Deadly intersection to have lights reconfigured
Traffic lights at the corner of Decarie and de Maisonneuve, where two pedestrians have died over the last year, will get longer walk lights, according to this, but what’s really important is pedestrian crossing lights that prohibit motor vehicles from turning at the same time.
I’m willing to bet that a key problem there is that drivers coming up from under the train overpass don’t have a good view of the intersection till the last minute. You can’t rebuild that entire intersection because of the slope and the overpass, so the only answer is to slow them down.
Po 22:38 on 2020-09-17 Permalink
The only intersection in the city where I’d be ok with a pedestrian scramble crossing.
Tim S. 07:52 on 2020-09-18 Permalink
I spent some time yesterday in one of the nicer MUHC waiting rooms, looking out over the whole site, and thinking that the whole area could be so much nicer if only we could bury the train tracks, even just a shallow stretch around the station. I’m sure it would be expensive and logistically challenging, maybe the metro track would be in the way, but it would solve so many problems.
Ant6n 08:51 on 2020-09-18 Permalink
Raising the tracks 3m or so would be easier and solve most problems related to urban barriers. This applies for essentially all the train underpasses around the inner ring of Montreal, from vendome over namur through the line along the plateau border.
Max 08:55 on 2020-09-18 Permalink
Traffic in that area is horrendous and I can think of no better solution than tweaking the lights in favour of pedestrians and cyclists. It’s gotten so bad that when I need my Momesso fix I take the tunnel from the metro toward the hospital just to avoid that intersection.
Kevin 10:06 on 2020-09-18 Permalink
The tracks were rebuilt in that area just a few years ago, and the road under the tracks was lowered and widened.
Bizarrely, an extra lane appears just as you head under the tracks when heading northbound. That extra lane should appear 100 or 200 metres further south so drivers can see what’s going on and filter to the correct lane.
It’s a a deliberate bottleneck where many drivers cannot get into the correct lane until they’re going downhill, which creates frustration.
By making it safer for pedestrians to cross Decarie just south of the tracks (where there are rarely pedestrians) the city made it more dangerous for pedestrians just north of the tracks.
Michael Black 11:22 on 2020-09-18 Permalink
Apparently the new pedestrian tunnel is delayed again, I can’t remember where I read that. So don’t expect a tunnel for the train any time soon.
nau 10:03 on 2020-09-19 Permalink
The sensible (if expensive) solution recognized years ago was to have a pedestrian/cyclist overpass alongside the train tracks but if memory serves CP flat out refused.