Plateau is behaving too much like Toronto
Montrealers like to have a good snicker at Toronto’s expense every once in while.
What kind of uptight nanny state bans tobogganing in its parks or street hockey (at least until recently)?
“Loosen up! Live a little!” we who buy our beer in dépanneurs and jaywalk fearlessly have often said about Toronto’s overzealous safety culture.
Well, guess who’s the skittish city now?
The nervous nellies in the Plateau-Mont-Royal borough have just taken aim at baseball, saying one of two diamonds in Jeanne Mance Park must close permanently because the possibility an errant ball could strike a pedestrian or a car makes it too dangerous.
The diamond, affectionately known as the North Field, has been in use for 50 years. It was shut down last summer — temporarily, everyone thought — because of construction on the nearby tennis courts. But an incident requiring a payout to an injured party has the borough running scared.
It’s unclear when this particular event occurred, given the North Field hasn’t been in use for a year now, but the city must have received one hell of a lawyers’ letter. After commissioning a “ballistics report” on the potential trajectory of balls, the borough made the call to end a half-century tradition.
While the adjacent diamond to the south will remain open, the league and players who have been waiting to reclaim their second home base feel blindsided. They are lamenting not only the demise of one of their playing surfaces, but also of the friendships forged and the community it helped kindle. Some are saying the knee-jerk reaction smacks of elitism, a sign of changing tastes in the gentrifying Plateau.
FEAR OF LIABILITY
It also seems like a move right out of an overprotective, overbearing, overregulated society where policy is driven by fear of liability and personal responsibility is non-existent. Montreal has mostly managed to rise above these unfortunate tendencies.
But if softball and baseball are too hazardous — what’s next?
Will we have to curtail slapshots to prevent airborne hockey pucks from flying over the boards and hitting someone at all the city’s outdoor rinks (including the one in Jeanne Mance Park)? Will this put the brakes on tobogganing on Mount Royal, lest a reckless sledder slam into a person climbing back up the hill?
Do we need to crack down on the possibility of stray footballs, soccer balls or Frisbees hitting picnickers in our busy parks?
Beaconsfield just restricted use of its diving boards because the depth of its 50-year-old outdoor community pools no longer meets modern safety standards. At this rate, our parks and sports facilities may soon be strangled with yellow hazard tape, given the age of infrastructure in Montreal and area.
It’s clear that a pop fly to the head of an unsuspecting passerby could do a lot of damage. And no one is suggesting what passed for security in the 1960s is up to snuff today. But the swiftness of the decision to jettison the North Field and the lack of effort put in to finding another solution speaks volumes.
Couldn’t a fence or some netting be erected to contain wayward baseballs? Couldn’t the path (one of many arteries through the park) be redirected out of harm’s way? Couldn’t the orientation of the diamond be changed or a new one created nearby? Couldn’t a sign be put up to warn passersby to keep their heads up when there’s a baseball game in progress or use one of the other pathways?
A sign, after all, is what we usually do to mitigate the city’s legal liability in even more dire circumstances. When an elite cyclist descending Mount Royal died last year after he slammed into an SUV driven by a tourist pulling an illegal U-turn, no one was held accountable. But signs — in French — were posted to warn motorists not to pull the unsafe manoeuvre.
There seem to be some major inconsistencies in assessing peril and responding to it.
We all must contend with risk every time we step out the door. We probably have more chance of falling on an icy sidewalk after one of Montreal’s increasingly frequent freezing rain storms than we do of getting clocked on the head with a wayward baseball, but snow-clearing doesn’t drastically improve from one winter to another.
Where do we draw the line between the duty to protect the public from harm and becoming an anxious, bubble-wrapped city that fun forgot?
Common sense shouldn’t become as rare in Montreal as a diamond to play baseball on.