Opposition urges improved pedestrian safety
Opposition party seeks speed bumps, safety shields on sides of trucks
In the wake of a truck accident that took the life a 50-year-old man in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce Monday morning, Valérie Plante used her first question in council as the newly elected leader of opposition party Projet Montréal to ask Mayor Denis Coderre what the city is doing to improve pedestrian safety.
“We have had 15 pedestrian deaths on the streets of Montreal this year, four more than last year,” Plante said. “The lack of security on our roads are real, the dangers are very present.”
She called on Coderre to put in speed bumps around schools, sacrifice parking spots to build safer cycling lanes and to force trucking firms to install safety shields on the sides of their vehicles to protect pedestrians and cyclists from falling under their wheels.
Changes to the trucking industry are under federal jurisdiction, Coderre said, and the city has been lobbying Ottawa to create legislation to impose side barriers. Montreal has already started installing them on city trucks, he noted.
“You know as a leader that regulations cannot work unless we have the legislation to back it up,” Coderre said, adding that the city is also looking at the possibility of restricting delivery hours for trucks to improve safety.
Plante suggested the city could put a clause in its contracts stipulating that any truck doing business for the city be equipped with side barriers, and perhaps also cameras that show drivers what is behind their trucks.
Métro breakdowns: The city needs to add more shunting stations to its métro lines and put in shuttle services to aid stranded commuters when métro lines aren’t operating for technical reasons, Projet Montréal councillor François Limoges said. The lack of shunting stations to move disabled cars off the tracks means the city has been forced to shut down lengthy stretches of its métro line, and a lack of buses in the system has resulted in a lack shuttle services to replace disabled métro cars, Limoges said.
The suggestion that there is no contingency plan for stranded customers is incorrect, said Aref Salem, the city executive committee member responsible for public transit. The city deploys buses once a breakdown has lasted more than 30 minutes.
The number of métro line disruptions is down 11 per cent compared to last year, Salem said, and Montreal is ranked fourth in the world for the fewest métro line stoppages by the Imperial College in London, which tracks subway performance figures.
“If you talk to the people, they would tell you they are very satisfied with their métro system,” Coderre said.
Diversity among firefighters: Of Montreal’s 2,430 firefighters, only 19 (or 0.75 per cent) are visible minorities, Coun. Marvin Rotrand said. Census Canada says on average 31 per cent of the populations of major Canadian cities are composed of members of visible minorities, Rotrand said, indicating that Montreal’s firefighters do not reflect its population.
While Montreal has made successful attempts to increase the diversity of its police force, public transit sector and civil services, its firefighting force remains male and monochrome, Rotrand said. There are only 31 females on the force.
“Thirty years after the implementation of the law respecting equal access to employment in public bodies, the firefighting service remains 97 per cent white and male,” Rotrand said.
Anie Samson, the city executive committee member responsible for public security, said the city has had trouble recruiting women and visible minorities in the past, but in the last two years has started employing new approaches that are working. Recruiters are going directly to minority groups and to CEGEPs to promote firefighting, and the number of women in firefighting training courses has increased dramatically, she said.
Tributes for Allmand: City council paid tribute to former MP Warren Allmand, who served as a city councillor from 2005 to 2009 in NotreDame-de-Grâce. Because he was devoted to helping others, Rotrand suggested the city look into naming an annual award after Allmand, “because I think he would appreciate some form of living memory that would help people of future generations.”
Recalling Allmand’s great love of watching and playing hockey, councillor Peter McQueen suggested perhaps a local rink could be named in his honour, such as the outdoor refrigerated rink at Confederation Park in N.D.G.
We have had 15 pedestrian deaths on the streets of Montreal this year, four more than last year. The lack of security on our roads are real, the dangers are very present.