The unstoppable stop

>> Humble Hutchison sign could signify major new citizen powers

by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

To many it might look like just another stop sign, but to those involved in the fight against city bureaucrats to have it put in, the battle was as epic as Hercules vs. the many-headed hydra.
Jacques Méthot started his fight for a red octagonal sign on Hutchison at Bernard in 1992. “I collected two small petitions for it in 1994 but the city said that without at least 100 signatures they won’t move on it,” says Méthot. After about four years of lobbying, the city eventually ordered a stoplight to be put in at the intersection. But the people wanted a stop sign. Further nagging at city meetings failed to move the Bourque administration. But the incoming Tremblay team eventually agreed to the request. A sign warning of the impending new signage was erected in June, warning motorists of the stop coming into effect as of August 15. But the warning notices were mysteriously removed in early August.

“I started to panic,” says Méthot. “I figured that their disappearance meant a new delay.” Nobody knows who took the signs but it’s suspected by some residents that disgruntled public works department workers removed them in protest to the borough’s nabbing of traffic control from the central office.

Loyola councillor Jeremy Searle says the megacity has brought in new wrinkles in the division of labour between centralized and borough workers. “It’s madness. The blue-collar workers in the boroughs aren’t allowed to touch stop signs or any street signage. So nothing gets done,” he says.

The citizens eventually overcame the central traffic department’s reluctance to cede control of the Hutchison street sign by forming an alliance with the borough of Outremont to get the work done. Like Hercules signing his epic victory by burying the hydra’s head, the Hutchison residents’ triumph was similarly capped as the stop post was planted deep into the ground earlier last month.

“There were stops at every street and people going east were used to stopping at every block,” says Mile-End councillor Helen Fotopulos. “You came to Hutchison and don’t have to stop, even though you’re automatically thinking that you should. There was always an accident waiting to happen.”
In theory, citizens can persuade their boroughs to implant innumerable stop signs and speed bumps along their streets in order to keep car traffic out. Citizens of the former island municipalities have long enjoyed such powers, but now residents of the nine boroughs that formed the old City of Montreal might enjoy the same influence.

City bureaucrats don’t seem to be ready to allow all traffic to come to a grinding halt just yet. “With traffic one must reconcile the needs of citizens with the economic needs of the city,” says city traffic department rep André Lazure. “Traffic is interactive. A change on one street can create a new problem on another street three blocks down.”

The future of such traffic decisions depends on what political vision will prevail. “It depends on how decentralized the city will be,” says Lazure, who nevertheless concedes that citizens will undoubtedly have more say no matter what. “They’ll have interesting new powers. It’ll be faster and easier to make changes.” :