One year after the death of little Mariia | A neighborhood still “under pressure”

One year to the day after the death of little Mariia Legenkovska under the wheels of a driver, traffic remains heavy in the Center-South, concedes the Plante administration. The City of Montreal also promises to do even more to “calm” neighborhoods starting next year, as soon as spring returns.

“Our measures are working, but we must recognize that we still remain in a neighborhood that remains under pressure, especially with the work on the La Fontaine bridge-tunnel and the Jacques-Cartier bridge nearby. We won’t stop there,” explains The Press the city’s mobility manager, Sophie Mauzerolle.

Little Mariia Legenkovska was hit by a driver who never stopped on December 13, 2022, while she was walking to her school in the Centre-Sud district. This sad story had generated a vast citizen mobilization demanding more road safety measures on the local network.

In the process, the Ville-Marie district has announced several traffic calming measures since last April. In addition to a hundred permanent speed bumps installed, certain roads such as rue Larivière have been closed to traffic. Streets have also been the subject of “rearrangements”, with the addition of sidewalk projections, while others have had their direction reversed.

According to Sophie Mauzerolle, Mariia’s death was certainly an “electric shock”, but “the general observation remains difficult a year later”.

The elected official attributes this “delinquency” mainly to the constant increase in the number of vehicles. “People have a lot of difficulty accepting it, but it’s not the construction sites and our calming measures that create more traffic. Rather, it is the number of vehicles that is increasing. And crime comes from people being stuck and getting impatient. And the more the car fleet grows, the longer people will be stuck in congestion,” maintains M.^me Mauzerolle.

A new plan for 2024

Montreal will present its 2024 security plan by next spring, which will include several new measures to be gradually implemented in the territory.

“It will include measures that we are already doing, so we will continue to deploy speed bumps and projections, but we are also looking at new things,” explains the municipal manager. She cites, among other things, mid-block crossings or head-to-tail crossings, which amounts to placing furniture or even a median in the middle of the street and having two different directions on either side, in order to reduce transit traffic.

More generally, the City has noted an increase in requests for road safety intervention since last year. The most recent Montreal budget, adopted Monday, provides, among other things, for the hiring of nine people to accelerate the implementation of calming measures throughout the island.

“It’s the entire city that ultimately needs to be secured. And with the number of streets we have, we are not there yet, says M^me Mauzerolle. Afterwards, there is no universal formula and we do not want to move problems elsewhere. But if we judge that an intervention can be made, that a street direction can be changed, for example, we will do it systematically. »

No more surveillance, but…

In the last year, the Montreal Police Department has significantly increased surveillance in the Centre-Sud and surrounding areas. The police handed over 3,847 moving offenses from January to September, up 4% compared to the same period in 2022.

On the other hand, the road toll at the head of the Jacques-Cartier bridge is mixed. Since the accident, the district has recorded a slight drop in the number of collisions (-3%), but there have been more deaths and serious injuries.

Indeed, from January to September last year, the police force noted two fatal accidents and four serious injuries, compared to one death and two serious injuries during the same period in 2022.

For its part, the Ministry of Transport has set the maximum limit in school zones at 30 km/h. In her National Road Safety Strategy, Minister Geneviève Guilbault also committed to increasing fines for offenses against pedestrians and cyclists and to increasing the number of photo radars on the roads.

On the municipal side, the hours of certain reserved lanes have been revised. Sections have also been extended, such as on rue Sherbrooke, while others are under construction, for example on avenue De Lorimier.