Baie d’Urfé to put pedestrians on the right path

BY ANDY BLATCHFORD

andy.blatchford@transcontinental.ca

Baie d’Urfé has a plan to make sure its industrial-park workers no longer have to hit the road.

The town will build three kilometres of pedestrian pathways along Clark Graham Avenue, which has no sidewalks. The goal is to keep public-transit users from walking on the busy streets of the industrial park.

“The truck traffic on that street is amazing,” said Baie d’Urfé director general

Richard White. “In order to protect their (workers’) safety we felt it was appropriate to put in a pathway.”

White said as many as 40 people at a time can be seen walking on Clark Graham from the commuter train station to get to work.

A loaning by-law was passed at last week’s council meeting to pay for part of the

project, which should get underway in September.

The paths are expected to cost $380,000, White said.

The asphalt trail will follow Clark Graham about 20 feet from the road, on the other side of a ditch.

White said the town took the initiative after business owners in the park requested the path.

“It’s a narrow road and it’s an extremely busy road,” said the owner of a company in the area who did not want his name published. “You come out in the morning and it is just booming.

“I’m very thankful (the pathway will be built) because it could save somebody’s life someday.”

West Island industrial commissioner Gerry Arsenault said there are about 4,000 employees who work at 70 businesses in the park.

Commuters who use the train and the city bus service are “taking their life in their hands” when walking to work, he said.

The Société de transport de Montréal is mulling improvements to public transit schedules in the park, which Arsenault said is an “ongoing issue.”

White, meanwhile, said Transport Québec plans to start rebuilding the Morgan Boulevard overpass above Highway 40 this spring.

The province’s concept for the new bridge includes a bike lane, he said.

He hopes Montreal’s agglomeration council will pay for a bike path through Baie d’Urfé’s park to connect to the overpass, and the cycling paths of nearby Ste. Anne de Bellevue and Kirkland. The trail could also link to the south, beyond Highway 20, White added.