Poisonous politics killed Terrebonne bike path
Back in June, they were all for it. Now, all but one are against it. The controversial east-west cycling path along Terrebonne St. will come to an expedient end after the Côte-des-neiges— Notre-dame-de- Grâce borough council voted 5-1 Tuesday to cancel it.
Easy come, easy go. Borough mayor Sue Montgomery was the lone holdout in deciding to end the pilot project early, a sign of her political isolation since her falling out with Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante and her old party last winter. The three Projet Montréal councillors, once Montgomery’s allies, joined forces with opposition councillors Marvin Rotrand and Lionel Perez to kill the cycling lane that has roiled N.D.G. residents all summer long.
Politics certainly makes strange bedfellows. Projet councillors Christian Arseneault, Peter Mcqueen and Magda Popeanu distanced themselves from Montgomery, rather than stand firm on the kind of active transportation infrastructure that is the bread and butter of their party’s platform. But there’s an election looming next year and every representative must be keenly aware of the public mood in a borough where the political scene is already fractured, complicated and dysfunctional.
Montgomery’s ejection from Projet has loomed large over C.D.N.-N.D.G. since the start of the year.
Her refusal to get rid of her chief of staff, Annalisa Harris, despite a confidential comptroller general’s report that called her out for allegedly harassing borough employees has led to trench warfare.
Montgomery finds it ludicrous that she was asked by Plante to fire Harris without seeing the evidence in the report, alleging sexism and ageism are really behind it. Montgomery has gone to court to obtain it — as well as defend herself against attempts at censure for not protecting borough staff in light of the comptroller’s findings.
While the legal wrangling plays out, Harris continues in her position as the borough mayor’s right-hand woman, while not communicating directly with civil servants. Meanwhile, Montgomery has suspended borough director Stéphane Plante — who is both one of the people her chief of staff is said to have harassed and the person she sees as disdainful of female leadership — four times without pay. The most recent was, incidentally, over the Terrebonne bike path. Each time, borough council has overturned Plante’s suspension.
It’s a quagmire, to say the least, that is impeding sound decision-making and effective management in Montreal’s most populous borough.
There is no doubt the Terrebonne bike path polarized residents. Early on, those who lost parking spots on both sides of the street, parishioners at St. Monica’s — who claimed difficulty getting to Sunday mass — and parents dropping off children at schools along the route objected loudly. A 1,500-name petition to remove the bike path was eventually tabled and spurred councillors to reconsider their earlier support.
More recently, other N.D.G. residents, including cycling advocates, women and families who enjoyed using the bike path, have raised their voices to insist the lane be maintained, at least for the rest of the trial period, citing a lack of safe cycling places in the borough.
Was this a bad and unpopular idea that inconvenienced too many and prompted councillors like Arseneault and Mcqueen to offer a rare mea culpa? Or was it a good idea, perhaps poorly executed, that might have been salvaged with some tweaks? It doesn’t matter now. Personality conflicts and politics doomed the Terrebonne bike path, once and for all.
Smelling blood, borough council turned against Montgomery, even if everyone had been on board with the idea at the beginning.
Maybe N.D.G. is just not open to the kind of change Projet Montréal has brought to the Plateau-mont-royal or Rosemont— La Petite-patrie in recent years. But if Projet administrations
Smelling blood, borough council turned against Montgomery, even if everyone had been on board with the idea at the beginning.
in those boroughs succeeded in transforming them, even in the face of fierce opposition, it was by putting up a united front and sticking to their vision. That just doesn’t seem to be possible in N.D.G., where different factions are out to score points against each other rather than find common ground.
Maybe the Projet councillors in C.D.N.-N.D.G. are less dogmatic than their counterparts elsewhere. Or maybe C.D.N.-N.D.G. residents just have less tolerance for that approach to politics. Unfortunately, they may be stuck with something worse for the moment.
Montgomery is very much alone at the helm of a mutinous ship, without anyone to move an agenda forward. If an unusual show of unanimity brought the Terrebonne bike path into being, poisonous politics ultimately triumphed to tear it asunder. The divided C.D.N.-N.D.G. council ensures paralysis is likely to persist for at least the rest of Montgomery’s mandate.
But don’t cry for her — cry for C.D.N.-N.D.G.