Speeding cars on Querbes continues to frustrate residents
As she looks out her window, Querbes Ave. resident Hilary Bergen sees the speed indicator flash red once again as another car speeds by, far exceeding the indicated 30 km/h limit.
Bergen has been living on the street with her husband and two-year-old daughter for three years now and says that this issue has still not gotten any better. The stretch in question is between Beaumont and Ogilvy and has several residents asking for both the borough and the police to do more to make it safe.
“It’s really very scary our street because people speed so intensely,” said Bergen, explaining she feels unsafe when walking her daughter to the park or her daycare on Beaumont.
“It’s a 30 zone, but people go 50, 60 even sometimes 70 kilometres an hour down Querbes,” deplored the resident, adding that the issue has gotten even worse since construction began on Dickie-Moore Park at the corner of Beaumont and de L’Épée.
“It’s super unsafe for all the children in the neighbourhood,”
2019 change
The speed limit on Querbes was changed from 50km/h to 30km/h in Jan. 2019 after a decision was made by the borough to lower all speed limits to 30km/h on residential streets. Many residents spoke out against egregious and unsafe speeding throughout the borough.
“We will improve the safety of pedestrians and cyclists in addition to working to reduce the number of serious and fatal accidents on our streets, in line with the Vision Zero approach,” said Mayor Giuliana Fumagalli at the time.
The borough justified the move pointing to figures that pedestrians had a 90% chance of survival in a collision at 30km/h, while the number dropped to only 20% when the speed was 50km/h.
Dangerous for children
“There are lots of kids that live on the street and we like to make friends with the neighbours and play with the other kids,” said Bergen, adding that the family tried to make the most out of the neighbourhood parks.
“It’s super unsafe for all the children in the neighbourhood,” said Bergen, “and my cat was killed.”
According to the resident, drivers are aggressive and even make lewd gestures at her when she waves at them to slow down. She feels that many of the cars using the street are transitory traffic going from Parc to both the Town of Mount Royal or other suburbs.
Speed well-above acceptable levels
Béatrice Calmel is another resident of Querbes Ave. and has worked on the issue for over 8 years now, both petitioning the city and SPVM to do more. “Despite continued complaints from residents, nothing more has been done,” deplored Calmel.
“Following my questions to the borough council last June, I received a letter from Commander Jean-Sébastien Marcotte on June 8, 2021, stating they didn’t find any problems and closed the file,” she added. But since she filed an official complaint with the city’s ombudsman in the fall of 2020, she says the problem has become even more clear.
“Using data collected by a speed analyzer in August 2021, a V85 of 48.61 km/h on the southbound direction and 52.90 km/h on the northbound direction were recorded on Querbes,” read a statement by Anouk Violette, an advisor to the city’s ombudsman.
A V85 is a metric used by the city to calculate whether or not there is a problem regarding speeding in a particular area. Average readings on Querbes are largely above the acceptable levels of 40 km/h or less.
Bike-path extension
Although the city has added two new speed detectors as well as a bolstering of police presence, residents say there hasn’t been a substantial change to the speeding problem.
“It is now clear that putting up max. 30km/h signs, installing radar signs and having police give tickets are not enough to slow down the traffic on the southern portion of Querbes Avenue,” said borough Mayor Giuliana Fumagalli.
“The most important thing we can do to slow the traffic on the street is to narrow the street by prolonging the Querbes bicycle path all the way to Beaumont” she added, saying that if re-elected she would ensure that it is completed and connected to the level crossing planned at the southern end of de L’Épée at the train tracks. This is also an electoral promise for Ensemble Montréal.
“We saw a dramatic reduction in speed when the path north of Ogilvy was opened, plus it made it much safer for cyclists of all ages and we didn’t lose any parking spots,” she explained.
Citizen support
The bike path on the northern stretch of Querbes was installed in 2015 and once combined with a lower speed limit, vehicle collisions went down significantly.
According to data kept by the city, the number of collisions on Querbes went from 17 in 2018 down to 6 in 2019. For many residents, they feel a similar combination of infrastructure on their end of the street would help.
“Definitely the bike lane needs to be extended, but I also think something more needs to be done,” said Bergen, adding she would like to see speed attenuating measures like speed bumps and increased signage.
“We’re at that point of frustration, where we’re really feeling like nothing is being done here,” she concluded, adding that she wanted to see public officials take more action on the matter.
