MONTREAL -- Des Pins Ave., despite its name, is one of the least tree-lined streets in the Plateau, not to mention one of the least attractive, in some people's opinions. But that's changing, starting this summer.
City Council voted last fall to give the street a complete makeover, but it didn't publish the final plans until Wednesday, when it held a public virtual meeting to lay out the images of the future street.
Almost 150 trees will be planted all along Des Pins. Its current painted bike lanes will be turned into protected ones that are separated from traffic by raised strips of sidewalk -- which will also hold the trees and other vegetation, making the wide street feel narrower.
The sidewalks will also be widened, and "contemporary" street furniture will be added, according to a news release from the city on Friday.
The changes will apply to the stretch of the road between St. Denis St. and Parc Ave.
"This redesigned artery will be positioned as an essential access route to Mount Royal," the release said.
The city decided to do the revamp because Des Pins already needed to be ripped up, said Éric Alan Caldwell, who heads urban planning and mobility for the city's executive committee, according to the release.
“We are seizing the opportunity offered by the need to upgrade underground infrastructure to completely rethink the surface layout," he said.
The street is bordered by "real Montreal heritage gems," he said, but as for urban planning, "today's reality is no longer that of the time when this thoroughfare was originally built."
The redesign is meant to highlight the buildings while becoming safer and more pedestrian-friendly, the release said. Aside from homes and businesses, that stretch also has couple of historical places of interest: the Musée des Hospitalières de l'Hotel-Dieu de Montréal and the Musée des Fusiliers Mont-Royal.
It's the latest such street makeover begun by the city. Last year, it also announced the winning design for McGill College, which will be turned into an urban mini-"forest" in the heart of downtown, with vegetation and benches.
Local urban planner Marco Chitto made it clear on Twitter that he's not a fan of Des Pins's current look.
But he told CTV that the broader move towards making streets more pedestrian-friendly -- not just in Montreal but around the world -- tends to end up attracting more people to those streets.
It can be done strategically, he said, to create spots that particularly draw people.
"McGill College has a very good potential as a city square, especially given the nearby university and the very high transit accessibility," he said.
"Des Pins might be more challenging, but it's an important east-west axis that will connect with the St. Denis RÉV [express bike lanes]."
Des Pins already has high bike traffic, with more than 300 bikes per hour during peak periods, the city said.
While Montreal overall has many parks and natural gathering places, its downtown core doesn't, Chitto said.
"If well done it could be very transformative for that part of the city," he said. "Downtown especially has few remarkable public spaces... it's still quite dull and too car-dominated."
Work is scheduled to begin this July and progress in distinct stages, ending in 2023. The total investment is more than $40 million.
When the plan was announced in November, some local merchants said they didn't like the idea of construction on top of the pandemic.
The city said it's making them eligible for financial assistance. They'll be offered subsidies compensating them for losses up to a maximum of $40,000 per year.
Some local residents talked on social media about the headache of construction -- but some also said they were so glad to get an upgrade, it would be worth it, even while working from home.
