Some also questioned the effectiveness of the City of Westmount in dealing with the Quebec Ministry of Transport (MTQ), which is overseeing the project.

Held in the gym of the Centre récréatif, culturel et sportif de St.-Zotique on Sir Georges Étienne Cartier Square, the meeting attracted several hundred people, mostly from St. Henri and the surrounding area. Among those from Westmount was City Councillor George Bowser. Joanne Poirier, the City’s Director of Urban Planning, was available to answer questions from residents.

Westmount will present a formal memorandum to the commission at a follow-up meeting on June 15 at the same venue.

The massive undertaking, slated to unfold over a seven-year period, is being reviewed by the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE), a provincial government agency empowered to make non-binding recommendations. The MTQ project involves the demolition of the Ville Marie Expressway’s aging, elevated concrete sections, from the Turcot Interchange eastward to Greene Avenue. They are to be replaced with a highway at ground level or on embankments.

The Turcot Interchange south of the Decarie Expressway, as well as connecting interchanges as far as Montreal West and as far south as de la Vérendrye Boulevard near Verdun, are also scheduled to be demolished.

Four aspects of the project stand to have a particular impact on Westmount. Selby Street will be shut permanently and the few existing residential structures on it now will be torn down. Greene Avenue will become a two-way down to St. Antoine Street.

The entrance from Greene to the eastbound lane of the expressway will be closed, and the Ville Marie’s eastbound Atwater Avenue exit will be reconfigured. As part of the project, the MTQ plans to erect sound barriers in some places along the south side of the expressway.

However, at a previous MTQ information meeting held in Westmount in January, a ministry spokesman stated that sound screens would not be installed on the north side west of Greene, because the transport ministry determined they would not improve the noise situation. The decision further complicates a plan Westmount had to erect a sound barrier of its own. The City has now indefinitely postponed the plan because of the uncertainty.

“We don’t know how much the City of Westmount is part of the discussions about the entire project,” said longtime Westmount resident Bridget Blackader.

“We are not going to benefit from any of the work that’s done on the interchange, because it’s going to be at ground level,” added Bronwyn Mantel of Bruce Avenue.

While Blackader suggested Westmount should consider flexing its muscle — “We’ve got considerable elements of concern as to what weight Westmount really can throw now onto the table for us,” she said — Patrick Barnard of Melville Avenue countered that the City should adopt an approach that takes into account common interests with other affected neighbourhoods, such as St. Henri.

Despite the residents’ apprehensions, Bowser insisted, “Westmount has a seat at the table and is being listened to … All I can say is we are fully engaged. We’re compiling a list of particular concerns for Westmount, along with the global concerns that everyone talks about.

“We’re going to make sure that we’re fully engaged in the process that’s available to everybody, so that the individual citizens can understand what’s going on, and also so the municipality itself can exercise whatever leverage it has to make sure its own laws are respected and our own standards are met.”

Photo: Martin C. Barry