N.D.G. residents expect better from the city

Handling of Turcot problem is one of several concerns, Peter McQueen says.

Notre-Dame-de-Grâce residents increasingly are feeling neglected and left behind.

We have suffered crumbling (Turcot) infrastructure problems for the last 10 years, while other Montreal neighbourhoods have been reaping the benefits of creative new projects like opening the Lachine Canal through Griffintown and St-Henri to boating, or the removal of the train tracks between Outremont, Park Ex and the new Université de Montreal campus.

N.D.G. did get the new MUHC Glen Hospital five years ago, but, given that its traffic plan has been both faulty and has yet to be completed, and that the second, stairless entrance to the Vendôme métro has not been built yet, the jury is still out on its benefits to the neighbourhood.

New projects we are going to have to help pay for are bypassing us, as well. The Caisse de Dépot’s REM train might help the South Shore and the West Island, but it is a disappointment to N.D.G. and Lachine residents who had hoped that a train to the airport on the CP-AMT corridor might have added extra stations along the way, as well as electrified (thus quieting) the tracks near our residential streets.

The borough of Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce has breathed new life into the Jean Talon-Namur Triangle area with a slow infrastructure plan, but successive borough mayors have offered nothing for a similar part of our borough south of the CP-AMT tracks.

When one drives (or heaven forbid, walks or cycles!) along St-Jacques St. in western N.D.G., one sees a desolate, neglected stretch of used car lots, half-abandoned buildings and dangerous bars.

And the latest announcement about the $250-million-plus investment in the Cavendish link and the new Hippodrome project again does little for N.D.G. Our mobility will not be

N.D.G. has now suffered long enough with nothing but Turcot detours and dangers.

much improved and we risk getting short-cut-seeking traffic from the West Island through our streets at rush hour and other times the Décarie is jammed.

Not to mention the risk to our commercial streets like Queen-Mary, Somerled, Monkland and Sherbrooke from the announced 15/40 mega-mall, which will draw West End customers away because the Cavendish link to Royalmount will make access by car easy.

And now to add insult to injury, a couple of inexpensive bike projects that would at least help get some of our healthy, active lifestyle-seeking residents off of our overcrowded roads and buses are also being ignored by our leaders.

Kathleen Weil and the provincial Liberals have not funded the bike bridge (Dalle Parc) across the new highway down in the Turcot yards that would afford N.D.G. cyclists easier and safer access to the Lachine Canal, Angrignon mall and park and the LaSalle rapids, even though it was promised in the drawings Transport Quebec showed the community in 2010. Time is running out for Transport Quebec to give a mandate to the KPH Turcot consortium, which is currently building all the car overpasses down there, to add this simple bike bridge before the new highway opens.

And Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce Mayor Russell Copeman seems slow to do his part for this bike route and get the old, reasonably sloped, overgrown lane down the falaise from St-Jacques St. near Cavendish cleaned out and reopened.

Copeman, a member of Montreal’s executive committee, also neglected to add the north end of Clanranald to the list of signalled pedestrian and bike level crossings that Coderre is recommending that the federal government force CP rail to allow in five boroughs of the city. Snowdon, N.D.G., Hampstead and Côte-St-Luc cyclists need this to avoid the Décarie service road.

N.D.G. has now suffered long enough with nothing but Turcot detours and dangers for it to rightfully ask its elected leaders: What have you done for us lately?

Please come to the Dalle Parc bike bridge picnic rally Sunday at noon on the Lachine Canal behind 6450 Notre-Dame St. W. N.D.G. cyclists will gather at Cavendish and St-Jacques at 10:30 and ride down.