Howdy!

Recently I noticed that whomever the powers that be are, decided to make President Kennedy in between Clark and Jeanne Mance, one way going west.

I presume that they did this because of the 80/535 stop in front of the Place des Arts metro. This buses are big and block up a full lane when waiting. There were a couple of time this fall when I saw some cars trying to pass them while going west almost crash into cars going east along President Kennedy.

Way back in the dark ages, before the Quartier des Spectacles and the Place des Festivals was a gleam in anyone’s eye. The 80/535 used to trundle down Bleury all the way to Rene Levesque, where they would turn east and then turn north onto Jeanne Mance in order to head back to Parc Ex. But once construction was started on the Quartier des Spectacles and the Place des Festivals the 80/535 stops had to be changed.

View The Old 80/535 route in a larger map

So some bright wag decided that the 80/435 (and they also decided to change the number of the route as well) should continue along Rene Levesque until Saint Laurent, turn up Saint Laurent until Ontario, and then stop in front of the new(ish) UQAM buildings.

View The New 80/435 Route in a larger map

Which is how there almost was a rash of car accidents on President Kennedy (for the non-locals, Ontario and President Kennedy are the same street, with two different names). But what both the powers that be and the bright wag completely forgot about was that there was another street maybe 50 feet south, that paralleled President Kennedy and was already one way west. It’s called de Maisonneuve.

I don’t understand why they didn’t route the 80/435 to turn left on de Maisonneuve thereby enabling them to keep President Kennedy two way. It seems kind of silly to me to have two streets duplicating the same thing not even side-by-side, but practically on top of each other. Especially since it now means that the 125 going east has to detour up to Sherbrooke and the back down Saint Urbain to complete its route.

Then there is some other silliness as well. Clark street is two-way for 50 feet! And de Montigny is also one way going west (and why didn’t they just rename it to become de Maisonneuve? Why the name change for just two, short blocks?

I might be able to understand if these particular intersections were on the Plateau where they deliberately try to make it difficult, if not down right impossible for drivers. But this is downtown, centre-ville Montreal where they still like cars.