A third ghost bike in three days was installed Monday in Montreal, this time in memory of Joanna Barcessat, a 52-year-old mother and businesswoman who was described as a cycling lover.
Posted at 12:33 p.m.
Mme Barcessat died on October 27, when a motorist hit her at the corner of Avenue Saint-Pierre and Rue Notre-Dame. This is the 19and memorial to be installed by the organization Vélophantom in the metropolis, always with the same objectives: to raise awareness in the community of the vulnerability of cyclists on the road and to mobilize elected officials to make cycling infrastructures more secure.
Many accidents have indeed occurred over the years in the area where Mrs.me Barcessat. Five years ago, in 2017, an 80-year-old woman was hit by the driver of a heavy truck at the same intersection in the borough of Lachine.
“For once, we are in provincial jurisdiction with the Saint-Pierre interchange. And we would really like Quebec to set an example and act quickly with a temporary arrangement, ”said the spokesperson for the collective, Séverine Lepage, on the sidelines of the ceremony, Monday morning.
She regrets that nothing is yet planned while “several people have died” around this interchange. “It’s shameful to let this go. It’s an atrocious intersection”, castigates Mme Lepage, denouncing “the lack of responsibility” of the Ministry of Transport (MTQ). “Someone has to do something and it’s urgent. We simply don’t have the power to do so, ”she insists.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY JACLYN TURNER
A few dozen people attended the ceremony on Monday.
“Do not redo the same”
On site, the mayor of Lachine Maja Vodanovic also denounced Monday that the Saint-Pierre interchange “is still not in the Capital Assets Program (PDI)” of the Quebec government. “Saint-Pierre was coming after Turcot, and yet he was pushed back. What we want is for it not to be redone identically, because it is currently dangerous, ”says the elected official.
“When this interchange is going to be demolished, we have to put the highway elsewhere. It would be nice if at least a little bit was underground, a bit like on Décarie, so that we could cross. And we are asking to do that faster than later,” insists the mayor, who deplores that these trucking lanes are “the only way for people north of Lachine to get to the south.”
Mme Vodanovic says he has already carried out specific interventions, such as adding pedestrian lights. “We did what we could do in the borough, but the bikes still have to cross two highway entrances. I can’t physically change that. The City will still make interventions, but we would have liked to coordinate with the government, ”she insists.
According to our information, a meeting is scheduled for Tuesday between the borough of Lachine and the MTQ. The issue of safety surrounding the Saint-Pierre interchange should be addressed. The office of the Minister of Transport, François Bonnardel, had not answered our questions at the time of publication.
Earlier on Saturday, a ghost bike had been installed on Chemin de l’Anse-à-l’Orme, in the West Island of Montreal, to honor the memory of Irène Dehem, a cyclist fatally caught in this place a year ago. On Sunday, another ceremony was also held at the corner of rue Berri and boulevard Henri-Bourassa, in memory of Suzanne Chartrand, who died at this intersection in September 1981.