reckless driving

By Joel Ceausu
The Suburban

The speeding and reckless driving that’s become a familiar sight in the Westbury neighborhood shows no sign of slowing down, says Steven Ostroff.

Ever since construction of the development east of Décarie was announced, said the area resident, he and his neighbours have asked for traffic measures to mitigate what they knew would be a worsening situation in an already problematic area once new residents, cars and commercial activity arrived.

“We were told we would be getting traffic mitigation by the developer and by (former Snowdon) councillor Marvin Rotrand” Ostroff told CDN-NDG borough council last week. “Instead, we got nothing but a lot of young people with sports cars, AMG Hammers, and souped-up Mercedes” speeding through the neighbourhood.

Waving a photo of two wrecked cars at an intersection, Ostroff said “we have three of these incidents in 10 months, this one two weeks ago where airbags were deployed on both vehicles and both vehicles were totalled.”

Ostroff told The Suburban that the occupants of this most recent accident he is aware of were not seriously injured, “but one day someone will be,” and recalled bringing photos and details about a similar accident last year where children were removed from a vehicle by firefighters after the SUV they were riding in was broadsided by a speeding car crossing that same intersection.

He says residents have asked for a four-way stop at Vezina for years, “or some speed bumps or something,” noting there’s a 30 km/h speed limit, a school and park 100 metres away. “The bollards that were removed last year after only a few months would’ve prevented such accidents,” reminding council that he came with the same request a year ago. “I speak for my entire block: since this council hasn’t done anything except give us excuses, I’m sorry to say, I would like to know if you’re not able or willing to help us, who is?”

Borough Mayor Gracia Kasoki Katahwa said his account is “really disturbing” and asked borough director Stephane Plante to respond. Plante said last summer the borough installed larger stop signs and cleared branches obstructing existing ones, adding that more bollards are being installed in the middle of Vézina to narrow the road. “I’m not saying that it’s going to totally solve the situation but it’s going to help Vézina for sure.”

Ostroff said those measures won’t help Trans Island or Mountain Sights, where neighbours recently witnessed two cars racing up the block “because there are no speed bumps. Almost every block has one except ours.” He and his neighbours fear for each other’s safety, noting he has a nine-year-old child and elderly parents, who along with others, are fearful to walk in the neighbourhood.

Indeed, The Suburban visited the area on Thursday afternoon, and witnessed many cars rolling through the stop signs, and dozens more clearly surpassing Vezina’s 30 km/h limit, particularly heading east.

Katahwa said the problem is the Quebec law stipulating that stop signs cannot be too close to each other, “so our engineers will not sign those types of configurations…” She said the borough will be testing new types of speed bumps in the area that cover “the whole intersection of those streets, because mainly the most important problem of those is they are really, really large, so we need to find ways to slow the people who go on the street.”

Moroz told The Suburban that the bollards that were installed this week are a positive step. “Any enhancements in this regard are welcomed, provided they don’t unduly inconvenience local residents. It’s crucial that we strike a balance.” n