C-Houde: consultations mean nothing

The Plante administration says it will consult on closing off Camillien-Houde but that the project will proceed anyway – so what’s the point?

The closure of that road is not a good plan. It’s an admission of failure: of the failure of the city to secure the road, to patrol it properly to ensure that motorists don’t pull things like the fatal U-turn last year that killed a cyclist and from which, so far, the driver has walked away without so much as a ticket. It’s a failure to make drivers understand that it’s a special road often shared with cyclists navigating under unusual speeds and curves who need more than usual clearance to be safe, and a failure to impose consequences on bad drivers.

Oddly, it occurs to me that Projet shutting down C-Houde is analogous to the Coderre administration imposing licences and controls on animals. One fatal pitbull attack: harsher laws and fines for dogs and even cats all over town. One fatal cycling accident: everyone loses the right to one of the city’s classic drives, over the mountain.

We need politicians who can come up with better solutions to problems and who don’t respond with kneejerk reactions to please supporters.