Artery status needed to fund road work: Senneville mayor

BY ANDY BLATCHFORD

andy.blatchford@transcontinental.ca

Senneville’s drive to see l’Anse à l’Orme Road gain arterial-road status has hit a couple of speed bumps.

In November, the village sent an official request to Montreal, but received no response, Mayor George McLeish said.

To help its cause Senneville sought support from neighbouring municipalities, however, Ste. Anne de Bellevue, where a major section of the road passes through, has yet to back its bid.

If Montreal recognizes the 3.5-kilometre stretch as an artery, l’Anse à l’Orme’s maintenance would become the responsibility of the island’s agglomeration council.

Major roads, including St. John’s, St. Charles and Sources boulevards, have been designated arterial roads by Montreal. De-merged municipalities are accountable for maintenance costs of local roads.

But necessary repairs to l’Anse à l’Orme’s Senneville portion — its intersection with Senneville Road as well as 90 metres of the strip — could top $100,000, McLeish said.

“It’s terrible, the road structure’s gone so ultimately something’s going to have to be done,” McLeish said. “For us, just to repair our little section, would strain our resources.”

Without financial help from Montreal, Senneville might remove merging lanes and reduce the intersection’s surface area to a simple “T” with three stop signs, McLeish said.

The northernmost intersection, one of two road entrances to the town of Senneville, has not been repaired for over a decade, he added.

Snaking through the forests of the ecoterritory, the street also touches Ste. Anne, Kirkland and Pierrefonds/Roxboro, a Montreal borough. To date, McLeish has received formal backing from all councils except Ste. Anne.

“I don’t want to give anything to the agglomeration,” said Ste. Anne Mayor Bill Tierney. “The agglomeration is making a mess of what it’s handling now.

“It’s not a time to be giving up one’s jurisdiction over anything.”

He said Montreal has yet to pay for traffic lights on Anciens Combattants Boulevard following the recent completion of a $14.2-million overhaul to the Highway 20 overpass in Ste. Anne.

Instead, Tierney wants the corridor to become a conservation area, with a less-intrusive impact from the road.

“Having a bike path through there would be great,” he said, adding Ste. Anne’s long-term urban plan calls for the road to be closed to motor vehicles.

Tierney said the proposed north/south Highway 440 artery — planned as a Gouin Boulevard/Trans-Canada connector in western Pierrefonds — would provide access for residents in the area.

Montreal’s executive committee member Sammy Forcillo said the island’s existing list of major arteries, designated six years ago, will be revised and new parameters could be instituted. It is too early to know whether l’Anse à l’Orme would be included, he said.

The city set up a commission and held public consultations in November, he said. The report will be deposited at a Montreal council meeting.