Montreal Street Reconfiguration Could Remove Parking, and Businesses Aren't Happy

Andy Riga reports on a parking controversy in Montreal, where Mayor Valérie Plante's administration has been "denying that it has already decided to eliminate almost 500 parking spots on Ste-Catherine St."

According to Riga, the Plante administration announced Phase 1 of a planned revamp of Ste-Catherine Street earlier this year, which included plans to remove the 140 parking spots between Bleury and Mansfield streets.

Then, earlier this week, "city council approved a contract to a consortium led by CIMA+ to study Phase 2 — the 1.7-kilometre stretch between Mansfield and Atwater Ave., where work would start after 2022." The feasibility study for Phase 2 included language that indicated the city plans to remove street parking on this second section of the project as well.

Those plans provoked some political and business leaders in the city to oppose the project out of fear that the street would lose retail shoppers to suburban malls in nearby cities.