St. Catherine Highway - Autoroute Ste-Catherine

We, the Westmount residents bordering or living on St. Catherine between Lansdowne and Claremont, petition the city of Westmount to take actions regarding the acknowledged problems of transit circulation, traffic, and security in this area.

We do so for the following reasons:

Property enjoyment: This section of St. Catherine crosses a residential zone. The speed of traffic causes excessive noise and environmental pollution and reduces our ability to enjoy our properties, which is worse in the approaching summer time when we will all lounge, cook and eat in our back yards.

Safety of pedestrians: In a report addressed to the City council and prepared by the engineering consulting firm Genivar (now WSP Global) in 2013, it was identified that this street segment has the second longest narrow sidewalk with no buffer with the street in the entire city. Furthermore, two of the busier street intersections of the city used by pedestrians are in this area. This causes unnecessary risks for pedestrians. As of today, nothing has been done to improve the situation.

Speed limit is ignored by motorists: The current street configuration does not provide car/truck/bus drivers any incentives to respect the speed limit of 30 km/h. There are always two lanes available on the north side of St. Catherine, the only segment of the entire street between Claremont and Atwater with this configuration. This results in drivers passing other drivers for no reason.

Simple solutions exist and could be implemented quickly: The City already has a list of measures in their hands to execute the plan that they presented to the residents in 2012:

• Reduce the wide visual corridor that cause speeding problems – allowing parking on both sides of St. Catherine like everywhere else on this street will slow down speed and add parking spaces (which is another issue in the area)
• Ensure that sidewalks be at least 1.80m (6 ft) wide – there is ample space available to do so
• Improve pedestrian conditions on this street given that they where are not buffered from traffic – buffers can include vegetation, street furniture, parking lanes, etc.
• Enforce speed control by adding speed limit signs, turning the radar panel back on and having regular presence of police officers who can ticket offenders
• Redesign St. Catherine – remove the existing jersey barrier and replace by a planting bed like the existing one on Atwater, plant trees, replace oversized lamp posts, reduce witdh
• Install a crosswalk highlighted by pedestrian-activated yellow-flashing lights (or a standard one) at St. Catherine and Prince-Albert, like what has been done in the southeast Westmount recently.

Inaction from the City:
In 2012, Westmount acknowledged the problem and promised actions based on several reports were received, however since then, every project in the area, from the McGill hospital to the Turcot exchange, the Vendome metro station or the Groupe Maurice construction at Claremont and St. Catherine seems to be an excuse to postpone any action plan. Despite many requests made by a small group of residents via emails, meetings, or representation at the City Council, the City still has nothing concrete in the works.

We are seeking your support to emphasize to the City the importance of implementing the measures described above for a better quality of life and safety.