Dealing with mass transit

The West Island’s woeful public-transit situation is a major drawback for attracting new businesses to the area, especially to industrial-park areas whose employees are often underserved by the transit

network, local business officials say.

Conseil Local de Developpement de l’Ouest de l’Ile (CLD West Island) chief Gerry Arsenault lamented the inability of Montreal transit officials and the provincial transport ministry that funds them to get together and find a solution to the problems that face workers and employers alike.

“(Public transit) must be treated as an essential service and it’s not, not by anyone at any level of government,� he said.

Some workers who toil in remote industrial parks in parts of Baie d’Urfé, Dorval and Pointe Claire sometimes face three- to four-kilometre walks just to get from the closest bus stop to their place of work. Pair that with late shifts and freezing Montreal winters, and you have a recipe for some very unhappy workers — and unhappy workers make unhappy businesses.

“The West Island must vastly improve its public-transit infrastructure before it even approaches serviceable,� Arsenault said.

Take for example, on Jan. 2, many employees were back at work, but those West Islanders who use public transit to get downtown were faced with bus delays of up to half an hour and a train schedule operating on a Sunday timetable. Complaints include inconsistent service, rush-hour buses operating on far too short a schedule, a lack of information regarding train cancellations and delays — garbled communication when information does come — and a general infrequency of trains on both lines serving the West Island.

West Island of Montreal Chamber of Commerce director Louise Hamelin agreed, saying the lack of service and inconsistent schedules are “a major obstacle to attracting new business to the West Island.�

Another issue is the lack of accounting for the accelerated pace of residential development in western Pierrefonds and northern Kirkland. Some days, a trip from the northern part of St. Charles Boulevard to Highway 40 can take up to 45 minutes.

“The question is, ‘how do we fix it?’ My solution is to open up the Jacques-Bizard corridor (and create a direct path from Pierrefonds to Highway 40 with an overpass linking the two sides of Highway 40),� Arsenault said.

“There finally seems to be an interest on the cities’ behalf to open up a corridor and join Jacques-Bizard (which becomes Somerset Avenue in Dollard des Ormeaux) up with the highway. That would allow us to have bus lanes on St. John’s Boulevard and St. Charles, possibly easing some of that congestion and we would actually have the space to do it,� he added.

West Island Community Shares executive director Caroline Tison added the West Island has been lobbying for a light-rail link between Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport in Dorval and downtown, thereby taking some of the traffic off Highway 20, where inbound traffic jams at 32nd Avenue are a daily reality for commuters, in addition to dedicated bus lanes on major arteries.

“There’s a possibility that those will finally get priority. But it’s going to take someone who’s willing to act, because it’s something that everyone has been thinking,� she said.