Dispute over 'arterial' streets continues to rankle Westmount

The City of Montreal has dominated proceedings of the Agglomeration Council since its creation in January 2006 by the Liberal government. Montreal has an 87.3 per cent share of voting power on the council, based on its overwhelmingly larger population.

Following the breakup of the megacity, the Agglomeration Council was mandated to maintain important arteries — such as Sherbrooke and Ste. Catherine streets, for example — spanning several communities across the island.

"We believe that arterial streets, when the parts are situated within our city, should be our responsibility," said Mayor Karin Marks.

"As far as I'm concerned, if Sherbrooke Street is not well-maintained, or if we have work that needs to be done on it, it should be up to us to decide when we're going to do it and how we're going to do it, because it is a street situated in our community. So, yes, we all agree that arterial roads should be returned to the cities."

At the Agglomeration Council's latest meeting at Montreal city hall last month, Hampstead mayor William Steinberg noted that the arterial roads issue is hardly new. A year ago, just before he and the 14 other suburban mayors decided to boycott attending the council's meetings, they maintained that the demerged cities were paying more than 20 per cent of the Agglomeration budget.

However, they say, a disproportionately smaller amount — as little as two per cent — is currently being spent maintaining stretches of the arterial roads passing through the suburbs, compared to work being done on arterial streets where they go through the City of Montreal.

"The numbers remain exactly the same," said Steinberg. "It's now been over a year and the amount of money spent on the arterial roads in the reconstituted municipalities remains under two per cent. We still pay over 20 per cent of tax dollars."

According to Steinberg, the agenda for the latest Agglomeration Council meeting listed 26 items for arterial roads and infrastructure repairs, totaling $41 million. All were in the City of Montreal. One item, worth $1.5 million, was for work in a demerged suburb.

He suggested Montreal's elected officials on the council were going on a last-chance spending spree, in view of the Liberal government's intention of overhauling the Agglomeration system.

"When we did an analysis of how much was spent on the arterial roads in the City of Montreal versus the 15 cities it was shockingly more that was being spent on the arterial roads in Montreal," Marks added.

One of the demands the demerged cities are now making during the government's redrafting of the agglomeration system is that full responsibility for arterial streets be given back to the individual cities. "If that's the case, then it's no longer an issue," said Marks.

Claude Dauphin, a senior member of the Montreal executive-committee who sits on the Agglomeration Council, denies outright that the current disbursement schedule has anything to do with Quebec's plans.

He maintains, however, that the percentage-ratio of work done so far has been 86:14 in favour of Montreal. "I agree with you that we're not at 20 per cent until now, but there's still a lot of contracts to come," said Dauphin. "It has nothing to do with any political target or objective. I can reassure you on that."