Les voies d'accès au mont Royal (Camillien-Houde / Remembrance)

I use the mountain on most weekends. One of the things I love is the way Mont Royal unites the city.

Based on my lifelong experience, there are ways to make the road over the mountain slightly safer while KEEPING IT OPEN.

The experiment at closing was a disaster and isolated people from the beautiful park and caused usage to decline.

Keep. It. Open.
Period

Against complete closure to cars
The anti car bias of the administration is too absolute. There's is no reason to ban cars altogether, for this denies access to people who can't get there any other way.

---If there must be a partial ban, Make access to cars as follows for instance: a) cars with more than 1 occupant, b) Weekdays at non rush hours such as 9:30 - 11:00 AM + 2:30 - 4:00 PM, but also at some point during weekends.
James MacGuire

The arrangement this summer was not satisfactory for me and many others. It is difficult to access one part of the park (lac aux castors) if you come from the east, or other parts (chalet, Maison Smith) if you come from the west. Yes, one can walk from one of the parking lots, but if somebody is disabled or elderly, or if you want to take your heavy picnic stuff and your small children....

Also, if one parking lot is full, you can no longer go to the other one which might still have space. Of course you can always drive all the way around the mountain on Cote Ste-Catherine or Ave des Pins but that increases traffic and pollution and is just a hassle.

The rationale for the closure never made sense. It was supposed to be related to a fatal bike accident. But under the new scheme there are still cars going back and forth on the same road where the accident happened. So I don't see what difference that makes. (by the way, I bicycle on the mountain very frequently).

Camillien-Houde should always be open to through-traffic.
Defining "park road" is irrelevant. Certain "park roads" (Olmsted road) clearly shouldn't be open to cars, whereas Camillien-Houde should remain open so people for whom cycling, walking, bussing isn't a viable option can access the mountain, enjoy the views, visit the cemeteries.
All users should be protected equally. Add cameras, speed bumps, speed limits, safety barriers for pedestrians/cyclists. As a pedestrian I've almost been hit by speeding cyclists ignoring stop signs but never by a car.
I spend A LOT of time on the mountain, in all seasons, crossing the road daily, walking/skiing from the monument to the cross to the lookouts, through the cemeteries, to the U of M, down to Pine ave... I've seen ruby crowned kinglets and ring-necked snakes, seems nature is doing well (considering that we are in the middle of a city and that's not going to change). The road doesn't deplete my enjoyment in the slightest, but when it was closed, I felt a real hole in never being able to take those few minutes out of a day to revel in the beautiful panoramic landscape.
I appreciate the way that this road connects east and west. Closing access deprives people of a unique and beautiful experience, always a treat for visitors. I voted for this administration, but based on the autocratic way they are pushing this through, they won't get my vote again.

Open the road back permanently.

Add a bike lane.

I am NOT in favour of blocking access of the road (CAMILLIEN-HOUDE / REMEMBRANCE) to traffic.

Montrealers and tourists of our city enjoy this beautiful mountain drive through nature, with stunning vistas of the city. The mountain belongs to all of us.

During the closure this summer, many people lost access and the ability to enjoy our mountain. This is unfair and prioritizes elite cyclists above all other citizens in terms of usage and access.

The mountain belongs to all of us. Keep Mount Royal open to all. Merci!

The Mountain road MUST remain open ALL year round so that all montrealers have access and their earned right to enjoy what has Always has belonged to everyone -not just bikers.
In addition you are totally being disrespectful to the senior citizens who grew up with the mountain being part of their summers .Seniors can't manoeuvre around the way younger people are
As well tourists are all aware that Montreal has a mountain in the middle of the city that can be accessed from one end to the other.
All in all you haven't thought about anyone except the bikers.They should not and do not have the right to deny all others the right to enjoy the opened mountain.'
You insensitively to all by using the biking accident as excuse is shameful. bikers had fatal accidents in tunnels /intersections etc....why not close these as well.Your whole raison d'être has been to abolish cars from the road regardless of what devious methods you use.

Just remember ,there is a whole society of Montreals who can not rely on public transportation .e.g. handicap/seniors/young parents with babies and all their equipment/pet owners and the list goes on and on.


Start listening to the people who put you where you are and can remove you just as quickly

The mountain (Mt. Royal) is part of our heritage as citizens of Montreal. Nature-lovers, hikers and cyclists should have priority over cars. There should be more established parking lots that are accessible to cars, with a free shuttle bus to bring walkers and those with limited walking capabilities to the more accessible parts of the mountain.
Perhaps more prominent barriers will keep cyclists to proper routes, avoiding coming face to face with cars. And cars should not be prevented from easy access to services such as the Mount Royal Cemetery. For those drivers who are not familiar with the area, and are trying to attend a funeral service on time, it is particularly stressful if key routes are blocked.
Access for all Montrealers to one of our beloved areas - keep the mountain road open!

Mayor Plante & Councillor Fernandez are useless & are acting as dictators. Road should be kept open all year..
Wake up voters.

It is very unfair for the mountain road to be blocked from access on the west side. I have an elderly mother, and there is no way for me to get her to walk in Mount Royal Park without this access and parking.
I have spent much time in the park during the summer months my whole life, and this year only went 1 time because of the blocked access, and this was by a difficult climb near the Montreal General Hospital to get into the park.

I miss my summer walks in the park very much, and hope to have the road access again next summer 2019. I feel that a large part of my Montreal enjoyment has been taken away from me.

Please keep the road open!!!

This road should remain open all year for all users. A special bike lane with cement barriers could be created.

It should not just be used for a training site for cyclists all summer! It is the people's park, and a public roadway and everyone should have access.

There is no other road or street in Montreal that is dedicated only to cyclists...it is unfair that this decision was made without consultation beforehand.

Please leave the road open...all year.
Thank you

Own 2 cars, use daily transit to commute and bicycle all year. Cycle and ski Mt.Royal for the last 40 years. Rarely use Rememberance / Camillien-Houde to cross east-west, slope too steep and fast for casual ride and not wide enough to share with buses and cars. Much better, safer to use chemin Olmsted, Cote Ste Catherine or even Cote des neiges. Improve bicycle access and connections to those roads first. Bicycle lanes on Pine / Cedar / Cote des neiges / Decelles would complement Cote Ste Catherine creating a ring road. For the mountain roads, keep bus and car through traffic to allow common access. But put median barriers the length of R/C-H roads except at summit parking lots to stop blind U-turns. Reduce speed limit to 30Km/h for entire park zone and add speed calming measures at 50m intervals at high pedestrian areas. Enforce the speed limit, there is a permament police presence.

A park road is one that goes through a park. This one goes over the park-like mountain but is at the edge of the park with a small exception to an area rarely used by the public. The road may be shared by public transit, private automobiles and possibly pedestrians. While closing the road to cars will make it safer for others, (no cars, no automobile accidents) it leads to reduced use and is fundamentally, a bad idea. Pedestrians should only be allowed on roads if and where there are sidewalks and via well-lit, clearly marked crossings with stop lights for vehicles, including bicycles. Cyclists are advanced ones due to the difficult climb. Any bicycle paths should be beside the road and protected by concrete as is the one on de Maisonneuve. Any dangerous illegal U-turn locations should be similarly blocked. A road divider near the Camillien-Houde lookout could eliminate illegal U-turns there. If desired, access from the main part of the park to the isolated section should be via pedestrian over or underpass. There is no need to reduce the number of vehicles on the road except possibly during weekday rush hours. I would accept closing the road to through vehicles at these times by a gate between the parking lots and signs warning of the closures at both entrances to the road. This should not be done if work closes alternatives like was done on Docteur-Penfield this past summer. I AM TOTALLY OPPOSED TO THE PARTIAL CLOSING OF THE ROAD AS WAS DONE THIS SUMMER. IT SOLVES NOTHING, INCONVENIENCES MANY, AND ELIMINATES A BEAUTIFUL RIDE FOR BOTH TOURISTS AND LOCALS.
If off mountain, nearby parking could be established on weekends with free navettes in both directions to major attractions, it would solve the weekend congestion in the lots. Besides this on reliable, frequent air-conditioned busses, I have no suggestion to improve use of public transit there. Any improvement in signage, including more use of English and sensible pictograms, more directions, etc. would be welcome. I have no ideas on how to both protect the flora and fauna and have access to them.
While I believe the Office will do a fair job on this consultation, I believe the city administration will not. They proceeded with an annoying, useless closure without consultation first, declared it a success when it wasn't and before this after the fact consultation, made misleading comparisons to some road closures in New York parks which are flat and still have roads going through them, deny they are hostile to cars when so much of what they do clearly is, and put car-hater Luc Ferrandez in charge of the dossier. I hope I am wrong. You reduce the use of cars by making alternatives better, not by throwing bricks in front of them

I don’t agree that closing Mount Royal was a good idea. The mountain should be accessible to everyone. Forcing drivers to spend more time in traffic to cross the mountain (using other roads) is not a very smart way to help the environment.

OPEN THE MOUNTAIN ROAD, PLEASE.

I want the road to remain open...NEVER CLOSED..I am 78 yrs old and love the road that it gives all of us and visitors the most gorgeous view of Montreal. It also has access from Westmount down to St. Lawrence. Because there is an out pouring of negatives...that tells you something. SAVE CAMILLIEN-HOUDE WAY/REMEMBRANCE RD

I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE REMEMBRANCE ROAD/CAMILLEN-HOUDE RE-OPENED TO

CAR TRAFFIC.

YOU HAVE TAKEN THE PLEASURE AWAY FROM PEOPLE HAVING ACCESS BY

MOTOR VEHICLES, CAUSING THEM TO POLLUTE THE AIR BY DRIVING MANY MORE MILES

TO GET FROM COTE DES NEIGES TO MOUNT ROYAL (PARK AVENUE SIDE.

To OCPM:


- I believe vehicle access across the Mont Royal should remain open year round because there is simply no good reason to deny this long-standing pleasure to Montrealers.

- The safety of cyclists on this road is a non-issue, a "red herring" that those who wish to close the road to cars use to distract attention from their real agenda. What are the statistics on cycling accidents on this stretch of the road?*

- Traffic congestion** and the use of the road as a cross-town link in rush hour is also a non-issue. If there is "overuse" (of which I am very skeptical, as this was never discussed in the media at any time before it became a "reason" to close the road) this is easily remedied without recourse to this draconian measure. (Speedbumps, closing the road from 3:30-6 weekdays perhaps, though I think this should be a last resort in the current road construction environment).

- U-turns: in fifty plus years of cycling and driving on the mountain I have never seen a car make a u-turn. If you have any genuine statistics, please share them.

- Access to the east lookout is certainly a problem for drivers driving east-west up Camillien-Houde. This needs to be addressed but has no bearing on the question of closing the road to cross-mountain traffic.


*The reduction of this stretch of the road to one lane a number of years ago certainly made matters more risky for the very few cyclists who ride that route. A return to the previous situation of a double-lane divided road would solve this problem as well as the problems I note below. It also is a more beautiful configuration than the nonsensical twisting road we are now required to navigate.

**Traffic congestion, if it exists at all, is surely a direct result of the initiative a number of years ago to restrict traffic to one lane in this section, thus ensuring bottlenecks behind buses and congestion when there had been none under the previous configuration. This unnecessary measure also made the whole traffic situation much less user-friendly and much more counter-intuitive and chaotic, with drivers forced to cut into or across moving traffic.


Some general comments:
- the supposed parking shortage on weekends. This is another red herring. Yes parking lots fill up on summer weekends and are largely empty during the week. So what? I don't believe this has ever been a matter of significant public concern or of discussion in the media. The idea of extra lots and a shuttle seems to me a solution in search of a problem. The mountain has been serving Montrealers just fine for decades before this misguided initiative was introduced.

- protecting fauna and flora. Control off road cyclists.

The ban on traffic was a terrible move in a city with the kinds of traffic problems that Montreal has. Please revoke this terrible decision and let us drive on a beautiful road, saving time in many instances and reducing the terrible traffic on other routes.

My opinion is the road should be reopened and everything left as it has been. This was a terrible idea and detrimental to tourism and access to both the mountain and various areas of the city.
Period.

keep both roads connected and open to cars

In my opinion, access to the mountain is important. Do not stop cars from going there but please do set speed limits for all (including bicycles) The mountain should not be taken over by elite cyclists racing down the hill either. Buses and cars should be allowed perhaps with dedicated lanes. Please keep the mountain accessible to everyone. Thank you.

I do not agree with the proposed plan to block through-traffic, not do I agree with the proposed plan to segregate and limit parking access from only one side of the mountain. I belive that this is a poorly conceived and somewhat amateurish plan that doesn't suit the needs of Montrealers.

Project Montreal should shelve this proposal, and instead focus on developing a comprehensive plan for the mountain in conjunction with "les amies de la montagne". This would include traffic abasement measures, new bike-only paths, and measures that protect the heritage of Montreal, but would exclude the silly Projet Montreal concept of blocking through-traffic.

I would also like to express my disappointment with the individuals within Projet Montreal who cynically used the accidental death of a cyclist for political purposes. The 2018 Mount Royal roadblock was implemented without proper consultation, and resulted in zero effective enhancements to anyone's safety on the mountain. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

Je crois que la voie Camillien-Houde devrait être ouverte à l’année longue. Quand elle est fermée je ne passe pas par la montagne du tout et je ne visite pas les différents endroits comme le Lac des castors et le belvédère Peel. Quand la voie s’était ouverte aux voitures, je passais souvent par là avec des amis qui visitaient d’ailleurs. C’était une belle façon de montrer la ville et la beauté de la montagne aux gens. Mais quand elle est fermée je ne fais plus cela.
De plus, dans une ville où il y a tellement de construction routière, de fermetures de rues et de réductions de voies, je trouve ça ridicule de fermer une si belle route qui réduit le traffic en aidant des milliers de gens à traverser d’un bord ou l’autre de la montagne. Tout ça pour une centaine de cyclistes.