Non-profit taking legal action against City of Montreal over bike paths

The Coalition for Democracy Montreal (CDM) is taking legal action against the City of Montreal to stop the implementation of bike paths that they say negatively impact communities.

The non-profit organization wants to stop these developments in multiple boroughs and neighbourhoods starting with the Villeray-Saint-Michel-Parc-Extension area.

CDM director Marc Perez says hundreds of much-needed parking spaces along Querbes Ave. were eliminated and have negatively impacted residents and businesses.

“Enough is enough. It’s beyond time to act. The Villeray–Saint-Michel–Parc-Extension administration and similar Projet Montréal administrations, including Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, Lachine and others, continue to upend traffic patterns, neighbourhoods and peoples’ daily lives using flawed studies,” explained Perez. “The reason why we’ve launched it is because we’ve used all other resources to talk to the City and ask them to take into consideration the bike paths and make it equitable for everyone. So, we’re moving forward with this lawsuit because we have grounds to believe that the city didn’t do things in good faith and didn’t follow the process properly.”

The CDM has partnered with the Bergman & Associates law firm to seek the appropriate court orders against the City of Montreal and the borough of Villeray-Saint-Michel-Parc-Extension, and all other borough where similar developments have negatively impacted residents, homeowners, business owners.

“We started local and now citizens from other boroughs are joining in,” said Perez. “There’s a lot of people that depend on the parking. They have multiple jobs and when they come back home, they’re flying around the neighborhood for about 45 minutes to an hour looking for an opportunity to park. Some of them are even getting tickets because they’re parking in places that they know they can’t, but they’re so tired from having three jobs and everything that they just want to park in their place. Another negative effect of these bike paths is that a lot of businesses have been suffering and they show us that their numbers are down compared to the year prior.”

According to a press release, the CDM has collected $32,000 in donations from residents and merchants after a year-long grassroots fundraising effort. However, they need $60,000 to proceed with the case.

“We’re not anti bike path, we’re just against the policy. The public can check our website for more information,” said Perez.

“Raising $32,000 has been a testament to the strength and unity of our community. It astounds me that we’ve had to go to such lengths to protect our safety, lives, and livelihoods,” said CDM volunteer Peter Hatzipetros. “Our next step is clear: we’re committed to holding the city accountable and ensuring that our voices are not just heard but acted upon.”

One resident said everyone has the right to ackees the roads as a cyclist, motorist and pedestrian.

“The people who are in cars, who want to park shouldn’t override everybody else’s need to access the road. They feel they deserve to have the parking on the street even though they have driveways and garages and everything. So again, this idea that somehow this is about parking or it’s sort of an exaggerated issue. If we don’t make steps to change, especially in terms of our environment, things are getting worse. We see it with the winters, we see it with the summer and the weather. These should all be indicators that we should have less cars. There are residents here that have four cars and they want to park on the street.”

CDM director Maria Pantelopoulos also said this court action was the last resort to force individual borough administrations to listen to the people who’ve been impacted by removing street parking in high-density areas.

“Young families with children, night workers, the elderly and handicapped have been forced to make all the compromises for the four-season bike paths used by few cyclists since their implementation,” said Pantelopoulos. “Unless we act, the city will keep removing more parking in this district, either by adding more bike paths or Bixi bike stands.”