Protests grow over reduced parking in St. Laurent

The first question period at the Sept. 5 St. Laurent council meeting lasted more than two hours, was sometimes heated and occasionally humourous, and was dominated by protests over reduced parking spaces in the borough.

As previously reported by The Suburban, longtime St. Aubin resident and property owner Joseph Weiner said at the August council meeting that with new “no stopping” signs about five metres from the intersection with Côte Vertu, his tenants did not have enough place to park. Mayor Alan DeSousa said at the time that the borough was applying the Quebec Highway Safety Code that disallows parking five metres from an intersection and the move was a response to numerous pedestrian deaths on the island of Montreal.

This time, White Street (near Côte Vertu and Cavendish) resident Barry Rolbin pointed to a major announcement regarding parking by St. Laurent, which said, “the entire territory will be progressively covered starting in May 2023 and the interventions should continue until 2027. Implementation will be done sector by sector.”

The changes include the no stopping signs five metres from intersections, changing alternate parking street times which Bertrand residents pointed out at the meeting amounts to eight hours of prohibited parking on Tuesdays in their area and which the borough says will improve snow clearing and street maintenance operations, and possible resident-only parking with stickers near future area REM stations.

“There was an overnight passing of parking changes [last month],” Rolbin told The Suburban. “The borough also removed four-hour no parking on alternate sides of the street to full-day no parking on alternate sides of the street. This now limits a street that had 50 parking spots down to 30, with 170 people now fighting for the spots that are left. I don’t know if it’s a Plante green thing, to get the cars off the street, or it’s now one of these things that is a money grab so now people who have no choice to park where they’re not supposed to will get ticketed.”

Residents of Bertrand said the no-parking restrictions have led to people speeding down their street, to get from Côte Vertu to St. Louis and then Marcel-Laurin Blvd.

“In our area, the no-parking restriction is eight hours [8 a.m. to 4 p.m,.on Tuesdays from April 1 to Dec. 1], and in other places it’s four, and in the City of Montreal it’s one hour,” resident Maria Christodoulakis told The Suburban. “And now with no cars on the street [in the restricted period], 30 km/hr on Bertrand becomes 100 km/hr! When you see cars parked, you’re a little careful because somebody could cross. Now, there’s no cars and it’s a speedway!”

The Suburban visited Bertrand on Friday, and saw a plethora of no-parking areas, especially southbound from Côte Vertu. Not only the eight-hour prohibition on Tuesdays, but southbound near Côte Vertu, two handicapped-only areas and throughout the street, no parking zones near intersections and bus zones.

At one point during question period, when one family pointed out their household has six cars, DeSousa said the public domain cannot handle the general growth of cars that has occurred in recent years.

The Mayor told Rolbin that, again, the borough is applying the Quebec Highway Safety Code regarding the no stopping signage and that the borough will look into any possible solutions.

“We’re committed to respecting the law,” he added. And regarding alternate side parking, the St. Laurent announcement said the changes took place to “increase the amount of parking allowed on both sides of the street simultaneously.”

“[Borough workers] don’t need to have a full side of the street clear to change a light bulb!” Rolkin said. “That’s an excuse.”

“You’ve raised a point and we will look at it,” DeSousa said.

Councillor Vana Nazarian, who with Councillor Jacques Cohen spoke with angry residents outside the council chamber, told The Suburban that “security is number one, but we have to hear the people. Not every corner of the borough is the same.

“Physically, geographically, our borough is very different from one end to the other, and we’re going to try to find solutions if there are some, to accommodate some of the parking issues, but security is at the top of the agenda here,” Nazarian added.