COPING WITH TRAFFIC
There is a conspiracy theory circulating that all the major roadwork underway is some kind of Machiavellian strategy to force drivers to give up their cars. Gridlock is so grim — with the reconfiguration of the Turcot Interchange, the construction of the new Champlain Bridge, the demolition of the elevated part of Highway 10 and the water main work on Sherbrooke St., to name but a few projects — who could blame motorists for thinking someone out there is deliberately trying to make their lives miserable?
With Mayor Denis Coderre announcing another 10 years and $6 billion worth of major infrastructure work to come to address an unavoidable maintenance backlog, there is no end in sight to the pain. Now that a municipal election on the horizon, some thought is finally being given to mitigation measures.
Coderre has floated the idea of a “protecteur de la circulation,” or traffic ombudsman. While drivers might appreciate a place to vent their frustrations, this office would need to amount to more than a complaints department that would deflect citizen outrage away from elected officials. It is to be hoped such a position would involve authority to oversee and co-ordinate roadwork so that drivers don’t find all their alternate routes being torn up at the same time. The traffic watchdog should also give consideration to cyclists and pedestrians. They are also inconvenienced, but often given short shrift.
Projet Montréal leadership candidate François Limoges has proposed creating a special corps of traffic police to manage congestion. This year, the city is spending $12 million deploying Montreal police officers to construction sites for this purpose, up from just $4 million in 2014. Because police volunteer for the job on overtime, they are paid $60 an hour. Under Limoges’s plan, traffic specialists who are not full police officers would earn $22 to $26 an hour.
Out of the necessity, the city is getting creative to ease the agony of construction. It dispatched a special construction coordinator to St-Denis St. to communicate with merchants and address their concerns during work that just wrapped up there. And it is planning an inflatable structure to enliven Ste-Catherine St. when it is torn up in 2018. Certainly, more focus on easing disruption is welcome.
But even if it’s just a conspiracy theory that all the roadwork is meant to get drivers to change their habits, the city and the province need to treat this period of unprecedented construction as just such an opportunity. They should redouble their efforts to encourage public transit use and get people to walk or bike so that traffic levels are more sustainable when all the orange cones finally disappear.