Mayor hopes to see light shine on interchange

BY ANDY BLATCHFORD

andy.blatchford@transcontinental.ca

Ste. Anne de Bellevue City Hall is pleased with the multimillion dollar overhaul to its Highway 20 overpass, but the mayor is still waiting for somebody to turn the lights on.

As rush-hour motorists flow along Anciens Combattants Boulevard, the lack of traffic lights means pedestrians will continue to dodge vehicles under the overpass, Mayor Bill Tierney said.

“Basically we’ve got a beautiful $15-million renovation there, but pedestrians don’t stand a chance,” he said of the Transports Québec project, which was completed in December. “You take your chance and you have to go through two streams of traffic. Pedestrians are really targets.”

Stop signs have always regulated the busy intersections beneath the overpass, however, with a growing number of cars in recent years, Ste. Anne pushed to have lights installed, Tierney said.

The mayor thought he would get the signals, which were listed in the project’s budget, but he’s still waiting for the posts to go up.

With more and more vehicles entering the interchange from Ile Perrot via the Galipeault Bridge, Tierney said synchronized lights would be the best way to streamline traffic to Highway 40.

But arterial roads, such as Anciens Combattants, are managed by Montreal’s agglomeration council, which is dominated by council members from the big city. Because Ste. Anne de-merged from Montreal, Tierney believes the lights have been put on the backburner.

“You can bet they’re putting lights in all over the City of Montreal, but for the safety of citizens in Ste. Anne de Bellevue, I don’t think so,” he said. “The installations are waiting to be finished.”

Montreal will pay $500,000 to complete work around the traffic lights, but it’s up to Transports Québec to put them up, according to Sammy Forcillo, the city’s executive committee member responsible for transport and infrastructure.

“There are two phases, one is the

installation of the traffic lights and second, the City of Montreal will do the finishing work,” said Forcillo, who listed items such as enlargements and lawns under the city’s responsibility.

But Transports Québec spokesman Maria Sotériades said the delay is due to ongoing discussions between Quebec and Montreal over details of the project’s finalization and payment. “Because of de-merger, it’s not quite clear,” she said of working with the island’s new structure.

However, underground cables and pillar bases have already been set up, she added.