MIRANDA LIGHTSTONE
The 1510 West
How long does it take you to get to your destinations in the West Island? Are you spending more time or less time in traffic?
The region’s major north-south arteries are clogged with cars during rush hours, and drivers – at least anecdotally – are claiming to be gripped by a growing sense of frustration. This feeling is borne by a combination of factors – the number of cars on the road and the amount of roadwork being carried out that is causing lane closures on the main boulevards or detours onto side streets.
None of this is new, however. Traffic has been a growing problem in the West Island for years. But is traffic getting worse?
To answer that question, The 1510 West got behind the wheel and travelled the length of St. Jean Boulevard to measure how long it takes to get from Lakeshore Road to Gouin Boulevard at various times during the day, including the morning and afternoon rush hours. We compared the results with time trials the newspaper recorded driving the same route in 2022.
The results: Traffic delays are about the same. In fact, it took a little less time to navigate the 7.5-kilometre stretch of St. Jean Blvd. on a weekday last week than it did in June of 2022.
The longest trips in either direction along the artery last week were in the mid-afternoon, when it took just over 22 minutes to drive the length of the road northbound and about 24 minutes in the southbound direction.
In 2022, the results were slightly better travelling northbound and almost identical heading southbound.
During the morning rush hour last Thursday at 7:30 a.m., the trip from Lakeshore to Gouin took almost exactly the same amount of time than in 2022. In fact, the journey was only 22 seconds slower, while heading south was actually two minutes faster.
In the afternoon rush hour, again the trek northbound on St. Jean was almost identical, taking 21.5 minutes, while the drive southbound took almost 27 minutes, about three minutes longer than the trial in June 2022.
The heaviest traffic during the drive was always between Hymus Boulevard and Labrosse Avenue – in both directions – with the slowest section specifically around the Labrosse and Brunswick intersections. The traffic lights aren’t synchronized in this area, and there is a fair volume of cars that pours out onto St. Jean from the side streets as residents journey toward Highway 40.
Another area that was heavily bogged down was between Douglas Shand Avenue and the entrance to Highway 20 in the southbound lanes of St. Jean Boulevard. The middle lane backed up, sometimes all the way to Pointe Claire city hall.
So, while the results weren’t drastically different from 2022, there are noticeable changes on the roads in the West Island. And residents are feeling those changes.
“Our issue continues to be infrastructure,” said Pointe Claire Mayor Tim Thomas. “We continue to build and add residents and, therefore, cars on the road, without the proper planning in place.”
The result of regularly overburdened arteries is causing issues on side streets now, Thomas said, as motorists opt to get off the congested boulevards and make their way along side streets.
“Traffic-goers detour themselves to side streets to avoid slowdowns on St. Jean, Sources and St. Charles,” Thomas said. “But they are flying down these streets with lower posted speed limits, and not respecting traffic signs, and residents are complaining.”
Streets like Maywood, Stillview and Broadview in Pointe Claire have become major issues, especially near schools, he said.
“It’s scary to see how quickly cars come racing down our street,” said one Pointe Claire resident who lives on Broadview just across from St. Thomas High School. “There should be more stop signs or speed bumps to prevent what is going to be a terrible accident one day.”
“We are looking into placing raised crosswalks to slow drivers down on the roads that motorists tend to go for when things get slow on the main roads,” Thomas said.
And it would seem that traffic guidance systems like Waze aren’t helping the growing use of side streets either, with quicker routes generally directing drivers onto those smaller residential streets.
And then there is the worry about congestion on the main arteries getting worse as commuters start accessing the new REM stations.
“It will create traffic blood clots during the peak commute times as parking lots fill and empty,” said Pierrefonds resident Philippe Bilodeau, who lives on Foster Street near Antoine Faucon Boulevard, just north of the Kirkland REM station. He worries that unless better traffic management or increased public transit is put in place, his journey home will be hugely affected during the busiest travel times.