By Joel Goldenberg
The Suburban
The issue of parking restrictions installed in the last couple of years in St. Laurent reared its head again at the May council meeting, with some pleas and colourful language from residents of the Satim group of streets.
The no parking rule in the area applies for eight hours each on Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. from April 1 to Dec. 1.
Samuel Feldman said he and other residents are very unhappy with the parking signs that were installed. He and his father Nicholas presented an 80-name petition objecting to the signage.
“This is a quiet, residential, pedestrian, low traffic neighbourhood,” Samuel pointed out. “The signs have caused complete undue burden on all of our residents. We keep getting tickets and have to remind ourselves to move our cars across the street. It’s become a disaster at this point. This seems like an arbitrary, disguised law to give us tickets as a punitive measure.”
Mayor Alan DeSousa said the measure was not meant to be punitive, and is to allow for street cleaning. Feldman added that the street cleaners are not always present on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Councillor Vana Nazarian later confirmed that the area previously had no signage.
“It’s just tickets after tickets! It’s doing more harm than good,” Samuel said.
DeSousa said the rule is not only for street cleaning, but for work Hydro Québec or Energir may have to do.
“The alternative would have been to squeeze you even more by putting alternative parking there, where you would have one side of the street every day where there would be completely no parking, the way it is on my street, on St. Germain.”
Nicholas Feldman was angrier, saying the street was built in the mid-1980s “and there were never any street signs there.
“Carré Satim is a dead end street! Nobody goes there unless you live there!….It was a beautiful street, now you have posts every 15 feet! It looks so ugly! It’s awful! This is not NDG or Thimens! You polluted the area with these metal posts! It’s never been like that in 40 years! All of a sudden we have these great ideas to make people miserable! Everybody signed the petition — they’re all pissed off at you! What’s going on here?!….I’m getting tickets right, left and centre!”
DeSousa said the borough is not trying to disfigure the Satim area.
“We had a choice as to what is the appropriate markings so that people know” the rules, the Mayor added.
“People are very angry with you, including me!” Nicholas Feldman said.
“That was not the intent,” DeSousa said. “Wherever you live in St. Laurent, there are rules with regards to public parking.”
Nazarian said she welcomed the petition.
“We have a responsibility to look at it, to consider it and to try to find solutions, if we are able to do it. There are some areas where we were able to make some changes, and others we weren’t able, but now that you’ve brought it up in person and brought a petition, our staff will consider it.” n