Unrest on CSL’s Glencrest Ave. over excessive traffic

Addressing city council last Monday, Mark Bohbot, a Glencrest resident for the past two years, suggested to Mayor Anthony Housefather that the situation is reaching a crisis point. “It’s difficult to sum up exactly why this is happening,” he said. “There was a count just a few weeks ago, however, by one of the engineers of Côte St. Luc who stated that the average should be 100 to 150 cars on our street and they found 150. So it’s obviously an abnormal situation, particularly for the children. “A lot of recent families have moved there with children,” he added. “It’s very difficult for them to cross the street. We have to watch over them all the time, and sometimes I prefer that they don’t do it. We’ve banded together. We’ve gotten signatures to present this issue. “My question is that one of the logical issues as a resolution would be to open up Baily, because right now when you go to Baily you’re forced to turn onto Glencrest,” said Bohbot. “My question would be why has there been a stop gap at Baily and the intersection of Glencrest where we have to take on all this traffic and the other residents’ streets that they go on do not?”

Housefather said he told another Glencrest resident last weekend that the city would follow a standard procedure, including a review by council’s traffic committee, to determine if indeed there is excessive traffic and speed on the street, and whether a solution can be found “to either slow the cars down or move traffic up Glencrest that does not negatively impact other streets. “Clearly the solution that you just proposed would negatively impact Baily and would be opposed by the residents on Baily.”

According to Housefather, Councillor Dida Berku took time last Saturday to meet with residents in the area and advised them that the problem was being dealt with. “I appreciate the fact that there’s concern, I’m very happy that younger families are moving to the street and that there’s kids on the street,” he said. “But in terms of statistics, there’s no statistic that says there should be 150 cars on a street. Nobody in Côte St. Luc would ever have told you that there should be 150 cars on a street. We have no normal standard traffic that is 150 cars on any specific street. “We would do a traffic count, we would look at the speeds of those cars, and certainly Glencrest which is the only two-way street in that area is going to have more traffic than on surrounding streets. So there’s a question as to whether or not that’s legitimate and whether traffic should be moved. But there’s no standard number of cars that should pass on one street during a day. And, in fact, 150 cars is a very small amount of cars and most of our streets have way more than 150 cars that pass there in a day.”