SAINTE-ANNE-DE-BELLEVUE – Almost overnight, the City of Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue has a fresh, new look.
Hydro-Quebec power lines that have littered Sainte-Anne Street in the historic West Island municipality for decades are gone.
Utility crews removed them in four hours on Thursday morning.
“This is really much nicer. It just feels so much more calm,” Alex Csank, a resident, told Global News.
The city applied and received a grant from the provincially-owned corporation to bury the lines several years ago.
In 2014, Hydro-Quebec buried 800 meters worth of electric cables along the bustling commercial street and now the old cables that hung overhead, carrying 25,000 volts for 48 shops, are a thing of the past.
“The view is so much cleaner now. Instead of having all those wires across the road, and stuff like that, it is going to make a big difference,” Paola Hawa, the mayor of Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue told Global News.
But not all the lines on the main street are being buried.
Power cables east of Lalonde will remain on utility poles.
Some people who work there wish all of Sainte-Anne was done.
“I just felt it would have been nice to do it completely. It’s going to look half nice,” Libo Pipia, a hairstylist at Passion Coiffure, told Global News.
The unobstructed view of the skyline that is now apparent on the commercial street isn’t just aesthetically pleasing to the eye, the removal has practical purposes as well.
Buried electrical lines means power outages are much less likely.
G. D’Aoust, an iconic department store, has been in business on Sainte-Anne Street since electricity was first introduced to the area more than a century ago.
The owner isn’t sad to see the overhead wires removed.
“(The) streets are now more open. It’s going to be great for people,” owner Philippe D’Aoust told Global News.
Next to go are the utility poles that still line the street; they are scheduled to be removed next week.
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