Montreal to create more parks and “sponge” sidewalks to withstand the rain

MONTREAL – Over the next two years, the City of Montreal will create nearly 30 parks and 400 “sponge” sidewalks to better withstand heavy rain.

The city made the announcement just hours before the start of the “Adaptation Futures” international conference on adaptation to climate change, which kicks off Tuesday morning at the Palais des congrès de Montréal. Mayor Valérie Plante is expected to attend, as are Environment Ministers Steven Guilbeault and Benoit Charette.

Since 2022, the City of Montreal says it has created seven sponge parks and 800 sponge sidewalks. It hopes to add 30 parks and 400 sidewalks of this kind in 2024 and 2025, in order to curb the amount of water that flows into sewer infrastructures during heavy rain.

“Depending on the different layouts, the impact of heavy rain will be reduced by redirecting the water towards the river, retaining it completely until the sewer system is available, or gradually draining it through the ground. These include vegetated plains, sunken play areas and multi-purpose in-ground basins,” explained the city in a press release.

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Increasingly, torrential rains are overloading Montreal’s sewers and putting a strain on the city’s infrastructure, as was the case during the torrential rain episode at the beginning of July.

Demineralizing public spaces or greening urban environments to allow natural spaces to absorb rainwater is recognized as an effective measure for adapting to climate change.

In a speech to the Conseil des relations internationales de Montréal at the end of September, Mayor Plante also raised the idea of creating “sponge streets” by removing asphalt, for example.

“There are places in the city where, with every torrential downpour, they get flooded, so what do we do? I have to change the territory, I can’t leave it the same, people are no longer insurable, it’s unbelievably sad to see people come crying to a borough council,” she had said.

More than 1,500 international climate change adaptation specialists will gather this week at the “Adaptation Futures” conference to discuss best practices for meeting the challenges posed by climate change.

-This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on October 3, 2023.