Tending tables and serving customers are an important part of the new venture Jeremy Searle has just launched, but politics may never be out of the former Montreal city councillor's life.
Searle, who represented NDG's Loyola district in Montreal city council for 11 years but was defeated in...
As long as it operates in isolation, the current Montreal police campaign to enforce the law relating to pedestrians crossing the road seems likely to endanger the walking public and result in needless additional deaths and injuries. Montrealers have long developed the habit of jaywalking simply because motorists are often incompetent or uncaring and choose to ignore the legal crossing rights of ...
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Sunday 23 March 2008
Searle's World — Politics, property and real estate development: It's time for new conflict of interest rules
Currently, Quebec’s most important city, Montreal, has laughably porous conflict of interest rules that allow elected people to engage in potentially conflicting private and public activities as long as there is no direct monetary gain involved. Consequently, Montreal city council allows an active real estate agent to sit as borough mayor while even chairing a secret zoning changes committee. Mean...
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Jeremy Searle — Politics, property and real estate development: It's time for a new conflict of interest rules
Currently, Quebec’s most important city, Montreal, has laughably porous conflict of interest rules that allow elected people to engage in potentially conflicting private and public activities as long as there is no direct monetary gain involved. Consequently, Montreal city council allows an active real estate agent to sit as borough mayor while even chairing a secret zoning changes committee. Mean...
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In Quebec and in Montreal we have become accustomed to an apparent spiraling decline in the quality of public life with representatives who appear more and more useless getting themselves elected. Less and less people are turning out to vote and participation, especially in municipal and school board elections, is falling to pathetic levels.Provincial and federal elections continue to have relativ...
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16 January 2008 Jeremy Searle — Don't blame the Olympians If public life is deteriorating, it's your fault
Generally speaking, in a democracy, it is the vocal minority (and not the silent majority) that sets the tone and direction for the selection and quality of the governments that get elected. This is reasonable. The silent majority is generally silent because it does not choose to have much to say, preferring to listen to the conclusions of the vocal minority. Meanwhile, the vocal minority generally takes more trouble to remain informed and involved and generally speaks out because it has thought things through and has more coherent things to say and more developed ideas to share.
Searles Montreal can be heard on Radio 940am every Saturday from 5-6 p.m.
Everybody who uses the Montreal highway network knows that traffic on the Décarie and Metropolitan is routinely slowed to a crawl or a standstill that creates delays not only during commuting hours but all throughout the day and into the night. The result is that costs are far greater for delivery companies, people cannot get around as quickly and easily as they should and that the general efficiency of the Montreal economy is kept way below its potential.
However, although a simple solution has long been identified (and would be extremely easy to implement) the provincial government has simply chosen to ignore it, preferring instead to confuse us with unworkable alternatives in order to avoid having to do anything at all. So, from time to time federal and provincial governments promise us the completion of a highway 30 ring road, to the south of the island, that would supposedly enable traffic in transit to avoid Montreal altogether by driving around the island. Of course, with all the political problems related to local opposition and the high costs generated by massive expropriations, this is never likely to happen. Which is precisely what makes the highway 30 ring road project appealing to politicians because they can regularly trot it out as an election promise while not having any real risk of actually having to deliver.
The real issue is that the centre-island Décarie/Metropolitan mess exists simply because the Décarie Highway 15 does not connect directly with its extension, the Laurentian, Highway 15. This means that huge bottlenecks are created at the top of the Décarie and the bottom of the Laurentian, as traffic tries to get onto the Met. Meanwhile, the intervening three-kilometre stretch of the Metropolitan has to accommodate the entire traffic of two highways (its own and the 15). It cannot cope and simply clogs and chokes sending out traffic blockage ripples across much of the island.
Meanwhile, the politicians have long omitted to inform us that the studies are in and that the centre-island Metropolitan/Décarie traffic mess can be cleaned up with one simple, no-muss, no-fuss surgical intervention. Provincial government engineering studies, undertaken in 1993 by the DESSAU-LGL consortium, concluded that the Metropolitan can be unblocked simply by digging a tunnel from the top of the Décarie to a point near Côte Vertu*. This would create a Highway 15 link below St. Laurent to directly connect the Décarie and the Laurentian, meaning that north/south, south/north Montreal-Laval traffic would never need to use the Metropolitan. It’s so simple that it makes you want to weep. The tunnel itself would run under the St. Laurent railway corridor and create no inconvenience for anyone and require no expropriation or demolition of existing buildings. Removing the north and south Décarie and Laurentian traffic from the Metropolitan would also unblock the intervening three-kilometre problem stretch on the Met and allow it to function just as smoothly as any other highway anywhere else. Meaning that the entire island traffic network would work better, commuters would get back and forth to Laval and Montreal more easily and that those coming to and from the west and east would no longer be competing with north and south traffic.
Everybody would benefit and nobody would lose and there would be no cause for dissension about “more highways or not” because we would simply be completing an existing, unfinished one. In addition, with the Metropolitan working as a highway that it was planned as , we would no longer need to waste time and energy arguing about the costly, unnecessary, and anyway never-to-be-completed, highway 30 ring road.
Digging a highway tunnel would, of course, be expensive but much less so, for example, than the recent Métro tunnel extension to Laval. This is because the relative distances and engineering challenges are less and also because the infrastructure for a highway tunnel costs less than that for a train tunnel.
It’s time to square up to the problem and get on with building the Décarie/Laurentian highway connection tunnel. If you agree with me, contact your provincial representative and ask why nothing is being done. Better yet, tell them to get on with it. n
*Étude de l’autoroute Métropolitaine (A.40) dans un horizon de planification de 20 ans - Rapport Final, 26 novembre 1993
That brought calls for design changes from angry drivers like Depalubos, who complained that the $100-million project seemed to have left the underpass unable to deal with rainstorms.
After the last heavy rain fell on June 14, the newspaper La Presse reported that municipal officials had been warned the newly built underpass could not withstand a flash flood. The newspaper said the city refused to pay the extra money to rebuild the drains.
But Maria Soteriades, who speaks for Transport Quebec, said flooding is unavoidable when such heavy rain hits.
"It's a very strong precipitation, and there's also some water accumulation in service roads and elsewhere in the city, so it's really just the precipitation," she said.
"The city infrastructure is in a pitiful state," said Jeremy Searle, who represents the neighbourhood of Notre-Dame-de-Grace. "Our infrastructure is crumbling, our drains, our water pipes are not in good state ...
Sep 11-17 2003
Jaywalking under siege
Perhaps most surprisingly, the city that has a reputation as a happy haven for jaywalkers also doles out no shortage of tickets to pedestrians who cross on reds. In 2001, tickets were written to 590 island pedestrians who crossed the street at a spot other than the intersection, a violation of code P044. Cops gave tickets to 513 other city strollers for walking through a red light (P046). Altogether 1,587 tickets were given out for walking infractions.
“Certainly it’s reasonable to issue tickets for people crossing on red traffic lights. We could easily give 200,000 of those out a year,” says Montreal traffic czar Jeremy Searle. But he questions both the motives behind those tickets being issued and the ticketing of the 217 who were nailed in 2001 for disobeying the signage of the white-silhouette-red-hand pedestrian crossing lights. Searle, who has conducted a campaign for pedestrian safety, considers the pedestrian lights confusing. “They’re a campaign to try to endanger pedestrians and force them to cross on red lights.”
Searle believes that separate lights for pedestrians leads to confusion and makes motorists believe they’re allowed to aggressively accelerate in front of pedestrians while the light remains green but the red hand appears.
“The white is rinky-dink. It’s been allowed here by province, but worldwide people know that you cross on a green light, that’s what we teach children,” he says. “But when the authorities are trying to confuse the population, it becomes more questionable to ticket them for crossing at these lights.”
Searle says he doesn’t know where or to whom the tickets were issued, but others have an idea.
Striding
the stripes
>> Crosswalk czar Jeremy
Searle promises
to make drivers brake for two-legged beasts
by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR
Pity the fool who paints crosswalks, the
widely ignored white rectangles that line approximately 700 island streets
and roads in the aim of allowing Montrealers to safely make like the
chicken crossing the road. Crosswalk creators might suffer an existential
crisis knowing that motorists and pedestrians alike will ignore their
efforts.
Locally, it’s one of our dearest
frequently unanswered questions: why do drivers consistently rifle past
ambulatory action on crosswalks, when the provincial highway code orders
vehicles to stop when a pedestrian appears at the stripes?
If Jeremy Searle gets his way, the disregard
for users of the walks will soon become chose du passé. The Loyola
city councillor has been handed the Herculean task of persuading motorists
to change their unfortunate ways and start braking for two-legged beasts.
Searle, known for his fast-paced colourful quips and tidy Caesar haircut,
has cause for optimism in his efforts to fix a problem that contributes
to the 25 to 40 pedestrian deaths and the 140 to 220 serious injuries
suffered annually on the island.
Searle recently spent $8,400 from the city kitty on a pilot project
on four streets in Ville St-Laurent, putting up foot-high barriers parallel
to the sidewalks adorned with posts holding fluorescent yellow signs
alongside the crossing zones, a design that Searle dreamt up himself.
Now the results are in. After a few weeks, police reported compliance
with the stop-for-pedestrians law went from zero to 80 per cent. “I
knew we’d have success but this was incredible,” says Searle.
He believes that ignorance and unclear
signs are to blame for the unfortunate custom of barrelling along even
while vulnerable pedestrians venture onto the walks. “Most of
the signage on the island is non-regulation,” says Searle. “Currently
you’ll see three types of crosswalk signs: one shows two school
children, another is of a child chasing a ball and another is the man
crossing the road. That man is the only one recognized by the highway
code.” He wants to end the semiotic nightmare by getting rid of
the signs with the kids on them. “Motorists wonder whether the
crosswalk is only for during school hours, or they think it might not
apply during the school vacations, or they think maybe it means maybe
they don’t have to stop for adults.”
Time wasters to go
Gone too will be many crosswalks at intersections,
which Searle describes as “a nutcake idea,” because of the
turns and other distracting stunts motorists pull at the corners. He
plans to move them all midway down the street at the cost of a parking
spot on each side. Except, that is, in cases where crosswalks can help
do away with the crossing lights showing the white silhouette that gets
replaced by the red hand. Searle says those signs frustrate motorists
who are forced to stop and sit it out even when there’s nary a
pedestrian in sight. New crosswalk laws will also make those “no
right on greens” unnecessary, as motorists will henceforth stop
at such a light only when a pedestrian is present. Crosswalks are also,
he believes, safer than those time-wasting lights. “Pedestrians
now think they only have the right to cross while the white silhouette
is lit and motorists think they have the priority after that.”
Searle also wants security islands put
in the middle of any two-way street equipped with a crosswalk. Current
law orders motorists to stop on both sides whenever a pedestrian steps
onto the crosswalk, an unlikely event in this burg. With a pedestrian
island, “You will create two separate crosswalks, one for each
direction of traffic,” he says. “One of the principles of
all this is that things work better when you have mutual respect between
pedestrian and motorist.”
But don’t expect to see suspended
overhead crosswalk signs dangling over the road. “Those are second-rate
Toronto things,” says Searle. “When I’m driving, I’m
not looking up in the air. Putting those up there just uglifies the
streetscape.”
Searle’s dream of safe street passage
hinges on getting good motorists to dare to follow the road rules. “We’re
not going after the bad drivers. I consider the problems are created
by the good drivers who are embarrassed to stop at a crosswalk because
they’re afraid that the person behind them will wave their fist
or bang their horn.”
:
• Dec. 13–20, 1990 Jeremy Searle writes in his Urban Ecology column that the lack of Christmas decorations on downtown streets are a sign of recession. He describes the Ste-Catherine strip as “desolate.”
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