Evaluation before St. Laurent street bike path decision: DeSousa

By Joel Goldenberg, September 19th, 2012

Several residents of the western end of St. Louis in St. Laurent objected to a planned reduction of parking on their street, which would take effect if a proposed bike path is installed.
One resident said at the borough council meeting a week ago Tuesday that a petition was circulated to council members when it was discovered that new “no parking” signs were installed on the north side of the street.
“We oppose this, this has taken away parking that is already limited on the street, with no possibility of friends and relatives parking,” she said. “It really reduces our quality of life.”
Mayor Alan DeSousa said the no parking signs are not in operation at this point.
“The reason for the signage was to be able to connect the bike paths that we have as part of our plan adopted in 2009 for the entire community,” the mayor explained. “The streets that are being linked up are Bertrand and Alexis Nihon, and that bit between the two streets is where the connection is being made.
“We have asked our services to do the necessary measurements in terms of traffic because, above and beyond the bicycles themselves, there's also a question of traffic issues that have been brought to our attention.”
DeSousa said this will be evaluated before any final decision is made.
“We're waiting for the centre city to do the necessary traffic counts to be able to guide us,” he added, pointing out more should be known by the end of this month. “Once we have the information, we'll be able to assess what the options are. We'll get in touch with you.”
Other residents brought up the difficulties of parking for delivery and utility trucks, and parking for people using area synagogues for the high Jewish holidays.
There was some temporary alarm last Thursday, when a St. Louis resident told The Suburban that work was already being done to paint lines for the bike path on the street. But DeSousa told The Suburban a subcontractor had not been contacted and some tracings were in the process of being done.
“When we heard they were there, we told them to put a halt to it,” DeSousa said. “Our position still holds. We're going to finish doing the car counts and the parking spots on and off street, taking a look at the safety issue and then we'll be to come up with what is the most appropriate strategy to make the bike path connection.”n