Montreal to spend $35M to make St-Paul St. more pedestrian-friendly

Montreal is injecting$35 million into transforming Montreal's oldest street into a thoroughfaremore alluring to pedestrians.

• Montreal plans 5 'pedestrian-friendly' streets for 2015

St-Paul Street in the heart of Old Montreal wasnamed in 1672for Montreal's founder,Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve, who built his own home on thestreet in 1650.

The city aims to entice more peopleto the historic Old Montreal street bylowering sidewalks, widening them in certainsections andreducing thespeed limitto 20km/h.

A total of 142 paid parking spots will be removed, however,the 29 resident parking spaces will remain in place.

The familiar cobblestonewill be repaired and enhanced. Broken and missing stoneswill be replaced, with some intersectingasphalt-coveredstreets, including Berri and Bonsecours streets,to be resurfacedin cobblestoneas well.

The work, which began in August on the easternmost segment,will be tackledin three phases:

1. The eastern section betweenPlace Jacques-Cartier and BerriStreet, includingBerri Street between Champ-de-Mars and de la Commune, as well as several other small adjoining streets.
2. Thesection further west, between Place Jacques-Cartier and Saint-Sulpice Street.
3. The area west ofSaint-SulpicetoMcGillstreets,including the area around the Place Royale.

The first phaseis expected to be completed by Nov. 2016. The projectwill be suspended in 2017, so as not to disrupt Montreal's 375th anniversary events.

Bonuses for timely work

Contractors will be awarded bonuses for completing their work in a timely fashion and will be penalized if the work runs behind schedule.

While St. Paul Street and adjacent streets are under construction, they will be barred to traffic, and roadcrews are expected to work seven days a week.

Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre said that the projectrepresents a "great moment for Montreal, a great day for the culture of the city."

When asked about the decision to eliminate 142 parking places, the mayor promised that number of spots will be created elsewhere in the area.

"I'm not going to make the parking spots go away," said Coderre."If spots are lost, they will be moved somewhere else."