Citizens vow to fight rail firms
A citizen’s group lost its bid to have a $144 ticket for illegally entering CP territory quashed Thursday, but vowed to maintain its long-running battle for pedestrian crossings over train tracks in burgeoning Montreal neighbourhoods.
Nathalie Casemajor was fighting a 2011 ticket for straying onto Canadian Pacific property near de Gaspé St. in the Plateau Mont-Royal borough. She had been taking pictures of holes citizens cut in fences to make shortcuts across the tracks.
A co-founder of the Collective for Level Crossings, Casemajor and her 1,100-member group along with councillors of the borough have been stumping for years to get CP to install level crossings for pedestrians and cyclists over the tracks that dissect that part of the city. They argue the available underpasses are too far removed, hard to navigate and potentially dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists, as evidenced by the death of cyclist Mathilde Blais at the StDenis underpass last year. Studies have shown hundreds of people cross the train tracks illegally every day in that neighbourhood. The collective would like to see six level crossings installed across the CP tracks.
Quebec Superior Court Judge Louis Duguay made the unusual move of allowing the group two days to contest Casemajor’s ticket in court in February, bringing in public health officials and security experts as witnesses to show the need.
Duguay acknowledged in his judgment that “the city is transforming” and more and more people are living and working next to those train passages.
While level crossings may be desirable, Duguay wrote, the law in this case is clear.
“Simple good sense forbids furtive passage over rail lines instead of sidewalks, specifically designed and created for pedestrians,” Duguay wrote. “Entering through holes in fences, crossing not one, nor two, but three train tracks without signalling one’s presence is much more perilous than walking naturally on sidewalks, like all other pedestrians of the city. We must remember that the law was made to protect people around rail lines.”
Members of the collective said they weren’t expecting to win their fight against the ticket, but had hoped the judge would speak more about their larger cause.
“This shows us that CP is unbeatable,” said Mistaya Hemingway, spokesperson for the collective. “It shows that the experience of citizens in the city doesn’t count against the rail laws and the power of the rail companies.”
Hemingway said they would continue to fight.
“We want CP to accept that it is not safe, that people continue to cross the tracks in danger; that you can’t divide the city of Montreal in two and expect that people will take underpasses that are not suitable for pedestrians or cyclists or mothers with strollers.”
The city has been making similar requests for years to CP and CN. The rail lines argue that level crossings would bring more people onto their territories and increase security risks.
Last February, Mayor Denis Coderre met briefly with Hunter Harrison, CEO of CP, in Toronto and reiterated those requests.
On Thursday, Coderre’s office said that following the brief February meeting with Harrison, several meetings between CP and the city were carried out. CP showed a willingness to open two level crossings, one connecting Ogilvy Ave. and de Castelneau St. in the Little Italy and Mile End districts, just south of Jarry Park, and the other at Henri-Julien Ave. and des Carrières St. in the Mile End and Petite Patrie districts. Under rail safety laws, a risk analysis must be conducted first, to be initiated
and paid for by CP. Given that the Ogilvy Ave. crossing is more easy to complete, the city is asking that CP prioritize that crossing, and is hoping it could be ready as soon as next fall.
Mile End councillor Richard Ryan said negotiations appear to have stalled, and called on Coderre to “take up the torch” and press the issue.
“For a few months there appeared to be signs of openness on the part of CP, but now it’s dragging on,” Ryan said. “I think there is a good portion of the population that is fed up. “