told The Suburban the technical teams fro

By Joel Goldenberg
The Suburban

Staff from the City of Côte St. Luc are set to meet with their officials from Côte des Neiges-NDG very soon regarding traffic issues affecting the two jurisdictions, and then CSL Mayor Mitchell Brownstein will meet with CDN-NDG Mayor Gracia Kasoki Katahwa, Brownstein told The Suburban Monday.

Councillor Dida Berku told The Suburban the technical teams from CSL and CDN-NDG meet regularly.

Tensions have been building lately between Côte St. Luc, Hampstead and Côte des Neiges-NDG regarding the road work on Van Horne west of Décarie, which has exacerbated longstanding traffic issues in the three areas.

At the Jan. 20 CSL council meeting, Brownstein said he was unhappy that he had not yet received a reply from Katahwa asking for a meeting to discuss immediate traffic solutions, particularly on Vézina between Macdonald and Décarie, a notorious area for traffic tie-ups.

“If the CDN-NDG borough wants to see our master plan include a bike path and passageways for pedestrians on Clanranald, and potentially the widening of Vézina, they need to give us something,” the Mayor told the Jan. 20 meeting. “If they’re not going to respond, they’re not going to get. We have to be tough and let them know — you have to meet with us, you have to talk to us. We need to play hardball.”

Brownstein said CSL has been asking for no parking on Vézina approaching Décarie eastward, and he pointed out that the Décarie Square developers are willing to allow parking on the current mall site during rush hour.

“They can park there right now.”

The Suburban contacted the CDN-NDG Mayor’s office regarding a possible meeting with CSL. We were told that CSL was sent a letter by the Mayor on Jan. 17.

“Our services have been in contact with Côte St. Luc teams since the start of the work,” the CDN-NDG Mayor’s office said. “In fact, we informed them several weeks ago that it was not possible to comply with their request to remove parking on Vézina/Décarie. It’s important to note that this request has been ongoing since well before this work began.”

Brownstein then confirmed to The Suburban on Jan. 22 that he did receive the letter after the CSL Jan. 20 council meeting, and that a meeting will indeed take place.

“I am very pleased [the Mayor] accepted our invitation to meet. There are many ways we can help each other to the benefit of all residents in the area.”

Still, we have heard there are underlying tensions between the two jurisdictions over the long-awaited Cavendish link, as well as Vézina.

As for Côte St. Luc and Hampstead, CSL councillor Mitch Kujavsky told The Suburban last week that he will propose to council possible retaliatory measures against Hampstead, regarding their not temporarily lifting the rush hour left-turn restrictions on eastbound Fleet Road during the work on Van Horne.

“Hampstead residents benefit a lot from being neighbours of CSL, for example, discounts on recreation services _ there are many ways we can consider or reconsider our partnerships with Hampstead,” Kujavsky told The Suburban, adding that he was speaking for himself.

Councillor Dida Berku recently said removing the left turn restrictions “would have been a perfect opportunity for Hampstead to show some good faith.”

Hampstead Mayor Jeremy Levi recently told The Suburban that lifting the left-turn restrictions temporarily “would be a disaster. The cars would be lined up bumper to bumper to Fleet. It would cripple our snow clearing operations on that side of Fleet. Garbage and recycling would not be able to be picked up either.”

Kujavsky countered that the Van Horne work will “hold up Côte St. Luc residents from leaving our city. People are going to go both ways, they’re not just going to go through Hampstead, they’ll go through NDG also.”

The CSL councillor added that being stuck in standstill traffic on Fleet and Van Horne is not acceptable, and will prompt more air pollution through idling.

Levi responded that what Kujavsky said was “nonsense” and that he did not really want to respond to a hypothetical.

“If he’s going to retaliate because we’re concerned about the safety and security of our streets, I think it would be a very silly thing on his part.” n