BY ELYSE AMEND

elyse.amend@transcontinental.ca

Commuters parked on streets surrounding the Roxboro-Pierrefonds train station last Wednesday may have been surprised to find parking notices on their windshields upon returning to their vehicles, but city officials assure the flyers were not the work of a borough representative, but rather a “bad joker.”

The mock notices informed people they were parked in a zone limited to four hours, and said they could “safely” park all day on General Brock and Cartier Streets. The notes also provided the telephone number for Allo-Tram, the Agence métropolitaine de transport (AMT)’s customer service line, for people to call and request more parking space at the train station.

Pierrefonds/Roxboro borough spokesperson Johanne Palladini said parking everywhere in the borough – including General Brock and Cartier Streets – is limited to four hours.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have the resources to apply it,” she said, adding the borough adopted an alternate parking bylaw during the January council meeting, limiting parking to one side of the street only on Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth and 12th Avenues, on Prince Edward Avenue, on Fourth, Sixth and Seventh Streets and on First, Second, Third, and Fourth Avenues North all year long. Also, all parking will be prohibited on Fifth Street from Mondays to Fridays between 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The borough has put signs up in some areas, but will wait for the snow to melt to install the rest.

Palladini said she could not speculate who the “joker” was, or what would have motivated him or her to pass out the notices.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” she said. “It could be a bad joke, or a person tired of having commuters park in front of their home.”

As reported in the Feb. 13 issue of The Chronicle, the Roxboro-Pierrefonds station’s 776-place parking lot is full to capacity. As a result, commuters often park on narrow Roxboro streets near the train station, causing headaches for drivers and residents of the area. AMT spokesperson Mélanie Nadeau said the transport agency is currently looking at different possibilities to add 100 new parking spots at the train station, but any prospective project would have to receive government approval first.

According to Palladini, if the “joker” is ever caught, he or she could be fined between $100 and $1,000 under the borough’s cleanliness bylaw, which prohibits the distribution of flyers, pamphlets and publicity on vehicles’ windshields.