The Spatial Puzzle of Mobilising for Car Alternatives in the Montreal City-region

Abstract

Scholars have recently advocated going beyond a fetishism for one spatiality to consider a diversity of socio-spatial relations in the study of political mobilisation. The objective of this article is to propose an operationalisation of the four spatialities framework (networks, scale, place and territory) and use it in an investigation of the mobilisation for car alternatives in the Montreal city-region. The approach is to start with the spatiality and structure of the network, to identify brokers and focus on them for the detailed analysis of scale, territory and place. The article sheds light on the particular assets which the use of each spatiality, and their combination, offers for mobilisation in the city-regional context. The findings also illustrate how city-regionalism is experienced by civic actors building coalitions to defend specific causes.

Introduction

Academics argue a lot about spatial categories and the implications of a new spatial fix at the metropolitan or city-regional scale (MacLeod and Jones, 2007). In parallel, activists face real pragmatic spatial issues in terms of their opportunities and constraints for mobilisation (Pastor et al., 2009). Within city-regions especially, their strategic uses of space are bound to a political context in which space, already, is part of existent differentiations and tensions: with the composite spatial texture of city-regions (sprawled mix of dense and non-dense environments) and the particular power dynamics at play in the provision of large infrastructure, between the different constituent parts of the city-region, and between the city region and the higher levels of government (Jonas et al., forthcoming).

Transport and mobility are key topics of both collaboration and conflict within city-regions and the advocacy for car alternatives thus faces multiple spatial puzzles. A key question for activists is whether they should start locally in developing their own alternative forms of mobility, whether they should patiently advocate for long-term metropolitan public transit and dense land use planning or whether they should play the even bigger game of mobilising for a shift in national transport investments. This is a real chicken-and-egg problem, both from a mobilisation and a planning point of view: which of these options should be first prioritised? How are the choices linked with the framing of the problem (Aud, 2010), the different actors they can work with and their spatial positionalities (Leitner et al., 2008)? A literature on social movements has developed avenues to improve understanding of the spatialities of contentious politics (Leitner et al., 2008; Nicholls, 2008, 2009). We propose to use these to articulate a multispatial investigation of mobilisation within a city-regional context.

The Montreal city-region is a rich case study in regard to this spatial dilemma and its relation to the political scene. There have been for some time different competing visions of mobility with radically different spatial implications: one giving priority to fluidity and the right to circulate by car, the other to urban conviviality and alternative mobilities—i.e. public transit, walking and cycling (Poitras, 2009; Paulhiac and Kaufmann, 2006). These divergences have led to the questioning of the legitimacy of the state’s actions in the field of mobility. While central-city civic and public actors have strongly criticised the infrastructure vision of the provincial government for more than a decade, the tension persists.

The academic literature on social movements has recently offered theoretical propositions on the diversity of the spatialities of political mobilisation (Leitner et al., 2008; Jessop et al., 2008; Nicholls, 2008, 2009). These multispatial propositions have been especially developed to go beyond the fetishism for one spatiality, after the perhaps overenthusiasm for the politics of scale. Even just on the scale issue, scholars have argued that we are in need of empirical studies testing to what extent scale is a category of practice (and not just an a priori from researchers) (Moore, 2008). The multispatial propositions have yet to be concretised in an empirical framework which is usable in the investigation of actual cases (Mayer, 2008) (although Leitner et al., 2008, do present an empirical illustration). The objective of this article is very pragmatic: it is to propose an operationalisation of a multispatial framework and to discuss, through the investigation of a large city-regional mobilisation, the merits of such an endeavour. Out of the even larger set of propositions, we consider the following four: networks, scale, territory and place (Leitner et al., 2008; Nicholls, 2009; Jessop et al., 2008).

The first section of our paper presents our analytical framework based on the most recent proposals to distinguish different forms of spatiality. The methods section explains how we investigate empirically each type of spatiality. This leads us to the story of the mobilisation for car alternatives in Montreal in the past 10 years, in light of the spatialities used by the actors. In the final section, we discuss the combinations of spatialities used in our case study and their relation to the sucesses of different expansion strategies. Finally, we conclude on the usefulness of the proposed multispatial framework to research collective action in city-regions.

1. Analytical Framework: The Spatialities of Mobilisation

Until recently, the discussion on socio-spatial relations has been dominated by the rediscovery of the notion of ‘scale’ as a social and political construction. Scale was seen as a way to understand the contemporary transformations of state action in a context of globalisation (Brenner, 2004). It was also used in many analyses of social movements and political participation, with the concept of scale-jumping (Marston, 2000; Cox, 1998).

Some researchers came to question the focus on scale since socio-political practices also involve other forms of spatialities (Leitner et al., 2008; Jessop et al., 2008). Recent work in this field has thus distinguished different forms of spatialities and their interrelations. The present paper takes the next step: operationalising a multispatial framework and using it in an empirical investigation, to show what it brings to the study of actors’ mobilisation and strategies. Our multispatial framework contains the four main spatialities discussed in the literature: networks, scale, place and territory.¹ In the next paragraphs, we define very briefly each spatiality. There is still a lot of discussion on each concept and our objective is not to settle those theoretical debates. We rather propose a workable empirical framework.

1.1 Networks

Networks refer to a set of relations between nodes (Diani and McAdam, 2003). We focus here on social networks, thus on a set of social relations between actors. Stronger ties allow the development of certain ‘relational attributes’—trust, loyalty and duty—which are essentials to tighten solidarities, build alliances and construct joint frames of action (Nicholls, 2008). Weaker ties and collaborations are made of exchange of information, financing and political backing, and serve the construction of tactics and power leverage, of political identities and of alternative imaginaries (Nicholls, 2008; Leitner et al., 2008; Cumbers et al., 2008). Together, the set of relations create an interconnectivity between different locations. This web is seen as a special kind of spatiality

The argument is that this topological spatiality—spanning rather than covering geographical space—is necessary for stable ideas and practices to move through geographical space and between regions (Leitner et al., 2008, p. 162).

1.2 Scale

Scale refers to “the differentiation of social relations vertically” (Jessop et al., 2008, p. 393) and the embeddedness of spatial constructs into a larger configuration of interrelated and built-in parts—for example, the local, metropolitan, national, global scales—of which some are dominant over the others (Jessop et al., 2008; Brenner, 2001). The process of scale construction is tied to specific socio-spatial histories and leads to more or less temporary scalar configurations (‘spatial fix’, the nested scales of the State) which can be contested—i.e. the politics of scale (Leitner et al., 2008). The politics of scale has been discussed in its material manifestations, as well as in its discursive manifestations (MacKinnon, 2011). We will particularly focus on the last aspect, which has been presented in terms of scalar frames. Actors use scalar frames to argue in a public debate (McCann, 2003), or to mobilise adherents around a cause. Scale then becomes a sort of collective action frame (Martin, 2003; Leitner et al., 2008).

1.3 Territory

For Jessop et al. (2008, p. 393), territory refers specifically to the principles of “bordering, bounding, parcelization, enclosure” through which inside/outside divides emerge. We rely here on this definition of territory as the defence of boundaries or of bounded spaces (a definition which is more specific to the Enligh speaking literature) (Painter, 2010). Territory can manifest itself in two ways in the strategies of actors. First, actors can define their mission by the located interests and perspectives of their members from a specific bounded space. Secondly, one can strategically construct a new territorial entity with new boundaries. It can be a way to advocate specific investments, or to clearly mark territory of alternatives.

1.4 Place

Place consists in the symbolic use of the materiality of one physical site, which has meaning for the social relations and daily routines which therein take place (Leitner et al., 2008, pp. 161–162). Such places can be as diverse as a public space, a piece of infrastructure which has larger meaning for the urban network, a bridge, a park, a work-place, etc.

Table 1 summarises our multispatial framework. The first column gives the general definition for each spatiality. The second column focuses on the mobilisation dimension of the spatiality: how do actors use it in practice? The last column points out the specific indicator(s) used in our case study. We will now turn to a discussion of these methodological issues.

Table 1.

The multi-spatial analytical framework proposed

Spatiality	General definition	The mobilisation dimension of the spatiality	Empirical criteria used in our research on mobilisation for car alternatives
Networks	Set of relations between actors	Make strategic collaborations that can create interconnectivity between actors in different locations	Analysis of inter-relations between the participants in seven coalitions for car alternatives
			Involvement in only one or diverse transport issues (targeted participation)
			Intersectoral networking: involvement with actors who have their activities in another sector (six sectors: environmental protection, transport, social justice and community work, health, economic development and built heritage)
			Centre–periphery networking: involvement of actors from inner-city neighbourhoods with actors from suburbs and vice versa
			Identification of brokers, their work of coalition building and collaborative projects
Scale	Configuration of vertically embedded spatial constructs (for example, local/metropolitan/national/global)	The scalar framing used to put emphasis on an issue	Scales involved in the framing of the mobility problems and solutions by the brokers, in their projects and public stances
Territory	A space delimited by clear boundaries	Mobilising in giving priorities to a bounded space	Mentions of spatial boundaries or dividing lines across space in the definition of the projects and priorities of the brokers
Place	A specific physical site where individuals interact on a daily basis	Occupy a site to transform its meaning symbolically or to use its meaning to serve a cause	Occupation of a place by brokers to underline a mobility issue

Sources: inspired by Leitner et al. (2008) and Jessop et al. (2008).

2. Methods

2.1 The pool of actors mobilised

We consider all actors—public, private or from the third sector—who promote car alternatives and are engaged in coalitions and collaborative projects in which the central aim is to make progress in transport and mobility. Their claims are directed to government(s) which have responsibility for roads, transport, public transit and slow modes. In Canada, these responsibilities are shared between the three political levels: federal, provincial and municipal governments (with the associated city-regional entities) although large transport infrastructures are usually the responsibility of the provincial government. While Leitner et al. (2008) speak of the spatial strategy of one social movement, our study concerns rather a series of coalitions and projects to mobilise on a common issue: car alternatives.

2.2 The Whole Network and its Segmentation Lines

The network analysis allowed us to identify the constellation of actors involved in car alternatives and their interrelations. We relied on social network analysis to characterise the form and structure of the network: whether it is centralised or decentralised (with brokers linking actors together or redundancy of ties between all actors) and segmented or non-segmented (in different groups which are internally more connected than to the rest of the network) (Diani and McAdam, 2003, pp. 307–312). Our database to conduct our network analysis consists of the participants in the seven coalitions for car alternatives in the Montreal city-region, from 2002 to 2012 (with an average of 32 participants for each, and a total of 144 actors). The members of the coalitions are those stated as members by the documents or web pages of the coalitions. In the language of social network analysis, the network is thus constructed on the basis of co-presence to events (a two-modes network, see Borgatti, 2010). In addition to the network matrices, we have used in-depth qualitative data.

Within the city-regional and urban context, certain tensions or division lines, which actors are struggling with, have been documented: between a particularised and a transversal mobilisation (Harvey, 2003); between activism in the central city and in the suburbs (Pastor et al., 2009); and between different sectors of intervention (Weir et al., 2009). Bridging across those three segmentation lines is considered here to be an indicator of the use of the spatiality of networks.

Our Montreal pool of actors come from the following six sectors of intervention: environment protection, transport and mobility, social justice and community development work (SJCD), economic development, health, and finally built heritage. For each sector, transport and mobility may imply different spatial needs. For example, for actors of social justice and community work (SJCW), mobility is linked to the defence of the quality of life in certain local territories; especially for vulnerable populations. Yet for environmental actors, there are also higher scalar considerations, such as those related to climate change. Brokerage between sectors of intervention can thus mean a more diversified spatial understanding of the mobility issues.

2.3 The Focus on Key Actors

This network analysis also allowed us to identify key actors within the network. They consist of the actors—from now on, we will name them ‘the brokers’—that can expand the spatial scope of the movement in building new ties (brokerage) and in activating existent networks (diffusion) (Diani and McAdam, 2003, pp. 293–296). These two processes require certain discursive abilities and the development of discursive frames. Spatiality becomes involved in the discursive frames: the politics of scale have been precisely discussed in this way (McCann, 2003; Leitner et al., 2008), while the references to territorial boundaries or to the symbolic meaning of places can also come into play (Martin, 2003; González, 2011).

To identify these brokers, we used our data from our two-modes network of participation to coalitions as much as our semi-structured interviews. The first source allows us to identify the most active actors and the ones who share the greatest number of co-membership of coalitions with other actors. Our interviews then gave us more details on the intentions and concrete implication of actors in bridging across segmentation lines, through collaborative projects.

2.4 Data Collection and Analytical Steps for the Other Spatialities

To document brokerage projects and collaborative actions (and the other spatialities involved in them), the interviews were key. Prior to the interviews, however, much preliminary empirical work had already been done. For about 60 actors more involved in car-alternative projects and coalitions, Internet searches and press reviews were made to document their projects and collaborations. These actors are listed by sectors and presence in coalitions in the Appendix.² In choosing them, we looked not only for the most active, but also for a good representativity of our six sectors, and of a range of spatial localisations. From the 60 more documented actors, we succeeded in meeting 38 (once or twice). Forty-three interviews were thus conducted in 2010 and 2011 (lasting from 45 minutes to two hours). Our pools of 43 interviews confirmed that we touch on the range of all coalitions and collaborative projects in the field of car alternatives and the main linkages between actors, which we had begun to identify in the prior step.

Scalar frames were identified first by analysing the documents of the mobilised actors to find their framing of the mobility problems and of the solutions. In many cases, the scalar frame not only emphasised one scale, but also articulated a certain relation between different scales (in terms of problem/solution or solutions with different temporalities and power relations). Secondly, when such a scalar frame was identified in documents, specific questions were asked about it in the interviews. To document the uses of territory and place, interviews were also used with information previously gathered in documents and press review. For the use of territory we looked in particular for references to boundaries in the priorities and obligations of an actor, and to dividing lines across space (for example, statements such as: “We on the south shore want this”).

In sum, our methodological approach takes networks as the starting-point to identify brokers. These are used to make a more detailed analysis of the use of scale, territory and place.

3. Mobilisation around Car Alternatives in Montreal

The population of the Greater Montreal Area (GMA) is 3.6 million. The centre of the GMA is the island of Montreal, which is composed of Montreal city and 14 other municipalities, and Jesus Island on the northern side, where we find the suburban municipality of Laval (see Figure 1). The main growth in recent years has been in the suburban municipalities of the north and south shores, although 51 per cent of the GMA population lives on the island of Montreal (CMM, 2012). The elected officials of the 83 municipalities of the GMA meet in the Montreal Metropolitan Community (MMC) (created in 2002), which has competences in strategic spatial planning and public transit. Yet this new institution has stayed weak and has struggled with the sharing of responsibility with the metropolitan transit agency (AMT) created by the provincial government in 1995 (Boudreau and Collin, 2009).

Figure 1.

The territory of the Montreal Metropolitan Community, with its five main sectors and the transport projects discussed in the text.

Since the end of the 1990s, we have witnessed in the GMA a new interest in car alternatives. More actors have started advocating more public transit, slow modes (walking and cycling) and in general a reduced place devoted to cars in the city. These mobilisations came with several demonstrations, concrete collaborative projects, public debates (and six formal public hearings), as well as coalitions. Seven coalitions were formed in Montreal from 2002 to 2012 to promote car alternatives or oppose car-oriented infrastructures, with an average of 32 participant-groups: two were promoting more investment in public transit (2002–05; 2011–), one for traffic calming measures (2007–11) and four concerning specific transport infrastructure projects. This last set of four comprises the Turcot Interchange in the south-east of Montreal; Notre-Dame highway east of Montreal (those two coalitions demanded less car capacity, a more human-scale infrastructure and more public transit included); the coalition against the new toll and privately operated bridge ‘25’ going to the northern suburbs; and the coalition for a modernised Champlain bridge going to the southern suburbs, with on-site public transit (these sites are shown in Figure 1). How have the participant actors in these coalitions and collaborative projects used the spatialities of networks, scale, territory and place for their mobilisation?

3.1 Networks

Our data show that the whole network considered is characterised by a majority of actors (71 per cent) who are involved in only one targeted issue; it is thus very sparse. Yet sub-groups remain connected. Brokers have thus particularly worked on broadening the mobilisation from isolated targeted issues to a more general and interconnected mobilisation. However, certain sectors of intervention collaborate more than others and an important divide remains between the central city and surburban locations. Let’s consider those three points in more detail.

Successful brokerage between targeted causes and broader mobilisation for car alternatives

Our interviews have shown how brokers had specific objectives to link together actors mobilised on targeted issues. Within the coalition for traffic calming, for example, the Environmental Regional Council ERC-Montreal (the leader with the most ties with other actors), glued together a bunch of resident associations and community groups, with the help of the public health agency. The brokers offered their support and expertise, and strategically identified resources locally which could serve the larger coalition. The ERC also gave visibility to these local groups in the press and represented them in front of different public authorities. SJCW groups (TROVEP, Women’s Council), also developed a similar kind of platform on the issue of the affordability and accessibility of public transit within neighbourhoods. Finally, Montreal-based leaders also gathered groups from different locations across the province to participate in the coalitions asking for more investment in public transit. In itself, the existence of three generic coalitions (altogether with 76 actors from different sectors and locations), and their interconnections, show the brokerage between targeted and general causes.

The development of those networks depended on regional and provincial groups which are more central to the whole network and who steered the coalitions. But this brokerage also counted on leaders of targeted causes who made the connections between the coalitions’ core and the other actors in their sub-group or local community. In the case of mobilisation on highway infrastructures, those leaders of specific causes were often under much pressure since the issues at stake were very concrete for their partners in the affected neighbourhoods. The car infrastructures meant important effects on quality of life (and sometimes expropriations) in the neighbourhoods. On the other hand, some neighbourhood SJCW groups also feared the consequences of their opposing stance on the subsidies they received from the government. If many broad alliances have formed, our interviews have shown that their longevity rests in part on the relationship between regional leaders and activists of targeted causes. And these relations are sensitive because of political pressures and the different emotional and geographical proximity to the cause of the two types of actors.

Brokerage between sectors of intervention

What about the brokerage between the different sectors of intervention? Environment, health and transport actors participate in more coalitions and collaborate very much in concrete projects. Our interviews show that this is linked to the intentions of health actors to address mobility issues, while environmental and transport-focused actors (especially cycling and traffic calming groups) also saw many opportunities (in particular, for subsidies) in the collaborations with the public health domain.

SJCW actors and economic actors have, in percentage terms, more targeted participation (79 and 80 per cent) than the actors of the other sectors (42 per cent for environment, 64 per cent for transport and health): the majority of them are thus involved, individually, in only one cause. Economic actors are also little present in the coalitions, with the exception of the Champlain Coalition. There are exceptional key brokers who link with other sectors, but they rarely represent a consensus within the sector.

The most active actors from the economic domain are on one side the metropolitan committees of large workers’ unions and on the other side the Montreal Board of Trade, but they have few direct links together. The workers' unions are important in terms of resources (mobilisation of material, people, money) for demonstrations and for key linkages with civic actors and political parties. The Montreal Board of Trade is the representative of employers in the city(-region). It has developed economical arguments for public transport, arguments which have been much used by actors of other sectors. However, other local boards of trade are more isolated and work mostly with local elected officials. They also sometimes have contradictory positions to those of the central-city Montreal Board of Trade, promoting new or modernised car infrastructures.

Social justice and community organisations (SJCW) represent the most populous sector in the whole network, although this is 80 per cent of targeted participation. They are especially present in infrastructure coalitions; they represent 53 per cent of the members of Mobilisation Turcot. SJCW actors formed the basis of the local mobilisations and, to gather support, were able to use the institutionalised neighbourhood networks with groups of different sectors of intervention (Sénécal et al., 2008). SJCW leaders thus collaborated with other sectors, but through their focus on one cause.

Difficult brokerage between centre and surburban locations of the city-region

The co-membership to coalitions gives a clear vision of a central-city and suburban segmentation in the network, centre-led coalitions rarely reaching to actors located in the suburbs, and vice versa. The one exception is the political coalition of 2005, which was a joint demand by local elected officials and chambers of commerce for more investment in public transit from higher levels of government.

In the recent coalition for a new Champlain bridge with public transit (2011), there was no effort to link actors from the suburbs on the south shore to actors involved in the central city, although the issue itself, the bridge, links the two territories. And the same divided portrait emerges from the more centre-led coalition against the new bridge 25 (bridge linking Montreal to the north shore). This central-city/suburbs division comes partly from the higher centrality of economic actors in the northern and southern suburbs, while central-city actors have more links with environmental and transport actors, even in terms of their ties with actors from the south shore.

One event in 2010 tried to promote greater collaboration under the motto for a “metropolitan civic movement”. The Citizen Agora was frequented by almost 400 participants, but it was initiated by actors from the built heritage and spatial planning sector, which have a rather peripheral position in the network of actors mobilised on transport and mobility. Although the event was thought to be interesting in terms of promoting a ‘metropolitan consciousness’ (Van Neste, 2011a) and being inclusive of actors located in the suburbs (with conferences from key representatives), it had yet no effect for actors in terms of bridging across the segmented network.

As for concrete collaborative projects between the central city and suburban locations, involved parties have faced important challenges. Environmental groups have faced certain territorial disagreements in regard to priorities for public transit (see the territory sub-section). Vélo-Québec has deployed projects to encourage walking and cycling throughout the province. Yet while this has lead to the participation of many suburban municipalities around Montreal, Vélo-Québec feels that many more resources are needed to lead to results—first, because the morphology of suburbs often makes walking and cycling less natural; secondly, because the network of mobilised actors is much less dense than in the central neighbourhoods of Montreal, where diverse community groups and residents’ associations are also involved and work in synergy for more results.

3.2 Scale

What scalar frames were advocated by brokers mobilised for car alternatives? In 2006, the Montreal Public Health Agency produced a report stating that traffic issues are one of the most important cause of health hazards in Montreal, considering pollution, collisions and the low physical activity associated with car mobility (PHA, 2006). The report will give fuel to mobilise for car alternatives for several years. It helps particularly to build a case for a local frame of action, in which changes in the built environment are the only concrete action to slow down cars effectively in neighbourhoods’ dangerous streets and intersections. Traffic calming measures have to be implemented, in parallel to changes encouraging walking, cycling, and the use of public transit. The coalition for traffic calming was created the following year. Vélo-Québec and the Urban Ecology Centre also went to provincial hearings and lobbied in committees to demand changes in the Highway Safety Code, to provincially institutionalise a local frame giving priority to pedestrians and cyclists in urban streets.

From 2008 onwards, the local frame of action continued to be developed, this time in emphasising a local way of life. While the environmental organisation Équiterre had become well known for its ‘cocktail transport’ (a mix of mobility alternatives to lower carbon emissions), the group also started the campaign “I’m active in my neighbourhood”. It promotes walking and cycling to do the errands within local commercial streets. This scalar frame was developed in giving a positive image and a concrete role to local storekeepers. The Urban Ecology Centre also developed a similar scalar frame. They focused on the quality of the design of public spaces and of streets, as spaces of encounter free from car traffic. This frame was developed in partnership with a provincial health actor who promoted more active mobility patterns with the long-term objective of reducing obesity.

The diversified local frame of intervention, and the networks which had been put in place to support it, did lead to changes in streets configurations in certain neighbourhoods. One central borough’s interventions led to a scale debate, giving the opportunity for other actors to mark their different scalar frame. When in Plateau-Mont-Royal borough changes in street sizes and directions (as well as higher parking fees) were implemented, local businesses complained and asked the Montreal City Hall to over-rule the borough’s decisions, fearing a diminution in their clientele. Drivers transiting through the borough suffered temporarily from long congestion delays, causing frustrations which were much talked about in the media. The opposite idea, common in the planning sphere, is that interventions affecting mobility should be planned at a city-regional level, to ensure some form of coherence. There is here a ‘chicken-and-egg’ problem: should local action have to wait for regional planning or could it be done first, to inspire regional planning? Yet even deeper than this, the most conflicting element comes from the implications of the local frame: it implied putting constraints on mobility by car.

Local businesses and the Montreal Board of Trade, particularly, strongly criticised this local intervention and its local frame. The Board has particularly documented the economic benefits of public transit, in relation to the private car. In its framing, public transit ought to be encouraged in making it more competitive (better, more rapid and fluid services) and in changing the dynamics of public investment in transport infrastructures (which still favour road investments). Their framing had thus been focused at the metropolitan and provincial scales. Local interventions could only come next, and in a spirit of metropolitan coherence.

Yet in linking the local to the metropolitan scalar frame, the other brokers are much more radical than the Montreal Board of Trade: it is the scale at which car circulation is produced, through the extension of highways. This is where the brokerage between particular infrastructure projects and more general transport issues has played a particularly important role. Local activists were first opposing a change in the road infrastructure which would have detrimental effects on the air quality, housing and urban fabric of their neighbourhood. Yet when the regional brokers got involved, the link was made with transport issues and a higher scale of interpretation of the problem and solutions emerged. The remodelled Turcot infrastructure will have direct consequences not only for local residents of the south-east of Montreal, but on all inhabitants of the greater region which would be stuck endlessly in a health-hazardous car-dependent mobility system, if public transit is not included. The problem of the new infrastructure was thus reframed in a city-regional perspective, although neighbourhood SJCW actors remained the primary militants.

This last case shows how brokers played simultaneously with different scalar frames, which they considered supplementary. They have developed local scalar frames promoting a ‘local way of life’ and changes in the built environment, to favour walking and cycling, and to slow down cars. In parallel, they also advocated for a metropolitan mobility planning which makes public transit a priority and puts a moratorium on more capacity for cars within transport infrastructures. However, the tension between the two lies in the constraints given to car use and the fluidity of traffic (even public transit) transiting through urban neighbourhoods. While the brokers active in scale framing favour in theory a metropolitan planning, resisting new car traffic by concrete local actions is still welcome by the majority of them. This is precisely where local storekeepers, the Board of Trade and some planners disagree.

3.3 Territory

Territory also proved to be part of the practices of actors and to have implications for the trajectories of the mobilisation. The broker Transport 2000, representing transit users, has tried in the past to link the different territorial localised demands for public transit and create a momentum with all the different ‘access’ groups. Access groups are suburban citizen committees which ask for better transit services for their municipalities. Although some of them are dynamic, they have stayed insulated from wider mobilisation, apparently because of their lack of resources. Furthermore, this type of territorial mobilisation has shown dividing rather than unifying effects in recent years.

The East Train project is a particular example of such a territorial conflict. The project for a new transit connection in the east of the city-region first included two suburban train routes (to improve access to downtown for the north-east and east of the city-region), but it was limited to one in its final phase. While most of the environmental groups advocated the option with two trains, the Environmental Regional Council of Montreal preferred the one-route option, because it was to go through the east of the island of Montreal. ERC-Montreal was scared of losing the state investment (and thus the train in Montreal-East) if it opposed to the one-train decision. ERC-Laval (its sister organisation in Laval) felt that ERC-Montreal abandoned the larger metropolitan alliance which had been made. Since then, ERC-Laval talks of a climate of suspicion from actors of the northern suburbs in regard to the collaboration with Montreal actors, and has started to elaborate its own position with regard to transport issues (while earlier it left this field to ERC-Montreal).

Territory was also used in a creative way by public and civic actors who proposed new bounded territories to advocate for solutions. Through the pilot projects ‘Green, active and healthy neighbourhoods’ new territorial entities were created. The entrance points mark the fact that residents there have chosen to reduce car flows to the benefit of slow modes. The city of Montreal finds this demarcation especially important to ensure greater acceptability of the traffic calming measures. For the civic groups, the boundaries serve to ensure a demonstration effect within a small urban territory. The health actors want to have clear examples of what interventions on the built environment can do (to improve health and security). This strategy helped to get funding and visibility.

From an analytical perspective now, the Group of urban research (GRUHM) proposed an alternative to the territories used by the provincial Ministry of Transport in its transport planning, and especially in its intervention on the Notre-Dame highway and Turcot Interchange (which were both debated in 2008–09). The Ministry was focusing each time on specific segments of infrastructure, limiting its intervention, planning and interaction with the public to this bounded territory of infrastructure segments. GRUHM proposed instead to consider the whole east–west highway axis which crosses Montreal, and of which both the Turcot and Notre-Dame are part. It thus proposed consideration of the east–west road axis as the territory to plan mobility, making it then possible to plan not just for cars but also for on-site public transit services. This territorial (re)construction (based on the historical name of this highway axis) was supported by more than 50 actors who jointly asked to take it as a basis for the debate in public hearings, instead of the strict infrastructure of the Turcot interchange. Although this proposal to change the object of the public hearings was not formally accepted, the proposition did frame many of the contributions in the debate and encouraged a wider consideration of the transport infrastructure (Van Neste, 2011b).

Territorial strategies were thus used in different ways by actors, leading to different consequences for the trajectories of mobilisation. Many actors feel the necessity to strive for the particular interests of their geographically bounded constituency in a time where investment in public transit is still scarce. In one case, this proved to be harmful for the dynamics of city-regional coalition building. New territorial constructions were also invented by brokers, both with a local and a regional perspective, leading to further investment (or at least debate on the need for further investment) in public transit and slow modes.

3.4 Place

Place was also used strategically by mobilised actors, to link their cause to a significantly practised and valued place. The first place used is the subway. Militating against the increasing fares of public transit in Montreal, the social umbrella organisation TROVEP has used the subway both to gain support from the users and to give visibility to the implications of higher fares for the poor. Subway demonstrations became an important joint action of the coalition for public transit (2002–05), in which environmental actors took part. The group Environment and Youth, for example, mimicked a cemetery in front of a central subway station, to show the death of public transit if nothing was done. For the TROVEP, these actions in the subway not only gave visibility to the issue to outsiders, but also accentuated the importance of the social justice issues (affordability) at stake to other groups which focused on environmental ones.

Beside the subway, streets are most often themselves part of the places occupied. An institutionalised place strategy takes place every year in Montreal, like in many other cities of the world: the ‘Day without Cars’, on 22 September, on which a section of downtown is blocked to cars. While this zone has been reduced significantly in recent years, the Urban Ecology Centre has encouraged local groups to have their own ‘neighbourhood without cars’. This meant the organisation of a community event on central streets in their neighbourhood, which were to be blocked to car traffic. Year-long also, many neighbourhood parks and public places have been used to promote car-free and convivial environments. Recently, car parking spaces have also been occupied. While this use of place is made very much in collaboration with public authorities, a ‘die-in’ is also organised by an informal group of cyclists—an event which through the years has gained visibility in the media. The ‘die-in’ (practised in many cities of the world) consists of the occupation of a busy intersection where cyclists ‘act’, falling on the ground and keeping silent for two minutes, to denounce the death of many cyclists due to collisions with cars.

Streets have also been used in more traditional demonstrations, especially by the coalitions advocating against the planned road infrastructures. Mobilisation Turcot changed the place of their demonstration several times, thinking strategically about the location used—first in the neighbourhoods affected, then in hanging up an immense billboard on the interchange, “25,000 more cars on Turcot, unacceptable”, linking the Turcot debate to the Climate Conference which was in process. Finally, they led a demonstration walk into the central neighbourhood Plateau-Mont-Royal, where many local associations (and the local administration, see earlier) were also organising to have alternatives to cars. This last demonstration was held there specifically to show that the Turcot was not only a local issue of ‘not in my backyard’.

Place is thus used strategically as a way to gain wider support for the cause and to show the number of people mobilised. Mobilisation Turcot also specifically chose the different places of occupation in relation to the scalar reframing of their claims. Smaller and more radical groups also use place specifically to gain visibility and contest accepted norms of mobility (the ‘die-in’).

4. Discussion

Our whole portrait of collaborative projects and coalitions points to four strategies through which the mobilisation for car alternatives extends through space in the Montreal city-region: the ‘local alternative as general alternative’, (the neighboorhood projects), the infrastructure alliances, the user-based mobilisation and the metropolitan movement. Table 2 details each strategy, the projects involved and the spatialities used in each.

Table 2.

Strategies of expansion and the assets provided by each spatiality

Strategy of spatial expansion	Collaborative projects and coalitions	Positive and negative assets of the main spatialities used
‘Local’ alternative as the general alternative	Local neighbourhood projects for walking, cycling and convivial public spaces Traffic calming coalition	– Much network brokerage between different sectors and different localisations
		– Refined intertwined local scalar frames, symbolics of places (neighbourhoods and streets)
Alliances on infrastructures: redefine the mobility paradigm through major infrastructures	Mobilisation Turcot Coalition Notre-DameCoalition againt bridge 25 Champlain Bridge Coalition	– Network brokerage between broad mobilisation and targeted causes, and between sectors (but not between central city and suburbs)
		– Combination of local, metropolitan and global scalar frames– Symbolics of place (the infrastructure)
		– Counter-territorial frame (whole axis of mobility vs just one highway or one interchange)
User-based: asking for more and better services (of public transit especially)	Public transit coalitions	– Diffuse network
	Access groups and Transport 2000Chamber of commerce frame	– Metropolitan scalar frame abstract and little used; conflictual local territorial priorities, but sucessful use of place (metro) for affordability
Metropolitan movement	Citizen Agora, planners’ perspective	– Network segmentation between central city and suburbs
		– Conflicts in scalar frames (between local intervention vs preliminary metropolitan planning)
		– Territorial boundaries hinder collaborations
		– Not place-based

Our analysis shows that the successes and difficulties encountered in these expansion strategies are linked to the positive and negative assets of the main spatialities used, especially when their combinations are considered. In the Montreal city-region, the first two strategies are now more visible than the two last ones, and have lead to a densification and diversification of the networks (with more ties between local targeted issues and broad coalitions, as well as more sectors involved) and to an evolution in the framing of the issue. The ‘local alternative as general alternative’ and the infrastructure alliances combine many spatialities which positively affect one another—refined scalar frames, the symbolics of place, much network brokerage and few internal territorial conflicts. These offered alternative imaginaries of mobility: the first focusing on walking, cycling and public spaces within a ‘local way of life’; the second emphasising new visions of infrastructure with on-site public transit.

The user-based strategy and the metropolitan strategy, in contrast, have very little link to strong mobilising spatialities. They are either a-spatial or the spatialities involved show internal conflicts (territorial priorities, network segmentation between central city and suburbs). In the past, user-based strategies have captured attention and led to more investments: particularly in the uses of the subway by the first Coalition for public transit. The symbolism of place helped to strengthen and broaden the networks. Yet gradually, demands and needs from users have diversified and have become somewhat conflictual: between different territories who want more access, or between the low-income users and the more privileged, who can pay more. Also, broad coalitions for more services in public transit were provincial, but no scalar frame was articulated to make a collective urban or metropolitan project. It is through local alternatives and infrastructure debates that user-based demands for more public transit have become more visible.

Yet, the infrastructure coalitions have not won all their battles. They have succeeded in delaying the modernisation projects of Notre-Dame and of the Turcot interchange, but much doubt still remains over both of them. The coalition for an alternative Turcot which rallied local and regional actors (but based in the central city) lasted about two years and was much publicised, but under pressure it collapsed; and no significant changes have been made yet to the planned infrastructure.

This is not un-related to the metropolitan dynamics at play in Montreal. The hegemonic framing of the Ministry of Transport rests in part on the belief that it is its responsibility to respond to the demands for car mobility from the residents of the city-region who commute daily to the centre of the agglomeration; in this way the central-city opposition is perhaps not enough. Yet there is no large alliance at a city-regional level. The metropolitan movement strategy suffers from the central-city/suburban segmentation of the network. The presence of city-regional institutions (the AMT and MMC) has not yet helped the metropolitanisation of the network. On the other side, the central-city mobilisation did coincide with an enthusiasm of municipal and borough authorities for car alternatives, contributing in certain cases to their implementation. But decisions on the larger transport infrastructure projects remain farther from their reach.

5. Conclusion

The literature on the spatialities of contentious politics has been said to be in need of: going beyond mono-spatial fetishism (Jessop et al., 2008; Leitner et al., 2008); and concretising conceptual propositions in empirical investigations, to see the extent to which spatial constructs are part of the practices of actors and in what ways (Moore, 2008; Mayer, 2008)—challenges to which we tried to respond. Whereas Nicholls (2008) formulated inspiring propositions on the particular spatialities of the urbancontext, our (modest, but also empirical) propositions show the particularities of the city-regional context.

With clear empirical indicators, our multispatial framework allows the exploration not just of how scale is constructed and disputed, but also of how the symbolism of specific places, the force of territorial boundaries and the scope of social relations can give resources and constraints to actors in their collective mobilisation. Together, the use of different spatialities seems to contribute to the success and shortcomings of the civic movements’ expansion strategies throughout the city-region.

While Nicholls made proximity and co-presence a key advantage of the urban setting for social movements (for networking and the occupation of places), we see that distance is already an issue at the city-regional scale. Only certain actors with more resources will link central-city mobilisations to those in other nodes and suburbs of the city-region and beyond. This lack of resources, more funding opportunities on local projects, and political pressures linked to the underlying politics of infrastructures all work together to encourage actors either ‘to keep it local’, or to depend on a limited number of brokers, a more mobile elite (like in global networks: Nicholls, 2009; Cumbers et al., 2008). This puts much pressure on certain brokers, most often the leaders of targeted causes and the leaders of broad coalitions. Yet, large alliances were made.

These findings give substance to the interpretation of city-regionalism as a spatial puzzle for civic actors defending specific causes. The city-region is very much experienced as a space of segmentation and differentiation, where a broad consensual but effective movement is difficult to imagine, even more to put in place. Yet, many do consider that they should have a greater role to play in the metropolitan political space. The question is how.

Footnotes

Appendix

Table A1.

Actors mobilised on car alternatives on which further research, documentary and/or interviews, was conducted

Name of organisation	Sector of intervention	Number of participations in coalitions (total of 7)
Conseil régional de l’environnement de Montreal (Environmental Regional Council Montreal, ERC-Montreal)	Environment	6
Conseil régional de l’environnement de Lanaudière (Environmental Regional Council Lanaudière)	Environment	0
Conseil régional de l’environnement de Laval (Environmental Regional Council Laval)	Environment	2
Collectif en environnement Mercier-Est (Environmental collective Mercier-Est)	Environment	3
Greenpeace	Environment	5
Vivre en Ville (Live in the city)	Environment	4
Mouvement au Courant (Movement Aware/Moving)	Environment	2
Association québécoise sur la pollution atmosphérique (Quebec Association for atmospheric pollution)	Environment	3
ENvironnement JEUnesse (Environment and Youth)	Environment	3
Équiterre (Fair planet)	Environment	4
Accès (Access) Laval-Lanaudière	Transport	0
Accès (Access) L’Assomption	Transport	0
Accès (Access) Nord	Transport	0
Transport 2000 Québec	Transport	5
Option Transport Durable (Sustainable transport option)	Transport	2
Mont-Royal Avenue Verte (Mont-Royal Avenue Green)	Transport	2
Association du Transport Urbain du Québec (Quebec Association of Urban Transport)	Transport	0
Comité de citoyens pour le transport collectif dans l’est de Laval (Citizens’ Comitee for Public Transport in the East of Laval)	Transport	0
Communauto	Transport	1
Mobiligo	Transport	3
Voyagez Futé (Travel Smart)	Transport	3
Vélo-Québec (Bike-Québec)	Transport	4
GRUHM: Urban Research Group Hochelaga-Maisonneuve	Transport	2
Collectif Montréal à Vélo (Collective Montreal on bike)	Transport	1
Collectif vélo 365 (Collective bike 365 days)	Transport	0
Projet Montréal (Project Montreal)	Transport	2
Regroupement des Usagers du Transport Adapté et Accessible de l’Île de Montréal; Regroupement des organismes de promotion du Montréal métropolitain (ROPMM)(Associations for disabled- accessible transport)	Transport	0
Ex Aequo	SJCW	0
Activist group for inclusion in Quebec (RAPLIQ)	SJCW	0
Comité régional des associations pour la déficience intellectuelle (Regional comittee of associations for intellectual handicap) (CRADI)	SJCW	0
Association Lavalloise pour le Transport Adapté	SJCW	1
La Maison d’Aurore – Plateau Mont-Royal (House of Dawn)	SJCW	3
Table régionale des organismes volontaires d’éducation populaire de Montréal (TROVEP) (Regional table of voluntary organisations for popular education)	SJCW	2
Forum jeunesse de l’île de Montréal (Youth Forum from the island of Montreal)	SJCW	3
Solidarité Mercier-Est	SJCW	2
Conseil des Montréalaises (Women’s group)	SJCW	0
Opération Galt – in Mobilisation Turcot	SJCW	1
Solidarité Saint-Henri – in Mobilisation Turcot	SJCW	1
Direction de la santé publique - Agence de santé et services sociaux de Montréal (Public Health Agency)	Health	1
Coalition Poids (Quebec Coalition on the Problematic of Weight)	Health	1
Urban Ecology Center of Montreal	Health	5
Association canadienne des médecins physiciens pour l’environnement – CAPE (Canadian association of physicians for the environment)	Health	2
Conseil Québécois surle Poids et la Santé (Quebec Council on Weight and Health)	Health	1
Association pour la santé publique au Québec (Association for Public Health Montreal)	Health	1
Collège québécois des Médecins de famille (Quebec College of Family Doctors)	Health	0
Fondation Lucie et André Chagnon	Health	0
Centre de santé et de services sociaux de Sud-Ouest-Verdun (Local health and social services center, South-West Montreal)	Health	1
Chambre de commerce du Montréal métropolitain (Montreal Board of Trade)	Econ. development	1
Chambre de commerce et d’industrie de la Rive-Sud (South Shore Board of Trade)	Econ. development	1
Corporation de développement de l’Est – CDEST (Montreal East Chamber of Commerce)	Econ. development	0
Conseil central du Montréal métropolitain – CSN (Workers’ Union)	Econ. development	4
Conseil régional FTQ Montréal métropolitain – (Workers’ Union)	Econ. development	3
Regroupement économique et social du Sud-Ouest (South West local economic development corporation)	Econ. development	1
Corporation de développement économique communautaire (CDEC) Rosemont – Petite-Patrie ( local economic development corporation)	Econ. development	0
Société du Havre (development of the port area)	Econ. development	0
Heritage Montreal	BHSP	0
Making mega-projects work for communities	BHSP	1
Forum Urba 2015	BHSP	3
Institut de politiques alternatives de Montréal- IPAM (Institut for alternatives policies in Montreal)	BHSP	0
Marcher la région (Walk the region)	BHSP	0

Key: SJCW = social justice and community work; BHSP = built heritage and spatial planning.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Virginie Mamadouh, the MÉSO research group and the anonymous referees for their very useful comments.

Funding

The authors also thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (for doctoral research funding) and the Fonds Québécois de Recherche sur la Société et la Culture (team research fund for MÉSO) for their financial support.

Notes

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