Council passes $6.3-B capital-works plan
Mayor Valérie Plante’s administration fended off attacks on its plan to close Mount Royal to through traffic as city council approved a $6.38-billion, three-year capitalworks program Tuesday.
Opposition councillors voted against the plan — which outlines major projects for the next three years, including roadwork, water mains, sewers, bike paths and social housing — saying the administration has not justified the need to increase taxes by an average of 3.3 per cent.
“The administration tried to pull a fast one,” said St-Laurent borough mayor Alan DeSousa of the Ensemble Montréal party, referring to Plante’s promise not to raise taxes by more than the inflation rate of 2.1 per cent, before the budget was passed by 39 votes to 21.
Opposition Leader Lionel Perez accused the administration of showing “a dangerous tendency to increase borrowing ” and noted the capital-works plan doesn’t mention Plante’s campaign promise to build a Pink Line métro extension.
On her 100th day since winning the Nov. 5 election, Plante attended the council meeting with a severe case of laryngitis that left her unable to speak.
But executive-committee chairperson Benoît Dorais praised the spending plan as both responsible and consistent with Projet Montréal’s vision of a livable city with more bike paths and family-friendly neighbourhoods.
“We’re starting to build the kind of Montreal we want today,” he said.
Dorais said the administration is still hoping to build a Pink Line if it can get support from other levels of government.
Preliminary discussions on the proposed métro extension, whose cost Plante estimated during the campaign at $5.9 billion, are already underway “with the different partners,” Dorais said.
Meanwhile, Luc Ferrandez, the executive-committee member responsible for large parks and the environment, defended his plan to prevent cars from crossing Mount Royal starting this spring.
It will still be possible to drive up to Mount Royal via Remembrance Rd. and Camillien-Houde Way and park in the existing parking lots, but not cross from one side to the other.
Ferrandez rebuffed a suggestion by the Opposition saying the city should hold public consultations before closing the road link.
The plan has been praised by some environmental and cycling organizations but panned by drivers. A petition against the shutdown had garnered 837 votes by Tuesday evening.
“Far from being a rushed announcement,” the proposal has been thoroughly thought out and discussed with stakeholders like cycling groups, Ferrandez said.
He said he was “shocked and deeply moved” by the death of 18-year-old cyclist Clément Ouimet, who was hit by a car on Camillien-Houde Way in October, and resolved to take action.
Ferrandez said Projet Montréal stated during the election campaign that it intended to bar cars from using the mountain as a throughway.
The city will consult “our partners” over the course of the pilot project, he said.
Ferrandez also dismissed such concerns as whether people will be able to get to Notre-Dame-desNeiges and Mount Royal cemeteries.
“As for access to Mount Royal, it’s clear that all of that will be part of the pilot project,” he said.
Last week, Les amis de la montagne said it had not been consulted on the plan and that it could create more problems than it solves.
It called for a holistic approach to traffic on and around Mount Royal instead of simply blocking off Camillien-Houde Way and Remembrance Rd.
Also during the council meeting, Pierrefonds—Roxboro borough Mayor Jim Beis, who voted against the capital-works budget, said he was worried that a projected boulevard for which the city has budgeted $13.5 million in the next three years will never be built.
The boulevard will serve a future Réseau express métropolitain station.
“We know that it’s absolutely necessary to have access,” Beis said.