Projet Montral platform plans for more bike-friendly city

Projet Montral is kicking offits campaign for thefall municipal electionwith a platform that appeals to the city's car-free voters.

The party, which is the first to releaseits platform,opted tofocus onsix key points: renewing democracy in Montreal, economic prosperity, improving housing, sustainable transportation, quality of life and culture.

Sustainability and car-free livingare general themes throughout the platform, which proposes extending three of the four metro lines and adding more bike paths and pedestrian-only streets.

Projet Montral leader Richard Bergeron says that's the best way to bring back the tens of thousands of people who have moved to the off-island suburbs over the last decade.

His partyalso wants to add tolls for bridges and to reduce the number of parking spaces downtown.

"Should the space be used only to park cars or to develop our city to invest billions of dollars in our city? I prefer the second answer," Bergeron says.

He says the partywould link property taxes to the rate of inflation, in order to lower average increases.

Bergeron says he also has plans to clean up the city's politics, pointing out they could save hundreds of millions of dollars by eliminating corruption.