Traffic calming versus fire protection debate

Devil's Hill residents ask fire department to re-evaluate

The West-End Times
Read the letter presented to SIM by Devil's Hill residents HERE

Traffic-calming tactics hit speed bump as fire department weighs in

Concern over delayed response; 'First responders - it's life and death,' Applebaum says to explain new bylaw

BY ANNE SUTHERLAND, THE GAZETTE OCTOBER 22, 2011

City hall announced Friday it will impose new requirements for boroughs looking to implement traffic-calming measures after Fire Chief Serge Tremblay sounded the alarm about delays in response times.

Executive-committee chairman Michael Applebaum said the proliferation of speed bumps, bollards and stop signs on residential streets, while motivated by concerns over safety for residents and pedestrians, has become a hazard of a different sort.

Applebaum singled out Plateau Mont Royal and Rosemont-La Petite Patrie. Every time a fire truck has to stop to navigate a bump or avoid a planter, it adds to the precious time it takes to respond to an emergency. And not knowing where those bumps are can damage expensive vehicles.

"A speed bump delays the fire department by approximately 10 seconds," Applebaum said. "If you have four speed bumps on one street, it delays the fire department by 40 seconds - minimum."

Every second counts when a building is on fire or someone is having a heart attack. "First responders - it's life and death," Applebaum said.

Until now, boroughs have had the power to implement lower speed limits, new stop signs, speed bumps, bollards, narrower lanes, wider curbs and street directions - often at the behest of residents who gather signatures on petitions.

But the executive committee has decided boroughs must now get the fire department or a central city engineer to sign off on traffic calming propositions before instituting the change.

While some were doing this already, others were not, Applebaum said.

"I really don't understand what they are talking about," retorted Rosemont-La Petite Patrie mayor François Croteau. "We have a (traffic) committee that works with the fire department, that checks with them when we put in speed bumps.

"I'm shocked and surprised to hear this, because it's all false.

"The speed bumps we put in are near schools and parks and it will be difficult to work with the city because they obviously don't want speed bumps.

"I guess when citizens ask me for a speed bump I will have to tell them that the mayor of Montreal thinks it's more important for a big truck than it is for the children."

Louise Tremblay, spokesperson for the Montreal Fire Department, said the goal of the new edict is co-ordination and collaboration between boroughs and emergency services.

"We've invested money to improve our response times and some of these calming measures are now augmenting those times," Tremblay said.

Richard Bergeron, borough councillor for the Plateau and leader of the opposition Projet Montréal, had a simple explanation for the new resolution.

"This is an anti-Ferrandez measure to block all initiatives in the central quarter by boroughs that are not Union Montreal," Bergeron said in reference to Plateau mayor Luc Ferrandez of Projet Montréal.

"The Plateau works with the ambulances and fire trucks but the arterial roads, like Sherbrooke St., where the trucks and ambulances go 90 per cent of the time, have no speed bumps.

"This is nothing more than a direct frontal attack on the elected members who are not Union Montreal."

The executive-committee resolution is to be voted on by city council Monday.