After six months, it is with much regret that I am leaving my blog-writing position at Global Site Plans (GSP), but this lets me do more [...]

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Montreal has long been a bike-friendly city, with well over 500 kilometres (or 310 miles) of bike paths on Montreal Island to date.  An interactive map of bike paths in the metropolitan area shows these paths.  In fact, in 2011, Montreal was ranked the best city in North America for bicycling (and eighth worldwide). In [...]

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Greater Montreal is one of the few large metropolitan areas in North America that do not have effective beltways (or ring-roads) surrounding the metropolitan region.  This situation prevents passing vehicles from bypassing the inner parts of the city.  There were plans to build two partial beltways north of Montreal (Autoroutes 440 and 640), but certain [...]

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In the past decade or two, similar to other North American metropolitan areas, Greater Montreal (with a population of 3.7 million and an area of 4360 km² – or 1683 mi²) has grown outward in area, beyond Montreal Island (the core), creating residential and commercial sprawl in the process.  Due to this growth, natural and [...]

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Montreal Island (the core of the Montreal region) boasts of a city bus network, a subway system (hereafter, the metro), and a commuter rail system serving the entire metropolitan region.  Eventhough Montreal has one of the highest public transit riderships in North America, some places in the Montreal area are not served by public transit [...]

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Montreal Island, the core of Greater Montreal, used to be mostly covered by agricultural areas (including some of Quebec’s best farmland), but as the city expanded and its population grew further, agriculture got ever more marginalized. According to “Metropolitan Natures: Environmental Histories of Montreal,” by Stéphane Castonguay and Michèle Dagenais, agriculture was still present in [...]

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Trees form an essential part of the landscape of any city, and Montreal is no exception. Their functions include the following: ●     Providing shade; ●     Purifying the air; ●     Beautifying neighbourhoods and providing ornamental value; ●     Improving curb appeal and adding to property values; ●     Saving on home heating and air conditioning costs. In fact, [...]

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