Friday, January 15, 2010

Mont Royal Ave’s first flirtation with pedestrianization

spacingmontreal, December 29
Author: Alanah Heffez

Summer 1970: Montreal’s first mall. Not the suburban kind of mall we’ve grown to dread, but a pedestrian shopping area in the heart of the city, on Mount Royal avenue between Chambord and Marquette.

“A substantial body of public opinion in this city firmly believes that it is urgent to relieve downtown areas of the congestion and confusion of excessively heavy motor traffic…Only radical measures can head off a paralyzing stagnation of city life brought on by an uncontrolled proliferation of cars and trucks,” the Gazette editorialized in July 1970.

[A fascinating bit of history. -MH]

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