CSL wants back Côte St. Luc Road bus shelter wiped out by condos

The issue came up during city council’s July 23 public meeting, when Councillor Dida Berku recommended the STM be asked to restore the shelter, which had stood on the edge of a former gas station lot that was redeveloped for the residential project.

As the condos are on the City of Montreal side of Côte St. Luc Rd., the City of Côte St. Luc was powerless when Montreal allowed the developer to build to a land occupation density which effectively eliminated a strip of space which had accommodated the shelter, serving users of the 103 and 420 bus lines. “Our citizens have now been deprived of a very essential service,” she said. “It’s very, very cold when you’re waiting for the bus at 7 o’clock in the morning going to work. And there are dozens of people who line up at that bus stop now … “We need to have that bus shelter back. I don’t know if this is the place to do it, but I would like to send a strong message to the City of Montreal and to Samcon (the condo developer) that we need that bus shelter to be reinstated and it has to be reinstated very quickly.”

Councillor Steven Erdelyi, who represents District 4, said he had received many complaints about the loss of the bus shelter from local residents. “The Montreal portion is so close to the sidewalk that it’s virtually impossible to put a bus shelter there,” he said. “Of course, we have no problem if they want to move the bus shelter onto Côte St. Luc territory, and we encourage them to do that.”

Berku agreed with him that “the problem is they built the condo so close to the pavement we lost the public strip that’s a normal setback between the sidewalk and the building. The City of Montreal did it … “… The STM obviously is not going to move as fast as we want because the space has been very restricted,” she added. “But we need it and I think that council should support it and do everything we can to get that bus shelter back for the residents ― mostly our residents in Côte St. Luc, but also the residents of this new development.”

However, Berku questioned whether it will even be possible to locate a new bus shelter on Côte St. Luc’s territory. Addressing Mayor Anthony Housefather, she insisted nonetheless, “Somehow if we can get that the sense of that through to all the parties concerned ― the STM, the City of Montreal and Samcon ― in your discussions with Samcon you can explain to them that we actually needed that.”