Pedestrian crosswalk raises traffic concerns

During last Monday's city council meeting, Mayor Karin Marks acknowledged that the City did not conduct a specific traffic study on the impact of the crossing, which could cause traffic to back up to the major intersection of Ste. Catherine Street and Lansdowne Avenue.

On Oct. 14, City officials met with residents of 4700 Ste. Catherine, as well as residents of neighbouring streets, to discuss their concerns over the safety of using a Montreal Oral School for the Deaf parking lot for those attending games and other events across the street at the Westmount arena.

It was confirmed at that meeting that a light would be installed on Ste. Catherine at Bethune to permit pedestrians to cross safely. The purchase of labour, materials and equipment for the project, costing $25,094, was approved by city council on Monday.

But some local residents worry that a crossing would compound existing traffic problems. "As you know, there are very extensive traffic backups on Ste. Catherine Street, especially during rush hours, and if you now stop the traffic at the corner of Bethune, you're going to create a very short stretch of traffic," Ste. Catherine Street resident Gary Ikeman told council on Monday. "I'm not a traffic expert in any sense, but it seems to me that the problem could be magnified and it's already very bad," he added. "If somebody stops and wants to use it in the morning at rush hour, you might have many people using it. What will the impact on traffic be? Have you studied this?" "We have not," Marks replied. "These are pedestrian crossing lights, so it's not a general light. A general traffic study for that whole area has not been completed yet. This is something we've actually looked at, this crosslight, for many, many years, because there is a danger for pedestrians crossing. So it takes precedence at the moment."

Councillor Cynthia Lulham, who oversees District 7, said, "We are doing a traffic impact study, but our traffic impact study was for the arena itself in terms of dropoff and parking. "We're favouring the pedestrians over the cars," she added. "I think the priority is to our citizens and their access to the green space and to the park." Despite that, Ikeman said he was "just a little confused that you haven't done the study at that corner, which is a very busy corner."

Noting that Westmount installed a pedestrian crossing light at Sherbrooke Street and Strathcona Avenue following the death of Jessica Holman-Price who was killed at the corner three years ago when she was run over by a snow removal truck, Lulham said, "To wait until there's an accident is a mistake."