Families demand action on speeding along Lucerne Road in Town of Mount Royal

In the Town of Mount Royal, concerns over speeding on Lucerne Road remain high—even if traffic has temporarily slowed due to ongoing construction work.

“What’s very difficult no matter what measures you put into place is to control people’s behavior quite often people are frustrated by the amount of traffic that they and congestion that they have to deal with especially during peak hours,” said Town of Mount Royal Mayor Peter Malouf.

After a decade of raising concerns with the town, a petition was launched by Alexandre Cassis—a father who’s lived on Lucerne Road for 14 years—now has over 500 signatures and calls for proven solutions like raised crosswalks, flex posts, and road narrowing that are already used in nearby boroughs.

“These are not measures that would require huge infrastructure interventions, and they’re already recommended by the Ministere des Transports for especially school corridors,” said Cassis.

Mayor Malouf says, “We’ve added crosswalks, we’ve added additional lights and crosswalks. We’ve done a ton of work to reduce track. We’ve lowered the speed limit to 40 kilometers an hour in this whole zone, which is an inter-municipal zone.”

However, Cassis says, “The comments from the administration are that Lucerne, Rockland, Graham, these wider roads are inter-municipal roads and it’s more complicated to put in traffic calming measures there.”

Adding “So residents we looked at it and we said well they can get it done in places like Ville Saint Laurent, O’Brien, places like Outremont, Van Horn, Westmount, you have the boulevard which is a very wide road and the limit is down to 30 kilometers an hour they put flex posts there. And you have Victoria where you have in the Snowden area where we have crosswalks that are central crosswalks which encourage drivers to slow down and look out for pedestrians.”

Along with the speed signs and radar displays already in place, the mayor says the town has commissioned a traffic study that will begin once ongoing street work is completed.

“We want to make sure that we do a proper study under real conditions meaning that without obstructions by Hydro Quebec or anything else,” said Malouf.

The street is part of a designated school corridor, and before the construction began, residents reported that drivers often reached speeds of 60 to 70 kilometers an hour.

“It’s not safe. Neither for the bikers, the pedestrians. It’s a danger,” said Aurora Ventulea, a TMR resident. “The situation is not getting better and it’s been years since it’s the same.”

Malouf says, “The schools are not on Lucerne, they’re actually on the side streets. Okay. And we always have public security around all of our schools.”

Cassis says, “When we’re told that we need another study well it seems like the study was already done the road has been designated as a school corridor the tools exist and not only the tools the funding the government offers the ministreire des transports offers a funding they they able to plan their 2023 to 2028 plan to help municipalities put in place these measures to protect children and families in our school corridors.”