BY ELYSE AMEND

elyse.amend@transcontinental.ca

Circling the parking lot in vain, hoping a spot will free up; parking on one of the narrow residential streets and walking a few blocks to make the train on time; deciding, out of frustration, to drive instead. These are the situations numerous West Island commuters can face when they want to take the train to get to work or school in the morning.

“If you don’t get there by 7:15 a.m., forget it,” said Beaconsfield Mayor Bob Benedetti, adding he is very aware of the parking situation at the Beaconsfield train station on Elm Avenue. Benedetti said he would have liked to take the train when he was working downtown four years ago, but the situation was less than ideal. “I didn’t need to leave until 8 a.m., and there was no parking. I couldn’t walk to the train station, and the bus schedules never seem to match the train.”

Beaconsfield resident Suzanne Staggenborg, who works as a professor at McGill University’s downtown campus, takes the Montreal/Dorion-Rigaud train line on weekday mornings and says the 465 spots in the Beaconsfield stations’ lot are often taken by the time she gets there.

“The parking lot is crowded. If you don’t go for the early trains, it’s tough to find a spot,” she said.

Staggenborg usually opts to take the 217 bus from her home, but the uncoordinated schedules and packed busses sometimes leave commuters out in the cold. “I still take the train. I would never drive down. But if you want more people to do that, you have to make it better,” she said, adding more busses on the West Island could help.

The situation at Montreal/Deux-Montagnes line parking lots is not much better. While plans to add 100 new spots at the Sunnybrooke station in Dollard des Ormeaux are underway – a project Dollard council was able to approve in fall 2007 despite a 70-signature petition against it – Agence métropolitaine de transport (AMT) spokesperson Mélanie Nadeau said it would not be complete before the summer. Roxboro-Pierrefonds station’s 776-place lot is also full to capacity, and numerous commuters tend to park their vehicles on nearby residential streets.

“The roads in Roxboro are fairly narrow. And in the winter, the streets get smaller and smaller with the snow banks. I sometimes have a hard time getting out of my driveway,” said Roxboro resident Ed Hoyer. He would like to see Pierrefonds/Roxboro borough and the AMT work out a project to add a 100-space lot on part of neighbouring Jean-Brillon Park. “What else can you do? I counted. There’s over 750 cars parked around the Roxboro station. We see houses being built and the population growing, so, consequently, it’s not very difficult to predict there will be more cars in the future.”

However, communications officer for Pierrefonds/Roxboro, Johanne Palladini, said paving over a section of a park would not go over well with the borough or the residents.

“I don’t think we could sell the park (idea). The last thing for a city council is to use a greenspace – especially for cars,” she said, adding there aren’t any other empty pockets of land the AMT could expand the lot on. “We’re in an awkward position where we have to satisfy the people of Roxboro who have to live with the problem of the cars in front of them, but again, we have to promote public transit and encourage people to use the train.”

The area surrounding the Beaconsfield station also lacks empty land for expansion. “Three years ago, the lot across the street was available,” Benedetti said, explaining the city proposed it to the AMT, but no parking lot plans followed. The land is now home to a condo development.

According to Nadeau, while there are currently no plans to expand the Beaconsfield lot, the AMT has other projects they are working on in the West Island. In addition to the Sunnybrooke project that should take place this summer, the AMT hopes to add 100 new spaces at the Baie d’Urfé station to serve residents of the town and other nearby municipalities, and 30 new spots at both the Beaurepaire and Cedar Park stations on the Montreal/Dorion-Rigaud line. She also said they are currently looking at different possibilities to add 100 new parking spaces at the Roxboro-Pierrefonds station.

“We’re asking to have these projects in 2008,” Nadeau wrote in an e-mail. “However, these projects all depend on government authorization.”