MONTREAL – If car-free day is right up your alley, then the four-kilometre-long pedestrian mall and sidewalk sale along Ste. Catherine St. this weekend was a good trial run. The question now is: Does it mean the city will start doing this more often?
The no-car zone was the longest ever in the modern history of Ste. Catherine St., linking an annual sidewalk sale between St. Marc St. and Bleury St. with the Just for Laughs festival from Bleury to St. Urbain St., followed by three blocks of road construction, another stretch of sidewalk sales and an all-summer pedestrian mall in the Gay Village from Berri St. until Papineau Ave.
"We’re testing things out and we’ll decide next year," Ville Marie spokesperson Anne-Sophie Harrois said about the possibility of more frequent car-free zones on Ste. Catherine. "We may do it more often next summer."
For many in the throng on the street, the event was a resounding success.
"It should be car-free, seven days a week," said Anne-Julie Lalonde, pushing her son Samuel, 3, around in a stroller near Guy St. The downtown resident marvelled at the overnight transformation of the city’s main commercial strip, from a river of bumpers to a steady stream of bipeds who were grooving to live music, gobbling hotdogs and Popsicles and fishing for deals like $2.99 T-shirts.
"The ambience is great and it’s good for the environment," Lalonde said. "They should find the means to do this all the time."
Others weren’t as zealous, but also approved of more car-free events. "Let’s not be ridiculous," Kaska Gdela said. "Let’s have more car-free time, but only on some weekends. It reduces the stress."
Sharon, who would not give her last name, watched in amazement as members of the break-dancing group Deadly Venoms Crew spun out moves called windmill, airtrack and 1990s on a wood floor installed on the street.
"It’s so good to see Ste. Catherine with no cars," she exclaimed.
Véronique Filteau, 25, walked her two puppies, an 8-month-old Bernese mountain dog named Monsieur, and Mademoiselle, a 3-month-old golden retriever, on Ste. Catherine St. and noted that police cadets were stopping pedestrians at street corners to allow vehicles through on streets intersecting Ste. Catherine. "They have good security," she said.
For merchants, it was an all-hands-on-deck weekend of salesmanship and eyeing the sky, which threatened but did not produce rain Sunday. Saturday, torrential rains just before 3 p.m. forced many kiosks to close up for the day.
James Gaspar, owner of Mister Steer restaurant, was flipping burger patties and sausages with his son-in-law in front of his family’s restaurant, open since 1958. "We’re selling burgers for a special price of $4 each and we say hi to everyone who goes by," Gaspar, 63, said cheerfully.
Eftal Oral, part of a coalition of artisans selling handmade jewelry and carved wood sculptures, said kiosks don’t make much money on sidewalk sales, but they do reap other rewards. Sellers of handicrafts can make as little $50 to $200 per day per kiosk, Oral, 53, said. "But it’s worth it to get people to know you and come back on other days."
Veteran Place Montreal Trust men’s clothier Raphaël Parienté saw the street sale as a good opportunity to demonstrate his considerable powers of persuasion. "One guy came over to buy a shirt for $19.99 and I ended up taking him into the store and I sold him a tie, shoes and a suit for $450."
Cars were such a thing of the past on Ste. Catherine St. Sunday that the street even had a car museum of sorts. Two dozen antique and refurbished classic model cars, some for sale, were parked on an angle between Bishop St. and Guy, on display by members of the Club des voitures anciennes du Québec.
Daniel Préfontaine, a retired firefighter who lives in St. Léonard, beamed next to his gloriously polished beige 1930 Ford Model A. He rents it for $500 a day for weddings and graduations. "I make her work," he said.
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