Montréal at the Crossroads, edited by Pierre Gauthier, Jochen Jaeger, and Jason Princer

Montréal at the Crossroads, edited by Pierre Gauthier, Jochen Jaeger, and Jason Princer, Black Rose Books, 2009. ISBN : 9781551643434 Montréal is at a potential turning point in its transportation policy, one that most North American cities will reach in the next decade or so. The Turcot Interchange, the busiest and most centrally located node in Montréal’s freeway network, is in very poor condition. It is a maze of elevated ramps towering over the Lachine Canal and Canadian National rail yards. All stakeholders agree that the current interchange needs to be replaced, but the question has become: with what? The Ministère des Transports du Québec (MTQ) has developed a plan to fully rebuild the interchange, expanding capacity, lowering ramps and building some elevated sections on embankments in the process. Other groups have proposed alternate solutions, such as reinforcing the current structure in place, removing the Ville-Marie freeway which leaves the interchange to the east, and developing alternative routes by investing in public transit and bypasses for freight traffic. Although this book discusses issues specific to Montréal, the arguments are applicable to other North American cities. In a general sense, this book discusses whether it is appropriate to rebuild aging highway infrastructure or whether the need for highway infrastructure renewal should be an opportunity to make major changes in the urban transportation network. Each chapter was written by different authors and contributes a separate view of the Turcot Interchange and the proposals to rebuild it. The authors of this book range from students to experts in their fields and come from backgrounds in biology, environmental science, architecture, engineering, and planning. The book relies primarily on academic research but is written in such a way that the individual sections are accessible to readers without experience in the relevant field. It might appeal to practitioners and neighborhood activists outside Montréal and could serve as an interesting case study for a transportation policy class.