BOROUGHS CAN SHARE IF PAPERWORK DONE
Q Why is it impossible for boroughs to share equipment? I’m thinking about the new rotating brush trucks that are cleaning some of the bike paths in the city this year. Would it not be more efficient to buy one truck and dedicate it to several bike paths in all the boroughs, rather than just keeping them confined to one path in each of the boroughs? Matt Séguin, Hochelaga
A The small sweeping truck you refer to is being used on the de Maisonneuve bike path in the Ville-Marie borough. However, the bike path also passes through Westmount and Côte-des-Neiges — Notre-Dame-de- Grâce. Those boroughs don’t have the same truck, and rely on sidewalk plows and other equipment to keep that path clear.
In fact, the 19 boroughs on the island of Montreal can and do share equipment, said Philippe Sabourin, a spokesperson for the city. In this case it appears more efficient to have an agreement to use the same truck to do the entire path. However, sharing equipment among boroughs requires an agreement to be drawn up between them, Sabourin explained. A truck can’t just go from one borough to another, because it is being driven by an employee of one borough; sharing the truck also would require sharing the employee.
Sabourin said in the case of a small sweeper, it wouldn’t make sense to draw up a complicated agreement, since the sweeper is not very expensive, costing about $14,000. The two boroughs that have the sweeper are Ville-Marie and Villeray — St-Michel — ParcExtension.
“At that cost, the boroughs would prefer to just buy the equipment,” Sabourin said. “It’s not worth it to sit down and iron out an official inter-borough deal for equipment that’s both very affordable and easily available.”
Sabourin said the boroughs have got together for purchases in the past. One example is a recent group purchase of four mechanical pothole-filling trucks, worth $1.4 million.
“All the 19 boroughs got together and bought four of them,” Sabourin said. “Four of the boroughs will take care of operating the trucks and maintaining them. That way, it’s not all the boroughs that are constantly going to take the trucks.”
Sabourin said each of the four boroughs charged with operating the truck has a number of boroughs that they serve with the machine, and they serve them according to priorities outlined by those boroughs.
He added that the boroughs are sharing the trucks, but have also split the cost of training the employees who will use them. In this case, it was the central city that made the call for tenders, so it allowed the boroughs to take advantage of the city’s expertise to get the best possible price.
Q It used to take me 35 minutes to get to my work in downtown Montreal. With the Ville-Marie Expressway project, it now takes me one hour because the entrance from Décarie to the eastbound Ville-Marie was reduced from two lanes to one lane. Décarie is now heavily backed up from Highway 40. Why wouldn’t they find a way to keep two lanes open to get to the Ville-Marie East? Gianmarco Lombardi, St-Laurent
A Both the Décarie and the Highway 20 access to the Ville-Marie were reduced to one lane each because the Ville-Marie itself was reduced to just two lanes late last year because half the expressway is being demolished.
The crews rebuilding the Turcot Interchange built half the highway right next to the old structure because they are working in a densely populated area. The two existing lanes on the expressway comprise half of the new structure. After the old eastbound highway is demolished, crews will work on the second half of the expressway. When the new four-lane structure is completed by the end of the year or early 2018, the two-lane accesses from Décarie and Highway 20 will be restored. Do you have a question for Squeaky Wheels? Get in touch here: jmagder@postmedia.com Twitter.com/JasonMagder Facebook.com/JasonMagderJournalist