Joel Ceausu – The Suburban LJI Reporter
The borough of Villeray-St. Michel-Parc Extension voted in its 2024 budget and capital expenditures program Tuesday night, but you’d be hard pressed to find anyone more than a few folks inside the council chamber – or out – who gave a whit. Instead, the 40 people gathered inside were hearing more than 200 people chanting and waving placards outside borough hall, to talk parking spaces and bike paths.
Before council, the streets around borough hall and Parc Métro station thundered with alternating chants of “On veut stationnement!” and a smaller group chanting “On veut pistes cyclabes!” under the watchful eye of some 30 Montreal police officers and borough security. One speaker shouted “Hey les gars, the Plateau is over there!” eliciting boos and laughter, including from many of the police officers on site.
Road sharing in Montreal always makes for lively debate, but a project to add bike paths and remove parking in Parc Extension has prompted protests, chaotic council meetings and now legal action.
The plan eliminates some 250 local spaces, notably on northbound Querbes between Ogilvy and Crémazie. “It’s unrealistic,” said Parc Ex councillor Mary Deros. “We have many families who don’t bike. We have six elementary schools, parents driving their kids, school buses and when winter and snow removal begins it will be more difficult. They need parking.”
Meanwhile, a group of residents and merchants is pursuing legal action against the city and Villeray-St. Michel-Parc Extension over not receiving “proper public consultation” and being denied access to impact assessment studies, according to the Coalition for Democracy Park Extension who will challenge the plan’s legality and seek to block it pending a ruling, claiming the administration violated Montreal’s Charter of Rights and Responsibilities.
It’s true the Querbes plan only had an information session, Borough Mayor Laurence Lavigne Lalonde told The Suburban, but its existing infrastructure needed improvements. She says formal and informal meetings with citizens analyzed particular cases, “such as needs for people with mobility limitations and merchants with delivery and logistical needs” and many of those adjustments have been made or are in the process of being implemented.
Indeed, while far outnumbered at council, several people supportive of the paths denounced what they say was inadequate, unsafe cycling infrastructure in the borough for years, slamming prior administrations for inaction and thanking the mayor for making it safer for them and their children to use the roadway.
Single mother Catherine Dion Richard had a different view, pleading with council for an alternative, sharing that the timely ability for her to transport her kids to school and daycare in another neighbourhood is hampered by the lack of parking, and may jeopardize her ability to care for her children and remain employed. Another spoke of coming home from shiftwork in the middle of the night and having to walk long distances from her car. Still others spoke about how their businesses will be impacted.
The debate has become increasingly inflamed, and often couched in terms of out-of-borough activists imposing a political agenda on a multicultural working-class community. Terms like white privilege and racism, and gentrification were tossed around outside where the optics were apparent: locals protesting the move comprised of a mix of old and young, a diverse palette of faces, cultures, traditional garb and languages; the able-bodied and those with walkers and wheelchairs; the Park Ex familiar to most. Their opponents on bicycles seemed a far more homogeneous crowd.
There are dozens of impacts, says opposition councillor Deros, but her biggest concern is “no study was made,” and maintains the plan was conceived and executed based on a Vélo Québec study. “When I was given a presentation, it was a done deal, all last-minute. No one thought of asking citizens.” Having lived here since 1970 and been a councillor for the last 20 years, “I know this district inside and out, and no one asked me?”
She says the removal of parking for people living here for so long was like “having an acquired right that is being taken away.” She said Lalonde lacked empathy when telling concerned residents it is not the city’s responsibility to find parking for each car, and suggested her Projet Montréal council colleagues read the city charter “from time to time.” Lalonde countered that there is not a single charter infraction, “none,” adding, “I’m not lacking empathy. I just believe in telling people the truth.” n