Montreal roads
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Like many major cities, Montreal has a problem with vehicular traffic congestion, especially from off-island suburbs such as Laval on Île Jésus, and Longueuil on the southeastern shore. The width of the Saint Lawrence River has made the construction of fixed links to the southeastern shore expensive and difficult. Accordingly, there are only four road bridges (plus one road tunnel, two railway bridges, and a metro line), whereas the far narrower Rivière des Prairies is spanned by eight road bridges (six to Laval and two to the north shore) and now one Metro line to Laval.
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[edit] Limited-access highways (Autoroutes)
The island of Montreal is a hub for the Quebec Autoroute system, and is served by Quebec Autoroutes A-10 (aka the Bonaventure Expressway on the island of Montreal), A-15 (aka the Decarie Expressway south of the A-40 and the Laurentian Autoroute to the north of it), A-13 (aka Mirabel Autoroute), A-20, A-25, A-40 (part of the Trans-Canada Highway system, and known as "The Metropolitan" or simply "The Met" in its elevated mid-town section), A-520, and A-720 (aka the Ville-Marie Autoroute). Many of these Autoroutes are frequently congested at rush hour.
Today's existing highways have been planned in the 1960's as part of a grid like transport system.
[edit] Street grid system
Since Montreal is on an island, the directions used in the city plan do not precisely align with compass directions, as they are oriented to the geography of the island. Up and down are defined on an axis roughly perpendicular to the St. Lawrence River and the Rivière des Prairies: Up is towards the Rivière des Prairies, and down is towards the St. Lawrence. Right and left directions are defined as roughly parallel to the St. Lawrence River (which flows southwest to northeast) and the Rivière des Prairies. Right is downstream, and left is upstream.
Saint Lawrence Boulevard, also known as "The Main," divides Montreal into east and west sectors. Streets that lie on both sides of Saint Lawrence Boulevard are divided into two parts, which have Est (East) or Ouest (West) appended to their names. Streets that lie on only one side of the Main do not generally contain a direction in their names. Address numbering begins at one at Saint Lawrence Boulevard. The numbers increase as you move away from the boulevard. On north-south streets, house numbers begin at the Saint Lawrence River and the Lachine Canal and increase to the north. Odd numbers are on the east or north sides of the street, with even numbers on the west or south sides. Numbered streets generally run north and south, and the street numbers increase to the east.
Moreover, the addresses are on a grid-axis system, as in many North American cities. Streets generally retain their grid position throughout their course, even if they are slightly diagonal. For example:
- Sherbrooke Street, which runs "east-west" is 3400 (north of the Saint Lawrence), so a house on the north-east corner of Sherbrooke St. would theoretically be numbered 3401, and on the north-west 3400.
- Saint Hubert Street, which runs "north-south" is 800 East, so a house on the north-east corner of St-Hubert St, would be 801 (or 801 East if the street crosses Saint Lawrence Boulevard), and a house on the south-east corner would be 800 East.
- Peel Street, which runs "north-south" is 1100 West, so a house on the north-west corner of Peel St, would be 1101 (or 1101 West if the street crosses Saint Lawrence Boulevard), and a house on the south-west corner would be 1100 West.
An anomaly is that zero is the Saint Lawrence River and the Lachine Canal, so address numbers south of the canal begin at zero at the river, then increase toward the canal, and the canal resets the address grid back to zero. There are only two streets (Atwater and Charlevoix) that cross the canal without changing names, so that addresses south of the canal add a 0 (zero) before the number to act as a "negative" (though they still increase northward and respect the grid of the streets parallel to them). Therefore, 0400 Charlevoix St. is south of the canal, and 400 north of it.
Other grid axes:
- North-south streets, east side: St-Denis 400, Amherst/Christophe-Colomb 1100, Papineau 1800, De Lorimier 2100, Pie-IX Blvd 4100, Honoré-Beaugrand 8000, St-Jean-Baptiste Blvd 12000, Rousselière 14000.
- North-south streets, west side: Park Avenue 300, Peel 1100, Atwater 3000, Décarie 5300, Cavendish 6500.
- East-west streets: Notre-Dame 500, René-Lévesque Blvd 1150, Sainte-Catherine 1400, Ontario 2000, Sherbrooke 3400, Mont-Royal Avenue 4500, St-Joseph Blvd 5000, Beaubien 6500, Jean-Talon 7200, Jarry 8100, Henri-Bourassa 10700, De Salaberry 12000. Gouin Blvd, which follows the shore of Rivière des Prairies, is too crooked to have a constant grid reference.
The grid-axis system was introduced by the City of Montreal in the mid-1920s, but was not generally adopted by neighboring towns. Most on-island suburbs or boroughs merged recently on the west side of the island still have separate numbering systems, though most streets that start in the 9 original boroughs continue the Montreal numbering beyond its old borders. The highest address in Montreal is 23000 Gouin Boulevard West in the borough of Pierrefonds.
[edit] Street naming
Most streets in Montreal do not change name throughout their course, respecting their grid axis. Streets such as Saint Lawrence Boulevard, Papineau Ave., De Lorimier Ave. and Pie-IX Blvd. have a foot in both rivers, and some streets re-commence despite gaps or interruptions. There are a few notable exceptions which continue for historical reasons. A few north-south streets which begin in Old Montreal change name at Saint-Antoine Street (formerly Craig Street), site of the former city wall (Saint-Pierre → Bleury, Bonsecours → Saint-Denis). Only one street changes name many times: McGill Street → Square-Victoria Street → Beaver Hall Hill → Frère-André Place → Phillips Place → Phillips Square → Aylmer St.
According to the rules of the Commission de toponymie du Québec, the French-language form of street names is the only official one, and is to be used in all languages: e.g. chemin de la Côte-des-Neiges; rue Sainte-Catherine; côte du Beaver Hall. Most English speakers, however, use English generic equivalents such as "street" or "road", as do English-language media such as the Montreal Gazette. Officially bilingual boroughs have the right to use such names in official contexts, such as on street signs. In the past, a number of streets had both English and French names, such as "avenue du Parc" or "Park Avenue", "rue de la Montagne" or "Mountain Street", "rue Saint-Jacques" or "Saint James Street". Some of these names are still in common colloquial use in English, and perpetuated by the tourism industry. Many streets incorporate an English specific name into French, such as "chemin Queen Mary", "rue University", "avenue McGill College". There are also a few cases where two names are official, such as "chemin du Bord-du-Lac/Lakeshore Road".
In English, the pre-Francization names are still commonly used, thus, although only the French is 'official', in English one often hears names such as Park Avenue, Mountain Street, Saint Lawrence Boulevard, Pine Avenue, Saint John's Boulevard etc. Canada Post accepts the French specific with English generic, as in "de la Montagne Street" or "du Parc Avenue", although many such forms are never used in speaking. Another anomaly that typifies this kind of mixed heritage and history is René Lévesque Boulevard. Once called "Dorchester Boulevard" in its entirety, this long east-west street was renamed for Quebec former nationalist Prime Minister René Lévesque, except for sections that run through the very Anglophone city of Westmount. However, the entire street is still sometimes referred to as "Dorchester."
It is useful to note that, in Montreal as in other cities, the generic is usually omitted in either language, so one would simply talk of Park (or Du Parc), Mountain (or De la Montagne), Saint Lawrence (or Saint Laurent), University, McGill College, Doctor Penfield, or Fairmount. This is mainly because a specific is almost never given to two streets. If duplication exists, they are always in different boroughs or towns and are retained for historical reasons. For example, Montreal's present 19 boroughs have 6 streets named "Victoria" (2 streets, 2 avenues, one court, and one square), and 9 more in on- or off-island suburbs. In recent years Montréal and most of its suburbs have dispensed entirely with such generic and linguistically fraught terms on their street signage.
[edit] See also
- List of crossings of the Rivière des Prairies
- List of bridges spanning the Rivière des Prairies
- List of crossings of the Saint Lawrence River
[edit] External links
- MontrealRoads.com by Steve Anderson (English)
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