The Dominion - transportation

Turning Around Turcot

Tim McSorley — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 10:44:52 +0000

New hope for highways on a human scale in Montreal

MONTREAL—After months of protests that captured the imagination of the world, things have quieted down on Montreal streets. But the impacts of the mobilizations, which began as a college-student-led rejection of proposed tuition increases and grew into a social strike, are still echoing throughout the city and the province. Environmentalists, anti-highway activists and community associations are but a few of the groups whose organizing is currently riding the upshot of a new government forced to take positions by ongoing neighbourhood organizing in Montreal and beyond.

"The Liberals had a reign of about nine years and we've seen pretty much the worst things that we’ve seen environment wise," said Bruno Massé, the coordinator of the Réseau Québécois des Groups Écologistes, a Quebec-wide network comprising 60 grassroots environmental groups. "Since the [Parti Québécois] took power, there's been a lot of optimism, but mostly people holding their breath," he said.

By the time the government of Jean Charest called elections on August 1, his government was left with little legitimacy in the eyes of a mobilized public. And while the September 4 election distracted from the popular agenda being set in assemblies in colleges and neighborhoods around Montreal and Quebec, it also marked what student associations called a victory when the incoming Parti Québécois cancelled the proposed fee hike.

Massé said that two big victories are on the horizon for environmental organizers: he expects the Gentilly-2 nuclear power plant to be shut down, and a moratorium to be achieved on fracking to extract shale gas.

The Plan Nord, one of Charest's most controversial policy pieces, is progressing as if nothing is changing, said Massé, though it could still be scrapped or changed since the enabling legislation has not been passed. The Plan Nord proposes the opening up of Quebec's northern territories to increased investment in the energy, mining, forest and wildlife sectors, as well as new transportation and communications infrastructure.

But another victory could be on its way, this time resulting from years of community organizing against freeway expansion. Late last week, Montreal's city council issued a surprise request to the PQ government to go back to the drawing board and re-design the Turcot Interchange so that it is on a human scale and prioritizes public transit.

The Turcot Interchange highway complex is Montreal's (and perhaps Canada’s) most famous spaghetti junction, made up of three separate interchanges that tower above cyclists and pedestrians in the streets below. A steady stream of cars and trucks roll up, around, and back down onto the roadways below. Cranes hover underneath the concrete structures, evidence of construction and maintenance work on the decaying elevated highway system.

The Turcot Interchange was unveiled on April 25, 1967, just in time for the World Exposition in Montreal. Once a stately showpiece of modernity and car culture, today the crumbling Turcot is at the centre of a debate about sustainability, transportation and the future of Montreal. The recent announcement by the City of Montreal follows years of community organizing against a new mega-interchange complex, as proposed by the Charest Liberals.

"Part of the idea of building this interchange was that people would be transporting themselves by car in the city, so it's to provide better car transport infrastructure," said Shannon Franssen, an organizer with Solidarité St. Henri and spokesperson for Mobilisation Turcot, a group formed to organize for transit and against highway expansion. "In the 60s that made sense as a vision...Nowadays we know that's not an efficient way to move around the city," she said.

The Quebec government's proposal would see the Ville-Marie highway enlarged, the Turcot expanded, and Highway 20 moved north onto one of the city's last remaining wetlands, at a price tag of $3 billion. But with the exception of a few new busses, the government plan doesn’t include any public transit.

"We have this opportunity here to make this smaller, more efficient highway interchange that has alternatives," said Franssen in an interview in Montreal. An estimated 70 per cent of the 290,000 vehicles that travel on the interchange every day are commuters. "There are way better ways to transport folks from the West Island to downtown, and most people that are in their cars, going through the interchange, don't want to be in their car."

Opponents of the expansion say its not that the interchange needs to disappear, but that there are alternatives to spending $3 billion to expand the towering highway system, which include an emphasis on rail and other public transit. "We're arguing with very precise proposals for a dedicated bus corridor [for commuters], plus accelerating the investment for the train in the West Island...and review the design to reduce the capacity of the highway," said Dr. Pierre Gauthier, a professor in geography at Concordia University.

Montreal has already demolished one urban interchange, which was on Parc Avenue leading into downtown, with great success. "The old one was this crazy thing and they decided that it was more than what was necessary in the city and so they they kind of dismantled that interchange, there's no tunnels there, and it is a good example of how we could be building things better, and how it has happened before in Montreal," said Franssen.

St. Henri, where Franssen works, is a traditionally working class, Québécois neighbourhood that has been impacted by the mega-highway for decades. It isn't only the daily nuisances of traffic jams and noise. There is, of course, the climate change impacts of the estimated 290,000 vehicles that travel through what are in fact three interchanges commonly known as the Turcot interchange every day. But there are also very real health impacts.

"The public health department has identified it as a risk to one's health to live within 200 metres of a highway where there are so many cars going through," said Franssen. "We hear stories about parents bringing their newborns into the hospital and saying, 'well they're having breathing problems' and this kind of thing, and the hospital, when [the hospital workers] find out that they live where they live, basically say 'well, this is an effect of living there, so that's just the way it is.'"

Public hearings about the highway received over 400 submissions from locals and concerned groups. According to Franssen, 95 per cent of them were against the Quebec government's proposal to rebuild the interchange. These petitions for a smaller interchange and for more public transit were largely ignored by the Quebec government until the city’s announcement last week.

In the face of government indifference, local organizers conducted various campaigns, articulating their own vision for the highway, handing out information, holding occupations and marching in the streets in solidarity with students and against austerity. These constant mobilizations, together with an increasing awareness even among the political class that highway expansion is a road to nowhere, may result in another important victory in the struggle for liveable cities and a healthy planet.

Dawn Paley is a freelance journalist based between Montreal and Mexico. This piece was written with support from Stop the Pave and was originally published on the Media Co-op.

Turcot

Signs of a Long Road for BC Climate Campaigners

Moira Peters — Thu, 06 May 2010 05:54:47 +0000

Gateway Program covers fertile land with a freeway

VANCOUVER—Lower mainland groups are opposing a massive expansion to local highways, which they say paves over farmland, encourages pollution and carbon emissions, and opens the gate to ramping up of resource extraction in British Columbia.

“Climate action now!” reads a new banner unveiled April 25 by Gateway Sucks and the Delta, BC, chapter of Council of Canadians. Both groups are opposed to a series of highway expansion projects from northern BC to Port Twassen proposed by the provincial government’s Gateway Program.

"The action took place at River Road and Centre Street in Delta," Tom Jaugelis of Gateway Sucks. "[The sign] is visible from the Alex Fraser Bridge. Activists also planted trees at the site today to highlight the area's potential as a riverfront park, not a riverfront freeway.”

This new banner comes on the heels of one removed by the province. A hand-built “Farms not Freeways” billboard stood on Loranda Farms off Highway 17 in Delta, BC. It was removed because it stood on land under lease to the province. Farm owner Michaela Robinson succumbed to financial pressures, six months ago, to lease part of the land to the Gateway Program for a year. Just behind the sign, government trucks paved over some of Canada’s most fertile soil.

“The very base of the road [construction crews are laying the foundation now] is taking just over an acre of our land. So we’re gonna have a really busy highway with tons of trucks right in our back pasture where our horses roam freely,” said Robinson.

Loranda Farms is part of the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR). Richmond city councilor Harold Steves, a founder of the ALR in the 1970s, explained at the banner drop why the ALR was created.

The ALR was developed as a mechanism to stop huge companies like Western Reality and Wall & Ready Corp from developing agricultural land into more profitable housing developments, said Steves.

“[In 1972] the land was regarded as zoned land by Richmond, Delta and Surrey, but [developers] regarded it as unzoned,” he continued. Since there was no provincial legislation, developers paved over farmland. “The ALR stopped that [development], until today. It is same type of companies that want to develop this land today.”

Steves believes Delta could be transformed into Surrey-style sprawl. The best soils in BC will be covered with asphalt, just like Richmond, a suburb south of Vancouver known for having paved over top quality soil in favor of blacktopping the land for a corporate grocery store.

The prospect of losing more agricultural land has Ben West fuming. He’s a campaigner with the Wilderness Committee, which supports the direct action of Gateway Sucks and Council of Canadians. They are the educational and outreach arm of the movement to stop the Gateway Program.

“One of the most important archeological dig sites in North America, if not the world, has been paved over as a result of the Golden Ears Bridge, the Katzie First Nation site where they found evidence of pre-colonial agriculture,” said West.

The Golden Ears Bridge is part of the Gateway Program, which is about 10 per cent complete.

On the other side of the bridge another farm was lost. “The first colonial farm in British Columbia—the Hudson’s Bay Farm in Langley—it was actually a historical heritage site,” said West.

“A beautiful big blueberry farm that we tried to protect—an organic farm, family-owned—now has a road going right down the middle of it.” West also described a contemporary farm lost to the Gateway Program.

West sees Gateway as mostly causing destruction. But, the project has its supporters.

“Gateway Program is a series of transportation projects to complete the network of roads for the lower mainland that are necessary for the transport of goods and to assist with effective transit,” said Geoff Freer, Executive Director of the Gateway Program.

West disagrees.

“The Gateway that’s being referred to is actually a gateway to the Asia-Pacific corridor... So this really isn’t about moving folks from Surrey to Vancouver. It’s about moving goods in and raw materials like our forests, raw logs, coal from mines in British Columbia—about 20 million tons of it a year—and whole bunch of oil through pipelines to Asia,” he said

However, Freer thinks there are ecological benefits to the Program.

“Environmentally, one of the main objectives of the Gateway Program is to reduce congestion-related idling, which contributes to reduced regional air quality. By getting big trucks off neighborhood roads we will reduce the amount of smog and we will see a reduction in noise for these communities,” he said.

The highway will act as both a shipping corridor and a transit route. According to Freer, citizens consistently rate transportation as the number one issue in the region. “As we go forward there is going to be a million more people in the lower mainland over the next few years,” he said.

Freer sees Gateway as an opportunity to promote public transit: “Port Mann Highway is going to be tolled. That tolling is designed to discourage traffic and encourage people to go into transit. I think everybody agrees today that building more and more roads is not the answer.”

A BC Treasury Board study found that the petroleum industry produces three jobs for every $1 million spent. The automotive industry creates seven jobs while public transit creates 21 jobs for every $1 million spent.

A loss of land base to the Gateway, however, results in loss of contingent benefits such as the migratory bird flyway. One thousand hectares will be directly affected by highway pollution. “Ninety-seven hectares of our best farmland in Delta is slated to be lost... [and] the expected loss of farmland could feed 100,000 people,” according to Steves.

West agrees, saying he is more concerned with the resulting sprawl than the highway itself. He thinks government can mandate a strong line around ALR and build vertically rather than horizontally.

Freer, too, worries about sprawl, but offered no immediate solution. “The land use plan for the lower mainland that’s been in place for twenty years and that’s currently under review is trying to reduce the tendency towards urban sprawl.”

West said another problem at the root of Gateway is that the program is not a local initiative, but one put together by private interest and government. In spite of these frustrations, West feels power in mobilizing against the Gateway Program.

“It really is something that you become addicted to when you realize the power you have as a citizen, just as a regular person. If people care about something, it doesn’t matter who’s in government—they’re going to stop and listen to what the people want.”

West sees the Save the UBC Farm campaign as an effective three-way conversation. Students stopped housing development plans that would have reduced the university farm to one third its size. They did this by talking with Wilderness Committee and other news outlets. Plans for keeping the Farm as a “future housing reserve” changed. An academic plan was presented to the UBC Board of Governors in January. Academic Provost David Farrar said, “From my perspective this is a huge win. It’s huge for the university but more for the students.”

For West, a similar strategy can be used by citizens engaging with media to prevent the undesirable development of land. He sees the UBC Farm campaign as a small local victory. The Gateway Program is the large-scale national battle. Both battles are aimed at mitigating climate change by supporting local agriculture.

Micheala of Loranda Farms is still under pressure to sell her farmland. The "Farms not Freeways" billboard is gone, but as of April 25 a new banner snags the attention of drivers on the Alexander Fraser Bridge. In spite of provincial efforts to silence resistance to the Gateway Program, more direct action events are planned. Wilderness Committee will continue to push for three-way conversations between the organizations, citizens and the province.

Final funding for the Gateway Program is not secure. “It’s important to highlight that Gateway is actually a 20-step plan,” said West. “It’s not a done deal. But, it’s basically a plan to ramp up the industrialization of the BC coastline.”

Writing from Vancouver, Ben Amundson is an undergrad in Human Ecology at UBC; this is an article for Digital Communications in Agriculture. Check back for an upcoming article on bike tours as a means of supporting food sovereignty.

gateway sucks

New Hope

Moira Peters — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 05:34:59 +0000

Bike co-op gives life to old bikes

HAMILTON—"This is the stage I like the most about fixing bikes,” Sid Slotegraaf, Coordinator of New Hope Bike Co-op and a soft-spoken downhill racer and dirt jumper, said while dusting off a "pre-loved" bicycle. "You don't always know how they would turn out. It's like giving them new lives again."

New Hope Bike Co-op, a program which focuses on helping people fix their own bikes—and providing low-cost parts, free use of tools and low-cost refurbished bicycles—is the brainchild of Jeff Neven, a cyclist and a father of four who can ride only once the kids are put to sleep.

The idea was born in 1997 when Jeff was working with inner city kids in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he started a bicycle repair club for boys and girls. Upon returning to Canada, he continued to find opportunities and partner with groups like Recycle Cycles in Kitchener and MacCycle Co-op at McMaster University, serving communities with his bike repairing skills.

In the past three years, First Hamilton Christian Reformed Church and its church plant, New Hope Church, hosted a couple of single-day bike repairing events in East Hamilton. They had been well received by their neighborhoods. The success of these events furthered Jeff’s vision of developing a bike co-op in East Hamilton. This summer, New Hope Bike Co-op, backed by church donations and a grant from Service Canada’s Summer Job Initiative, finally became a reality.

Since its opening in June, the bike co-op has been serving 20-40 people per day in two locations: a bike shop in the Delta East neighborhood which is open Thursdays and Fridays and a stall at Ottawa Street Farmer's Market on Saturday mornings.

The bike shop is located in an out-of-business sports bar which was originally an upscale eating establishment in the '40s. With most of its furniture still intact, the space has been retrofitted into a bike shop by adding workbenches, tools and increasing numbers of donated bicycles.

In this purple-ceilinged bike shop with a red-leathered booth, people's hands are always covered in black. According to Sid, "The best way to learn about bikes is to get your hands greasy and work on one."

"The greatest thing about this co-op for me is that people not only get their bikes fixed, but they also bring home a new skill,” he shared.

Some, like Darrell Sanderson, who donated time at the bike shop, walked home with more than a new skill. He left the co-op with a bike, his fingerprints all over it.

"You love being here, don't you?" asked Darrell's mom, Janice, who came to pick up her son after work. The shy teenager smiled and nodded.

The three bike stands in the shop never stand empty. Whenever a bike is off the stand, another one is put up. Both Sid and Drake White, a faithful volunteer who never misses a day at "work," are trying hard to meet the high demand for bicycles and repairs.

"This is our next project.” Sid picked a dusty cruiser out of more than 160 donated bikes.

Restored bikes are put at the store front to await their new owners. As much as sales are welcomed, they can be heart-breakers for Sid, who has to let them go, at times unwillingly.

Once, as he watched one of his beloved bikes leaving with a customer, Sid held out his arms like a child whose favorite toy had been taken away from him.

"That’s my bike..."

Originally a summer program, the Bike co-op will extend its operation on Saturdays through the winter. It will return in full strength again next summer at the same location (1429 Main St E).

"Are you ready to take part in this restoration project?" Sid looked at me and my clean hands as he mounted another forgotten gem on the stand.

Phyllis Tsang is a graduate student at McMaster University who likes to study wide, think deep, write lots, and live fully.

A version of this article originally appeared on the Media Co-op.

New Hope - Old Bikes

New Hope - Workshop